CHAPTER XVITHE PURSUIT CONTINUED"For beauty draws us by a single hair." POPE.Jane-Anne waited at dinner that night, and the stranger with the dark, vivacious eyes looked at her curiously more than once. When she had set the port in front of Mr. Wycherly and left the room finally, this guest, whom he called "Curly," leant forward, saying:"So that is the new ward?""If you like to call her so.""She is not an ordinary girl.""I fear not.""Why fear?""Because she will be very hard to place safely.""My own impression is," Curly said slowly, "that she will need no placing at all, she will arrange matters for herself.""You mean she will marry while quite young.""Not at all. I should say she is quite unlikely to marry very young, but she will find a niche for herself, and she won't follow any beaten track either.""When she came first of all," said Mr. Wycherly, "it was understood that she was to be trained for a servant; the doctor vetoed that—said she would never be strong enough. Then a charming lady here suggested having her trained as some very superior sort of nurse—children's nurse, but I question whether her genius lies in that direction. Personally, I can think of nothing very suitable for Jane-Anne except to delight me and get strong; but of course one must be practical. She is extraordinarily receptive. She takes pleasure in every kind of beauty, and she is quite singularly susceptible to beautiful verse. You should hear her recite Byron's 'Isles of Greece.'""Why shouldn't I hear her? Get her in and ask her to do it, then, perhaps, I can throw some light on this dark question.""I can't say that I think she would be shy," Mr. Wycherly said dubiously, "for shyness and Jane-Anne seem quite foreign to one another; but—whether it would be good for her——""I'd like to hear her awfully," said Curly persuasively. "A housekeeper's niece, not thirteen, and steeped in Byron sounds such a delightful anachronism. Moreover, a little girl brought up by you. Please let me."There was something very wheedling about Curly as he rose and went to the bell.Mr. Wycherly nodded, and he rang.Mrs. Dew thought it was for coffee, and that they were in a great hurry. However, she made it quickly and sent Jane-Anne in with it."This gentleman," said Mr. Wycherly, as she set down the coffee in front of him, "is fond of poetry, and I wonder if you would repeat to him your favourite verses about Marathon?"Jane-Anne looked quickly from one to the other. She stepped back a little from the table and held up one slender brown hand as if adjuring them to listen.Curly leant his elbow on the table and his head on his hand, and sat still as a statue, his brilliant eyes fixed on Jane-Anne.She had a musical voice and a singularly clear enunciation. She no longer mispronounced any words, for Mr. Wycherly had heard her say the poem many times and took care of that. There was, withal, a curious little foreign distinctness in the way she separated one word from another that was undoubtedly a reminiscence of her father. She was never monotonous and she never ranted; best of all, she was utterly unconscious of herself and absolutely wholehearted in her lament for her country, and there was real passion in her young voice as she declaimed:"A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine—Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!"No one spoke for a minute, then very gravely and courteously Curly said, "Thank you."Jane-Anne turned to go, and Mr. Wycherly rose and opened the door for her. She looked up at him as she went out, with timid questioning eyes."It was beautiful, my child, quite beautiful," he said.Jane-Anne went back to the kitchen to wash dishes, perfectly happy.Curly waited till Mr. Wycherly sat down again."And so you wonder what that child will be?" he asked."I do, indeed," sighed Mr. Wycherly."And she, with those great eyes set so wide apart?""That," said Mr. Wycherly, "is the Greek type.""Every great actress," Curly said sententiously, "has her eyes set wide apart. There has never been a ferrety-faced actress worth anything.""But what has that got to do with Jane-Anne," Mr. Wycherly said in a puzzled voice.Curly laughed. "I shan't tell you," he said. "Only I know what she will be, and you needn't worry or try to stop it, for you can't.""I hope she will be nothing of the kind," Mr. Wycherly said hotly. "Poor little nymph, so sensitive, so loving-hearted, so wise, and at times, so amazingly silly.""They are like that," said Curly.* * * * *Next morning, Mr. Wycherly told Jane-Anne that the friend who had dined with him the night before was an actor, and that the company he was in was performing "As you Like It" that afternoon in a ducal garden not very far from Oxford; and finally that he was going to take her to see it.That day was one longfestafor Jane-Anne. First of all came the drive, sitting side by side with Mr. Wycherly in a hired victoria. She wore her best summer frock and hat, beautiful white garments chosen by Mrs. Methuen, that filled her soul with rapture every time she put them on; white cotton gloves that Mrs. Dew had washed that morning, thin black stockings, and the light shoes Mr. Wycherly had insisted upon after he had seen her dance under the apple-tree.Mrs. Dew watched them drive away with great pride."I will say this," she said to her friend, Miss Morecraft, that afternoon, "that when Jane-Anne's dressed you couldn't tell her from one of the gentry. She's got something about her, my sister had it, and her father—not as I ever cared for him—had it, too. I think if my sister could have seen her this afternoon she'd be set up, that I do. He's a fine-looking old gentleman, too; handsome he is, and no mistake."A good many people regarded the quaint pair with pleasure. They were so manifestly proud and fond of each other, and the child was so radiantly happy. The crowds of well-dressed people delighted her. The garden was beautiful, the weather perfect, and with thrills of the wildest excitement she recognised Curly as Orlando.When it was over, her first criticism was characteristic. "I'd have made a better boy than that if I'd been Rosalind; she wasn't a bit like a boy really, was she? If ever I pretended to be a boy I'd try to behave like Master Edmund, then I don't believe anyone would rekkernise me.""I don't think Shakespeare meant Rosalind to be a finished actress. She is a supremely lovable girl. I don't think we would care so much for her if we didn't realise the girl all the way through," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully."Perhaps that pretty lady was right then," said Jane-Anne; "but somehow IthinkRosalind would have tried to behave more like a boy.""When you play Rosalind you shall give us a new reading of the part," Mr. Wycherly remarked carelessly.Jane-Anne cuddled closely against him. "When I'm grown up," she said, "I shall ask that Mr. Curly to take me about acting, too. How did he begin?""That," Mr. Wycherly answered dreamily, "is a long story, and rather sad. No one wanted him to be anything of the kind——""But hehadto!" exclaimed Jane-Anne. "He just had to, something drove him——""I suppose so; even yet I think it a pity.""I don't," Jane-Anne said decidedly. "I'd rather go about being people than anything—one could never be dull.""I'm not so sure of that," said Mr. Wycherly.For several nights now, both Bruey and "She walks in beauty like the night" were forgotten. Jane-Anne arose, after her aunt had taken away the candle, to impersonate Rosalind. She rolled her thick plait round her head and pinned it up with hairpins stolen from her aunt's store. She achieved doublet and hose by means of two towels, several safety pins, and her long stockings. And the moon looked in at the window and was doubtless well amused.The moon waxed and waned and the end of July was at hand.Mr. Wycherly was plainly stirred out of his usual scholarly calm. His boys were coming home. Jane-Anne shared his excitement, and even Mrs. Dew felt it necessary to make a large cake and "to get in" quantities of stores of every description.Jane-Anne was strung up to the highest pitch of expectation. Although she had seen comparatively little of the "young gentlemen" when she first came to Holywell, she had heard about them so much and so constantly from the master, that she felt she, too, owned them. There was, moreover, the delightful sense of an "understanding" with Montagu. He had asked her to look after his guardian and she had done her best. Moreover, quick and sympathetic always, she early realised that not even the Greek Myths were so entrancing a subject to Mr. Wycherly as these two boys of his, and during their walks together she invariably led the conversation in their direction, and found it an easy and fascinating path.At last the great day came. The boys were to meet in London and come down together to Oxford by a train getting in just before tea.At the last moment Mr. Wycherly bade Jane-Anne come with him to the station.She was pale with excitement and could hardly speak.When at last the train came in and the boys, brown and jolly and full of rejoicing at getting home, jumped on to the platform, and the first exciting greetings had passed, Jane-Anne suddenly flung her arms round Edmund's neck and burst into tears upon his shoulder.Edmund looked across the weeping damsel at his guardian in comical dismay. "I say," he exclaimed. "If she does this when she meets me, whatever will she do when we go away?""I beg your pardon, Master Edmund," sobbed Jane-Anne, hastily withdrawing her arms, "but we have wanted it so, and now it's come.""Well, that's nothing to cry for," Montagu said, patting her back consolingly. "Cheer up."Jane-Anne dried her eyes, and the four went home in a cab laden with luggage.The next few days drove Mrs. Dew almost to desperation. It was impossible to make Jane-Anne "keep herself to herself," as that good woman considered decorous and desirable.Wherever the young gentlemen were, there was Jane-Anne, and it wasn't altogether her own fault. They sought her out. She fielded at impromptu cricket matches, and discussed high subjects with Montagu. She proudly displayed her knowledge of the Greek alphabet, and assisted to stick in stamps in a long-neglected album. She even confided to the boys her misfortune with the "Magnolia Bloom," nor was she wholly crushed by their scorn for her silliness.Aproposof this, one day, she said:"I wouldn't mind so much being brown if only I had curly hair.""The Greeks always had curly hair," Montagu announced authoritatively. "I can't think why you've been left out, 'ribbed and rippled like the wet sea-sand,'" he quoted."I wonder," Edmund remarked, with a gravity that would have warned a wiser person, "that you never wash it in beer, then it would curl like anything.""Wouldit?" exclaimed Jane-Anne, in great excitement. "Is that why yours is so curly?"Edmund winked at Montagu, who grinned appreciatively. "Of course it is," he cried; "all our chaps wash their heads in beer every Saturday, that's why we've all got such ripping hair. Look at it." And Edmund thrust his head under Jane-Anne's nose.She ran her hand gently over the short, fair hair that was indeed "ribbed and rippled like the wet sea-sand," then she sniffed delicately, remarking: "I wonder it doesn't smell of it.""Oh, the smell soon goes off," Edmund answered airily."Why don't you do it?" she asked Montagu. "Your hair's as straight as mine.""He's too slack," Edmund remarked."Oh, I can't be bothered," Montagu said carelessly; "I don't want curly hair. If I did I should wash it in beer."At that moment Mr. Wycherly called the boys to go out with him, and they rushed off leaving Jane-Anne to digest this seemingly simple specific for curly hair.Reflection unfollowed by action was impossible to Jane-Anne.The beds were made. Her share of the dusting was done. The boys and Mr. Wycherly would be out until luncheon, and her aunt was busy in the kitchen where she strongly objected to have Jane-Anne, as she described it, "clutterin' round."There was a large cask of beer in the cellar, and the key was in the door. The cellar was to the front of the house under the dining-room, and was consequently some distance from the kitchen.Jane-Anne rushed upstairs, seized her large bedroom jug, emptied it, and descended with it to the cellar.The cask was near the steps, and, with the door at the top left open, she could see quite well. She turned the tap and the good brown ale foamed gaily into the jug.Just as, by its weight, she judged it to be about half full, she heard a sound as though her aunt were coming.She seized her jug and rushed up the steps, forgetting to shut the door at the top, and hid in the parlour. No, she was wrong, Mrs. Dew was still busy in the kitchen.As quietly as she could, she crept back to her room, and, once there, bolted the door.Her heart was thumping in her ears, and she panted with excitement.She had a good large basin in her room and a foot-bath. She chose the foot-bath and what was in the jug filled it half full of the strong brown ale of Oxford.What a smell it had!Jane-Anne knelt down, unplaited her hair and shook it forward over her face. She held her nose tightly with one hand and with the other plunged her heavy mane into the foaming beer. The smell was overpowering. She was obliged to let go of her nose for she was choking, and as she did so the beer, forced higher in the foot-bath by the mass of hair, splashed her in the face.Gasping and choking, she persevered; she laved her head with beer, she rubbed it in with both hands, rejoicing that it made a beautiful lather, and she spat out vigorously what had been forced into her open mouth while she held her nose.It was a horrible experience, but the blood of the Spartans ran in Jane-Anne's veins, and she endured till every hair and a large proportion of her upper garments was thoroughly saturated with beer.At last she felt the treatment had had full justice, and she drew out what appeared to be yards of sticky, sodden pulp that had once been human hair."Of course it won't curl till it's dry," she said to herself, and proceeded to sprinkle more beer about her bedroom in her efforts to free her hair from that nourishing beverage.But it wouldn't dry.Her bedroom already smelt like ten public-houses rolled into one, and brown stains were everywhere.Not a ripple nor a rib appeared on her matted and bedraggled head.Her towels were already saturated with beer, and only seemed to make matters worse.Her eyes smarted and her nose was scarlet. The strong smell made her feel quite faint.She began to cry bitterly; her hair was stickier than ever and showed no signs of even waving.In her ardent pursuit of beauty she had forgotten that explanation would be necessary, and what explanation would be possible in the face of all these stains and this terrific smell? She hung her head out of the window and it dripped into the stone-cutter's yard.A man passed underneath, sniffed, and looked up; all he saw was a wet mass of something that dripped beer. "Waste o' good liquor," he muttered, and passed on.Jane-Anne was getting desperate when there came a rattling of the handle of her door, a hasty push against it, then a tremendous knocking and Edmund's voice:"Are you there, Jane-Anne?""Yes," in a muffled sniff."What are you doing? Come out.""I can't.""Well, let me in, then. I want to speak to you.""I daren't.""Oh, nonsense, let me in quick, I say, I've something important to tell you."Curiosity was too strong in her to resist this. She opened the door, hiding herself behind it as she did so."Good gracious!" exclaimed Edmund. "It's here, too."Then, as he saw the foot-bath on the floor, the beery stains everywhere, and lastly, the distracted figure behind the door shrouded in sticky locks that still dripped beer, he subsided upon the bed in fits of laughter.Jane-Anne banged the door, bolted it, and faced him indignantly."Why are you laughing?" she demanded."You've never gone and done it really—well, youarethe simplest juggins.""D'you mean," Jane-Anne demanded sternly, "that itdoesn'tmake hair curl?""Not that I know of," gurgled the perjured boy; "it may," and relapsing into howls of mirth he buried his face in her pillow to stifle them.Jane-Anne clasped her beery hands and wrung them. "And I've endured all this for nothing," she cried indignantly."And wasted a whole cask of beer," Edmund continued. "You left it running, and the cellar's flooded and you can smell us half-way down the street; there's quite a little crowd outside," he announced gleefully."I wish I was dead," she moaned."I'd have a bath if I were you, quick," said Edmund. "If you're safe in there, locked in, no one can get at you. Mrs. Dew and Montagu and Guardie are all at the cellar. Montagu's wading about in it, scooping it up, and I want to go too, only I thought it would be mean not to fetch you——""You can't be meaner than you've been already," she cried angrily. "Why did you tell me such a lie?""Nonsense like that isn't lies," Edmund answered, angry in his turn. "It's chaff. I never dreamt you'd be such a fool as to go and do it.""Is it really no use?" she pleaded, still clinging fondly even yet to the hope that all might not have been in vain.Edmund looked at her and began to laugh again.CHAPTER XVIITHE PHILOSOPHY OF EFFORT"A man's fortunes are the fruits of his character." RALPH WALDO EMERSON.When one has passed fifty, four years—provided no one of them brings severe illness or great sorrow—make little if any difference in outward appearance. Time is usually kind to the middle-aged, and it is only when we reach middle-age ourselves, and the dear old landmarks are removed one by one, that we realise how much we unconsciously depended on this stability of appearance, this changelessness in those who helped to shape our destiny.Thus if there was little change in Mrs. Dew and Mr. Wycherly four years after Jane-Anne had flooded the Holywell cellar with beer, Jane-Anne herself and the boys looked back upon the children of that time with a kind of affectionate scorn.Montagu was now taller than Mr. Wycherly, thin-faced and analytic as ever, only waiting for the following October to take up his scholarship at New College.Edmund was on theBritannia, all uniform and gold buttons, naval phrases, and nonsense. When he appeared for his "leaves" (he scorned to call it holidays) he imported so much liveliness and laughter, to say nothing of visitors from the outer world, into the quiet household that during these hilarious weeks Jane-Anne forgot to be earnest.For Jane-Anne was very earnest.Four years of school-life had wrought great changes in Jane-Anne.For one thing, no one any longer had to worry about her lungs. Crepitations were things of the past. She was strong as a Shetland pony with fully as much endurance.There was nothing in her physique to prevent her becoming a most efficient housemaid. Moreover, she was tall enough for even the most exacting situation. But even Mrs. Dew had ceased to include that idea among practical politics.For Jane-Anne had turned out "clever at her books" beyond all expectation. She went first of all to a nice school over Magdalen Bridge, but she got on so fast and was so unusually receptive a pupil that the head mistress herself called upon Mr. Wycherly and suggested that Jane-Anne should go on to the High School. Mr. Wycherly consulted Lord Dursley, who still continued to take a vicarious sort of interest in the child, and the matter was arranged without much difficulty.Here Jane-Anne fell under the influence of Miss Willows and became strenuous and earnest to the last degree.Miss Willows taught the top form, and she did more than teach it, she moulded it.She was twenty-eight years old and was fully determined to be a head mistress herself before many years had passed. She was of the stuff head mistresses are made and she was modern of the moderns. She was tall and strong and handsome, good at games and a first in classics, and hers was indeed the doctrine of perfection."Don't only try to do things as well as other people," she would say; "try to do them a little better. Never be content with mediocrity."Courage and strength were her watchwords and her ambition was that her girls should go forth into the world not to be shielded from temptation but armed to withstand it. Silliness she abhorred, and, satisfactory pupil as Jane-Anne was, she was thankful that Miss Willows could not, as she put it, "see inside her," for Jane-Anne was conscious that she frequently lapsed from grace, was often frankly and unashamedly silly and enjoyed it.Miss Willows was always beautifully dressed, and taught her girls to care a good deal about their clothes. She was sarcastic, and the clumsy and untidy trembled before her.Jane-Anne never trembled. She admired and adored and perhaps "inside" she was a little afraid of her, but outwardly she was quite fearless, and Miss Willows respected her in consequence. Even more did she respect the girl's quite extraordinary command of English and her familiarity with schools of philosophy that were to most of the class mere names.Miss Willows had settled Jane-Anne's career. She was to go on to one of the women's colleges and then she was to teach. It was her plain duty. Jane-Anne said nothing, seemed to acquiesce in all these wise and benevolent plans on her behalf, and all the time dreamed dreams and saw visions of something very different indeed.She had not wavered in her allegiance to Lord Byron. He was still her hero, and she stoutly refused to displace him by Mr. Robert Browning, who was the chosen prophet of Miss Willows."Lord Byron is so obvious," that lady said one day, when she had found fault with a quotation from "Childe Harold" that Jane-Anne had dragged into an essay."It is impossible to misunderstand what he means," Jane-Anne said quickly, ever ready to take up arms on behalf of "her oldest friend," as she called him."He is not subtle," Miss Willows continued."He is never obscure, never unmusical," quoth Jane-Anne."I am sorry," Miss Willows said gravely, "that you make such a hero of Lord Byron, the more so, that, from what I can make out, you do not do so in ignorance of his character. You say you have read his life?""Years ago."Miss Willows made a point of never being shocked at anything her girls might say—to be shocked showed weakness. Nevertheless, she rather wondered what Mr. Wycherly could have been about to allow such a thing. And there was a black mark against him in her mind.Curiously enough, it was Mr. Wycherly himself who first aroused Jane-Anne to any enthusiasm for the works of Robert Browning, and it came about in this way.She still passionately desired curly hair. It was the desire of the moth for the star, for her hair remained obstinately straight. That it was beautiful in colour, texture and abundance, did not comfort her; it was straight, uncompromisingly straight, though it maintained its upward, outward sweep round her broad, low forehead.Mr. Wycherly thought it was hard for Jane-Anne to have no money, and insisted on paying her five shillings a month for waiting upon him. Out of this, her aunt insisted that she must keep herself in stockings and gloves, which the child faithfully did.But a girl at school enlightened her as to the uses of curling tongs, and Jane-Anne succumbed to temptation. She borrowed the goffering irons, heated them in the kitchen fire and burnt both her hair and her forehead rather badly.Mr. Wycherly was infinitely more distressed about this than over the beer episode and took her gently to task for trying to improve upon what Nature had already made so harmonious and pleasing to the eye.That was the way to get at Jane-Anne. As always, she was perfectly frank with him."Miss Willows says it is the duty of everyone to look as pretty as possible. 'Do your best and then think nothing more about it,' she says. But I seem obliged to think about it. You see, IknowI'd be so much nicer if my hair was frizzy.""But I don't think you would," Mr. Wycherly argued. "Your type is severe and classical; 'frizziness' would be quite dreadful and incongruous.""But couldanyonebe beautiful with straight hair?""Why not?""Lord Byron had wavy hair,youhave wavy hair, all the goddesses and people and Helen of Troy had wavy hair.""I assure you," Mr. Wycherly declared, absently passing a long, slender hand over his thick white locks, "I never think about my hair at all, except when I have to go and get it cut.""You never think about it, my dear, because you are so sure it is all right. Youknowyou are a most beautiful old person and that people must admire you if they looked at you at all,thereforeyou can afford not to think about it.""My dear Jane-Anne, you are talking nonsense.""I'm not; really, truly, not. I often see people look at you in the street and I often hear them say nice things——""Good heavens," cried Mr. Wycherly, "how dreadful!""I shouldn't think it a bit dreadful if they said such things about me," Jane-Anne said, "but they don't yet—not often.""Do they ever?" Mr. Wycherly asked anxiously."If I told you, you would say it was impertinent, so I won't tell you, dear master.""Will you promise me to let your hair alone?""If I promise, I should have to," Jane-Anne said doubtfully."That's why I want you to promise.""Will a year do?" pleaded Jane-Anne."Three years," Mr. Wycherly maintained.Jane-Anne sighed deeply. "Well, I promise—but if at the end of that time I find something that will really truly make it curl, without smelling horrible or burning or spoiling it——""Three years will do," said Mr. Wycherly.That evening when she went to say good-night to him he read her "A Face," by Robert Browning."If one could have that little head of hersPainted upon a background of pure gold...."Jane-Anne listened, breathless, charmed. When he had finished he turned to her:"That always makes me think of you, and I wish I could have you painted so. But you wouldn't be a bit like it if you had different hair."Jane-Anne was silent for nearly two minutes; then she said thoughtfully:"I rather like Browning's poetry after all. I'll quote a bit in my next scripture just to please Miss Willows."At first her position in the school was something of an anomaly. Her exceptional ability and her fleetness of foot gave her an assured place in the school work and games at once. Her personal appearance and her eager charm brought her friends. Then one of the girls, who had asked her to tea, a girl living in a large house in the Woodstock Road, whose people had nothing whatever to do with any of the colleges, discovered that she was no relation to the old gentleman in whose house she lived and that her aunt was his servant.The girl was horrified, told every girl she could get to listen, and always concluded the harangue with the remark: "We all know the school's mixed enough, but it's getting a bit too much when they take the daughters of domestic servants. Someone ought to write and complain."She forthwith cut Jane-Anne, as did several others. Jane-Anne was puzzled, then angry, and finally forced the girl to explain her conduct in the playground."Your aunt's his servant," the girl concluded, "and we don't like it.""I'm his servant, too," Jane-Anne said haughtily, "and I'd rather be his servant than your friend any day.""You won't have much chance of being that," the girl said angrily. "I wouldn't be seen with you for the world.""The whole of Oxford," cried Jane-Anne, "can see me with him, and he's a great gentleman and a scholar; and you—you're a carroty-haired, ill-bred little nobody who can't write a French exercise without getting somebody else to do half of it."The school took sides, and the best and cleverest half finally sided with Jane-Anne. She never told anybody but Montagu what she had gone through, but whenever any new girl made friendly advances Jane-Anne took care to inform her that Mrs. Dew, Mr. Wycherly's housekeeper, was her aunt, that she loved her and wasn't in the least ashamed of it. "And now," she always concluded, "you can go on being friends with me or not, just as you choose."The girls were friendly enough in school, but she knew very few of them at home. Those she did know were nearly all friends of Mrs. Methuen and girls whose position was assured. Thus it happened that Jane-Anne's few friends were the nicest girls in the school. But she had very little time for friendship. She still helped her aunt in the house as much as ever she could. She had really hard and heavy homework to prepare—only her extraordinary quickness got her through it in the time she allowed for it, and she was, moreover, always to the fore if any play or recitation or fancy dancing was toward. She was so easily and far beyond any other girl in things of that sort that she could never be spared. The dancing-class was her greatest joy. Mr. Wycherly had insisted on her learning to dance whenever she went to school. He paid the fees himself, and sometimes even braved the phalanx of girls at the class in order to go himself and see her dance.And once a year Curly came with his company and acted in the Oxford Theatre. Mr. Wycherly always took Jane-Anne and Curly always came to see them in Holywell, and every time he came he asked Mr. Wycherly the same question: "Well, and have you settled yet what she is to be?""She talks," said Mr. Wycherly, "of being a teacher of dancing—but it seems to me that in that case her education is rather thrown away.""A teacher of dancing!" Curly repeated ironically. "I think I see her teaching dancing for long.""She came to me last night," Mr. Wycherly continued, as though he had not heard, "and asked abruptly, 'Do you think one can serve God and dance for a living?'""Ah," said Curly, "that's a different thing; and what did you say, sir?""I fear," said Mr. Wycherly humbly, "that I made no very definite answer.""I should like to know what you think," Curly persisted. "You consider dancing to be one of the beautiful and delightful arts?""I do.""And in Jane-Anne that art finds the subtlest and most delicate expression?"Mr. Wycherly groaned."Why should she not serve God as well in that way as in any other?""Because," said Mr. Wycherly haughtily, "I should dislike it extremely."Curly laughed."I have an idea," he said, "that Miss Allegra Stavrides will find another mode of expressing the artist that is in her."Mr. Wycherly groaned again. "She is so young," he said; "why should she be anything at all for years and years?""Because," said Curly, "the race is to the swift, and the child is very fleet of foot.""You will not, promise me you will not, say or do anything to put such an idea into her head," Mr. Wycherly pleaded."My dear old friend, the idea has been there for years—and it is quite possible it may come to nothing."But though Curly spake comfortable words there was no conviction in his voice.CHAPTER XVIIIGANTRY BILL"Oh, why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian!I've lost my rest at night, my peace by day,For want of some brown holland or Venetian,Over the way."TOM HOODOld Holywell in Oxford town is an interesting street. Not only does every house there differ from its neighbour, but the inhabitants are just as varied.Opposite Mr. Wycherly's was a tall, straight, grey house, which had been let as rooms to generations of undergraduates when the time came for them to "live out." Some two years before, Jane-Anne had watched these young gentlemen, as she then still called them, with the greatest interest; in fact, undergraduates as a class held for her one supreme possibility—one of them might fulfil in the flesh all she had dreamed in the spirit of Lord Byron.She had never met one that in the least resembled her dream. They were, for the most part, broad-shouldered, brown-faced, exceedingly untidy young men, who slouched about Oxford in ancient Norfolk jackets, baggy grey flannel trousers, and slippers down at the heel. Most of them looked in the best of health and spirits. The few who might, perhaps, be suspected of soulfulness were so plain-looking, that she dismissed them at once; they were out of the running altogether.Montagu was good-looking in a straight-featured, quiet sort of way. Edmund was radiantly and riotously handsome. Mr. Wycherly, in Jane-Anne's opinion and that of several other people, was the most beautiful person in Oxford. Therefore she was hard to please.After she came under the influence of Miss Willows, young men interested her no more. True to her theory that every eventuality should be met fearlessly, Miss Willows never omitted the possibility of marriage from talks with her girls. With her, they regarded it as a rather commonplace fate, that might perhaps fall to the lot of some of them. But there were many more interesting things in life than that.Miss Willows never, by word or look, hinted to her girls that young men were dangerous, and therefore to be avoided. They were there in Oxford in large numbers, let the girls meet them in society if possible, let them judge of them dispassionately. Let there be no glamour of the forbidden about them. They might talk to them; listen to them; weigh their conversation in the balance of reason, and—she always added inwardly—"find it wanting." But she never said this; she implied it, and the girls, with youthful earnestness and scorn, finished the sentence for themselves.Jane-Anne met no young men. Every undergraduate at New College knew Mr. Wycherly by sight, but not one knew any more of him. At the time when Jane-Anne took an interest in them they took no sort of interest in her. Now that she was tall and straight, with frocks down to her ankles, and bright eyes that rained influence, a good many undergraduates wished they knew Mr. Wycherly. As for Jane-Anne, she desired no notice from foolish young men. The notice she craved was larger and more impersonal, and although she was an impatient young person, she was content to wait for it. She knew that she was not wasting her time. She studied Greek dramatists with Mr. Wycherly, and read eagerly every word of his translation of Aristotle's "Poetics," laying to heart many of its maxims. She walked to and from school by herself, she went on occasional errands for Mrs. Dew, but beyond that she was rarely seen in Oxford except accompanied by Mr. Wycherly. With him she wandered in college gardens, and by the banks of the Cherwell. When the boys came back, she spent long days on the river with them, and every new dance she learned at school she danced again for "the master," and in summer always danced barefooted on the lawn.Mr. Wycherly allowed her to do her evening work in the parlour, which was quieter than the housekeeper's room in such close proximity to Mrs. Dew. The May nights were hot, and Jane-Anne opened the window and drew back the short white curtains to let in as much air as possible. People might look in if they liked. It mattered nothing to Jane-Anne, loftily absorbed in work for Miss Willows.There she sat at the round, rosewood table in the middle of the room, the electric light shaded and drawn low over her papers (Mr. Wycherly never allowed her to work in a bad light), her delicate Greek profile presented to every chance observer, severe, detached, an example of studious girlhood most edifying to behold.So evidently thought the undergraduate who lived opposite. For no sooner had she turned on her light than he extinguished his and took a seat in the window, which, a little above the level of hers, commanded an excellent view of Mr. Wycherly's parlour. His watch was shared by a white bull terrier, who spent long hours sitting on the sill.That undergraduate was a rowing man, the Eights came on in another fortnight, and in the evenings he "did a slack."He was musical, this undergraduate, possessed a piano and a pleasing tenor voice, and sometimes after dinner, although Jane-Anne would not have dreamed of interrupting her work for one instant to listen, she was vaguely conscious that the music was agreeable, and was sorry when it ceased.One evening, however, she did listen, for there came from the house opposite strains that were, to her, curiously familiar; a queer, old-fashioned song, and then with a little leap of the heart she recognised a poem she knew and loved. The young man opposite had evidently been well taught, it was quite possible to hear his words. She stopped short in the middle of a complicated sentence to the effect that the aim of discipline is to produce a self-governing unit, laid down her pen, and, forgetful that the light was behind her, went to the window and leaned out.The young man seated at the piano in the darkness of the room opposite smiled gleefully, and sang more loudly and with increased fervour:"By those tresses unconfinedWoo'd by each Ægean wind;By those lids whose jetty fringeKiss thy soft cheek's blooming tinge;By those soft eyes like the roe ..."Then followed the passionate Greek invocation with which each line of Byron's "Maid of Athens" concludes.Miss Willows would doubtless have dismissed words and music as hackneyed and obvious. But her pupil had read the verses till she knew them by heart, feeling, as in the case of "She walks in beauty like the night," that Lord Byron had written them for her and about her; she had not heard them sung since her mother sang them to her when she was a very little child. Now in the soft spring night the once familiar strains came floating across the quiet street charged full of innocent and tender memories.In the semi-darkness, Jane-Anne beheld a ghostly white dog, seated solemn and sedate on the window-ledge. The dog also noticed Jane-Anne, and while his master still passionately proclaimed the fact that his heart had passed into the possession of "The Maid of Athens," the dog pricked forward his long ears, after the fashion of a bull-terrier when interested, and wagged his tail. At that instant the music ceased with a crash of chords."Oh, you dear!" exclaimed Jane-Anne, and went back to her work.The singer came and sat in the window again."Gantry Bill," he said softly, "which of us did she call a dear?"Gantry Bill wagged his tail again.Hehadn't the smallest doubt."That seemed to fetch her rather," the singer continued.Gantry Bill evidently thought this a foolish remark, for he made no response."It's a shame to make such a pretty girl work so hard, ain't it, Bill?"Here Gantry Bill was more sympathetic, and tried to lick his master's face."We'll try another," said that gentleman, "we'll fetch her again, won't us, Bill?"But he sang the most passionate love songs in his repertoire, apparently to deaf ears. The little head, with its cameo-like profile and dark wealth of hair, remained studiously bent under the shaded light. The self-governing unit had triumphed.Her opposite neighbour might shout himself hoarse for all she cared. She wanted full marks and a "plus" for her essay.Night after night that week from the house opposite a tenor voice apostrophised some peerless she. But never again did Jane-Anne go to the window, and Gantry Bill laid his head sideways on his paws, his ears flopped forwards, and snored gently, while his master, at the top of his voice, proclaimed "the thousand beauties that he knew so well."He was a patient dog, Gantry Bill. More patient than his master who, by-and-bye, gave it up as a bad job—and went out. He occasionally attended lectures, too, whither the dog could not accompany him. Then would Bill sit on the window-ledge watching the passers-by with a wise reflective air, or sleep in that pathetic abandonment of attitude habitual to the bull-terrier.Jane-Anne sometimes crossed the street, spoke to him, caressed him, and peeped into the empty room behind—a most untidy room."Poor doggie," she said, one Saturday afternoon, "alone so much; would you like to come and play in our garden, Gantry Bill? It's much cooler than over here. The master's out, and you'll not bother anybody."Gantry Bill looked at her, and evidently was tempted. In fact, a pretty girl in a white frock on a hot July afternoon is always a pleasing apparition.Very slowly, like a stiff old gentleman, Gantry Bill arose and stood on the window-ledge. He smiled at Jane-Anne, and playfully took her hand into his mouth and mumbled it, in token of his approval."He's gone to the boats, he'll be hours and hours," she said. "I saw him rushing up the street in those awful little short knickerbockers, and you left all alone to mope, poor dear! Why shouldn't you have a little amusement, too?"This appeared a sound argument. Gantry Bill dropped from the window-ledge into the street, and followed Jane-Anne across the road. Into the garden she took him by devious ways that did not challenge the observation of Mrs. Dew. She fetched him water in a pie-dish and presented him with a chocolate biscuit, then she sat down under the apple-tree to mend her stockings. But Gantry Bill hadn't come out for the afternoon to watch people mend stockings.He spied a hockey ball lying on the path, seized it in his mouth, and galumphed heavily towards Jane-Anne, laid it at her feet, barked and made a series of short rushes at her in token that he desired to play."Hush," said Jane-Anne, holding up a needle in her finger and thumb, "you mustn't bark, else aunt'll hear you and come out. What do you want?"Another short rush, another "wouf," and an eager head, ears cocked forward, eyes beseeching Jane-Anne."You want me to throw it, do you?"This was exactly what Gantry Bill did want, and for twenty minutes he kept Jane-Anne very busy indeed. Then, hot and exhausted, they both sat down under the apple-tree, and she was permitted to mend her stocking. This was the first of many meetings.Gantry Bill's master had no idea his dog made assignations with the young lady of the Greek profile and the long, thick pig-tail. Otherwise he would have insisted upon an introduction. She showed no signs of playing Eurydice to his Orpheus, sang he never so. None of his pals knew Mr. Wycherly, and Mr. Wycherly's friends in Oxford he did not know; and just because the thing seemed so impossible he ardently desired to meet Jane-Anne, and he had never wanted much to know any girl before. He was not a ladies' man.After all, it was Gantry Bill who brought the thing about.Mrs. Dew was very particular about eggs. Shop eggs she declined to use even for the "egg and bread crumb" of fish, and all eggs in Holywell came from an old woman who lived on the Iffley Road, kept large numbers of fowls, and sold her eggs to a chosen few who would fetch them.It was one of Jane-Anne's duties to fetch eggs twice a week. It happened, however, that Mrs. Dew "ran short" one day when she particularly wanted to make an omelette for Mr. Wycherly's dinner. So after tea she sent Jane-Anne, with a shilling tucked into her glove, to bring the required eggs. Jane-Anne walked quickly and procured the eggs without adventure of any kind, carrying them in a little round basket shaped like the hilt of a single-stick.It was hot, and on her return she walked more slowly, dreaming as she went. She held the basket rather loosely in one hand, and was quite unprepared when a heavy body bounced at her from behind and knocked her over. The basket flew from her hand, the eggs were scattered and smashed; and much startled and confused she felt two strong hands under her armpits that raised her to her feet, while a penitent voice exclaimed:"I say, I am most awfully sorry; it's that brute of a dog. I can't think what possessed him to bounce at you like that. He's never done it before to anybody. I dohopeyou're not hurt or very frightened. Down, sir! Down, you brute! You shall have a good thrashing for this."Jane-Anne recovered her senses to perceive that a tall young man, in a blazer and white flannel trousers, had picked her up, that two other young men stood by, looking rather amused, and that Gantry Bill was cringing at her feet in evident expectation of the beating his master had promised him, while round about them the broken eggs were drawing maps upon the dusty road."Please don't beat him," she said, hastily settling her hat, which had been knocked over her nose. "He didn't mean to knock me down; he was only saying how-do-you-do. He's a great friend of mine, really.""Lucky beggar," said the young man; "but I don't see why he should show his friendship in such an inconvenient fashion. He must be a tremendous weight to knock you down like that."The two other young men had discreetly strolled on. Jane-Anne, Gantry Bill and his master stood in the road encircled by broken eggs, and looked at one another. Jane-Anne saw a tall, broad-shouldered young man with a brown face, a very clean brown face that had once been fair. He was not handsome—his nose was too broad and his mouth too big; but he had splendid strong white teeth and merry blue eyes, which, at that moment, looked into her own full of contrition and commiseration."I think," he added hastily, "that we are neighbours; don't you live opposite?""That's how I knew your dog," Jane-Anne explained. "You leave him alone a great deal.""I can't take him to lectures.""I'm sure he'd behave very well. But, as I was saying, you leave him alone and I was sorry for him, and so he sometimes comes and visits me, and we're great friends, aren't we, Gantry Bill?""You know his name?" the young man exclaimed."Of course. I'm not deaf, and the street is not wide. Oh, dear! whatever shall I do about the eggs?""Where did you get them, and we'll go and get some more?""But I haven't any more money, and we always pay for them.""Of course, you must allow me to pay for them. My dog broke them.""If you wouldn't mind—just for to-day. You see, if I don't take them back aunt couldn't make an omelette for Mr. Wycherly's dinner.""Let's go and get them at once. We can get them at the nearest grocer's.""Oh, you needn't trouble to come with me. I must go back, for aunt won't get eggs anywhere else. If you could lend me the shilling——""I'm going to carry those eggs, and see you safe home. You might feel faint or something after such a shock."Jane-Anne laughed, but she did not forbid him to accompany her. Gantry Bill gambolled on ahead, and together they bought another shilling's worth of eggs from Mrs. Dew's old woman.As they walked down the Iffley Road together, he said rather diffidently: "Gantry Bill is more fortunate than his master, since he seems to know you, Miss Wycherly.""My name's not Wycherly," Jane-Anne answered. "It's Stavrides. I'm no relation to Mr. Wycherly; my aunt is his housekeeper, and he lets me live there. I love him dearly.""My name's George Gordon.""Oh!" she exclaimed. "Are you any relation to Lord Byron?""Certainly not, I'm glad to say," he remarked decidedly. "We're quite another lot of Gordons. It's a big clan, you know. We're the Dumfrieshire Gordons. The poet was a gloomy sort of chap, wasn't he?"Jane-Anne stood still, and gazed at the Gordon at her side with great indignation."Gloomy," she repeated; "sad, if you like, sometimes, but very witty and amusing; have you read his letters?"George Gordon hung his head; the brown eyes looking up into his were so grave and accusing."I'm afraid I know very little about him," he said humbly; "perhaps he was an ancestor of yours—I'm awfully sorry——"Again Jane-Anne laughed, and he thought she had the prettiest laugh. "Do you only defend people when they are your relations?" she asked. "I admire Lord Byron's poetry, and I am grateful to him because he gave his life for my country—but he's not the least little bit of an ancestor. I don't think I've got any.""That must be rather jolly, because then you can play off your own bat, and people aren't always expecting things of you because your great-great-uncle did something or other last century.""Oh, I'd like them if I'd got them," she said; "but as I haven't—it's no use fretting. Have you a great many?""Nothing to speak of," he said, blushing. "I can't think how we've got on to such a footling subject. You like Gantry Bill, don't you?""He's a perfect dear, but why is he called Gantry Bill? What's gantry mean—I looked it up in the dictionary, and it says——""Oh, it's nothing to do with that—it's some soldiers' lingo—he belonged to my elder brother; he's a gunner and he had to go to Nigeria and couldn't take him, so he gave him to me. He's a faithful beast, and understands every word you say to him."By this time they had reached Long Wall, and as they strolled along in intimate converse they met Miss Willows, who looked hard at Jane-Anne and her escort carrying the basket of eggs.When they reached the archway leading into the builder's yard, Jane-Anne stopped and bade him farewell."I can't pay you the shilling now," she said, "for I haven't got one, but the minute I have one I'll bring it over. I've spent my allowance for this month already.""Oh, please," he said, looking most unhappy; "please don't speak of it. I broke the eggs, at least Bill did—so, of course——""Good-bye," said Jane-Anne, and vanished in at the side-door.George Gordon crossed the road very slowly, with Gantry Bill following sedately at his heels; when they reached his sitting-room he sank heavily into the chair by the window, and the bull-terrier leapt up on to his seat on the window-sill."I say, Bill," his master asked, "how have you contrived to see so much of her?"The shilling weighed heavily on Jane-Anne's mind. She could not repay it herself, for she had spent four-and-elevenpence-halfpenny on the first of May, the day she got her allowance, on a pair of black silk stockings declared to be "half-price," which she had greatly coveted to dance in.Mrs. Dew would undoubtedly repay the shilling, but she would, at the same time, ask so many questions and comment so severely on Jane-Anne's carelessness, and (this was what Jane-Anne particularly dreaded) express such horror at her "forwardness" in walking home with George Gordon, that Jane-Anne simply could not summon up enough moral courage to confess herself to her aunt.Therefore, as had happened hundreds of times in the past, there was nothing for it but to go to "the master" who would, she knew, get her out of the difficulty, and ask no questions. Yet—she felt shy even of the master.Suppose he forbade her ever to speak to George Gordon or Gantry Bill again?Still, the shilling must be got back to George Gordon that night, and it was already seven o'clock, time for her to lay dinner. She ran up to Mr. Wycherly's study, and found him sitting in his arm-chair by the window reading Horace.She went and stood before his chair, clasped her hands behind her, and announced:"I broke a whole basketful of eggs, sir, this afternoon. They cost a shilling.""Do you think," said Mr. Wycherly, smiling, "that the domestic exchequer will stand such a heavy drain upon it?""But that's not all," she continued breathlessly. "He picked me up, and as I hadn't another shilling he paid for the eggs, and I've spent all my money, and can't pay him back till June. Will you lend me the money to pay him?"Mr. Wycherly no longer lounged in his chair. He sat up very straight, but he spoke gently as usual, saying:"Do you mind explaining to me who 'he' is, and why you should need to be picked up?""Gantry Bill, that's his dog, bounced at me from behind; we're great friends and he was glad to see me, and I was thinking deeply, and he knocked me over and the eggs flew all about and made a great mess, so he helped me up and we went together to buy more eggs, and he carried them home for me.""Gantry Bill, as you call him," Mr. Wycherly said, his eyes twinkling, "seems a very remarkable dog. First, he knocks you down, then he picks you up and gives you a shilling to buy eggs, which he politely carries home for you. Is it this intelligent animal that you propose to repay?""No," said Jane-Anne, blushing hotly; "it's the intelligent animal's master. He lives just opposite. He's at New College.""And is it he who is such a great friend of yours?" Mr. Wycherly asked, as though it were the most natural conclusion possible."No," said Jane-Anne, rosier than ever; "I never spoke to him before, though I knew him by sight. He's rather nice," she added; "his name is George Gordon, but he's no relation to dear Lord Byron—and he doesn't seem a bit sorry. May I take the shilling over?""I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "that perhaps it would be better if I took him the shilling myself. After all, you know, the eggs were for the house, and therefore my affair.""Oh, would you?" cried Jane-Anne. "That is perfectly lovely of you, and then you'll see him, and see if you like him.""Exactly," said Mr. Wycherly, "that's why I want to go.""You will give it back to-night, won't you?" she begged."Directly after dinner; I hope he will be at home.""Oh, he's sure to be at home," she said simply. "He generally sings then; I hear him while I'm working. He sings 'Maid of Athens' most beautifully.""Does he indeed?" said Mr. Wycherly.
CHAPTER XVI
THE PURSUIT CONTINUED
"For beauty draws us by a single hair." POPE.
Jane-Anne waited at dinner that night, and the stranger with the dark, vivacious eyes looked at her curiously more than once. When she had set the port in front of Mr. Wycherly and left the room finally, this guest, whom he called "Curly," leant forward, saying:
"So that is the new ward?"
"If you like to call her so."
"She is not an ordinary girl."
"I fear not."
"Why fear?"
"Because she will be very hard to place safely."
"My own impression is," Curly said slowly, "that she will need no placing at all, she will arrange matters for herself."
"You mean she will marry while quite young."
"Not at all. I should say she is quite unlikely to marry very young, but she will find a niche for herself, and she won't follow any beaten track either."
"When she came first of all," said Mr. Wycherly, "it was understood that she was to be trained for a servant; the doctor vetoed that—said she would never be strong enough. Then a charming lady here suggested having her trained as some very superior sort of nurse—children's nurse, but I question whether her genius lies in that direction. Personally, I can think of nothing very suitable for Jane-Anne except to delight me and get strong; but of course one must be practical. She is extraordinarily receptive. She takes pleasure in every kind of beauty, and she is quite singularly susceptible to beautiful verse. You should hear her recite Byron's 'Isles of Greece.'"
"Why shouldn't I hear her? Get her in and ask her to do it, then, perhaps, I can throw some light on this dark question."
"I can't say that I think she would be shy," Mr. Wycherly said dubiously, "for shyness and Jane-Anne seem quite foreign to one another; but—whether it would be good for her——"
"I'd like to hear her awfully," said Curly persuasively. "A housekeeper's niece, not thirteen, and steeped in Byron sounds such a delightful anachronism. Moreover, a little girl brought up by you. Please let me."
There was something very wheedling about Curly as he rose and went to the bell.
Mr. Wycherly nodded, and he rang.
Mrs. Dew thought it was for coffee, and that they were in a great hurry. However, she made it quickly and sent Jane-Anne in with it.
"This gentleman," said Mr. Wycherly, as she set down the coffee in front of him, "is fond of poetry, and I wonder if you would repeat to him your favourite verses about Marathon?"
Jane-Anne looked quickly from one to the other. She stepped back a little from the table and held up one slender brown hand as if adjuring them to listen.
Curly leant his elbow on the table and his head on his hand, and sat still as a statue, his brilliant eyes fixed on Jane-Anne.
She had a musical voice and a singularly clear enunciation. She no longer mispronounced any words, for Mr. Wycherly had heard her say the poem many times and took care of that. There was, withal, a curious little foreign distinctness in the way she separated one word from another that was undoubtedly a reminiscence of her father. She was never monotonous and she never ranted; best of all, she was utterly unconscious of herself and absolutely wholehearted in her lament for her country, and there was real passion in her young voice as she declaimed:
"A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine—Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!"
"A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine—Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!"
"A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!"
No one spoke for a minute, then very gravely and courteously Curly said, "Thank you."
Jane-Anne turned to go, and Mr. Wycherly rose and opened the door for her. She looked up at him as she went out, with timid questioning eyes.
"It was beautiful, my child, quite beautiful," he said.
Jane-Anne went back to the kitchen to wash dishes, perfectly happy.
Curly waited till Mr. Wycherly sat down again.
"And so you wonder what that child will be?" he asked.
"I do, indeed," sighed Mr. Wycherly.
"And she, with those great eyes set so wide apart?"
"That," said Mr. Wycherly, "is the Greek type."
"Every great actress," Curly said sententiously, "has her eyes set wide apart. There has never been a ferrety-faced actress worth anything."
"But what has that got to do with Jane-Anne," Mr. Wycherly said in a puzzled voice.
Curly laughed. "I shan't tell you," he said. "Only I know what she will be, and you needn't worry or try to stop it, for you can't."
"I hope she will be nothing of the kind," Mr. Wycherly said hotly. "Poor little nymph, so sensitive, so loving-hearted, so wise, and at times, so amazingly silly."
"They are like that," said Curly.
* * * * *
Next morning, Mr. Wycherly told Jane-Anne that the friend who had dined with him the night before was an actor, and that the company he was in was performing "As you Like It" that afternoon in a ducal garden not very far from Oxford; and finally that he was going to take her to see it.
That day was one longfestafor Jane-Anne. First of all came the drive, sitting side by side with Mr. Wycherly in a hired victoria. She wore her best summer frock and hat, beautiful white garments chosen by Mrs. Methuen, that filled her soul with rapture every time she put them on; white cotton gloves that Mrs. Dew had washed that morning, thin black stockings, and the light shoes Mr. Wycherly had insisted upon after he had seen her dance under the apple-tree.
Mrs. Dew watched them drive away with great pride.
"I will say this," she said to her friend, Miss Morecraft, that afternoon, "that when Jane-Anne's dressed you couldn't tell her from one of the gentry. She's got something about her, my sister had it, and her father—not as I ever cared for him—had it, too. I think if my sister could have seen her this afternoon she'd be set up, that I do. He's a fine-looking old gentleman, too; handsome he is, and no mistake."
A good many people regarded the quaint pair with pleasure. They were so manifestly proud and fond of each other, and the child was so radiantly happy. The crowds of well-dressed people delighted her. The garden was beautiful, the weather perfect, and with thrills of the wildest excitement she recognised Curly as Orlando.
When it was over, her first criticism was characteristic. "I'd have made a better boy than that if I'd been Rosalind; she wasn't a bit like a boy really, was she? If ever I pretended to be a boy I'd try to behave like Master Edmund, then I don't believe anyone would rekkernise me."
"I don't think Shakespeare meant Rosalind to be a finished actress. She is a supremely lovable girl. I don't think we would care so much for her if we didn't realise the girl all the way through," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully.
"Perhaps that pretty lady was right then," said Jane-Anne; "but somehow IthinkRosalind would have tried to behave more like a boy."
"When you play Rosalind you shall give us a new reading of the part," Mr. Wycherly remarked carelessly.
Jane-Anne cuddled closely against him. "When I'm grown up," she said, "I shall ask that Mr. Curly to take me about acting, too. How did he begin?"
"That," Mr. Wycherly answered dreamily, "is a long story, and rather sad. No one wanted him to be anything of the kind——"
"But hehadto!" exclaimed Jane-Anne. "He just had to, something drove him——"
"I suppose so; even yet I think it a pity."
"I don't," Jane-Anne said decidedly. "I'd rather go about being people than anything—one could never be dull."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Mr. Wycherly.
For several nights now, both Bruey and "She walks in beauty like the night" were forgotten. Jane-Anne arose, after her aunt had taken away the candle, to impersonate Rosalind. She rolled her thick plait round her head and pinned it up with hairpins stolen from her aunt's store. She achieved doublet and hose by means of two towels, several safety pins, and her long stockings. And the moon looked in at the window and was doubtless well amused.
The moon waxed and waned and the end of July was at hand.
Mr. Wycherly was plainly stirred out of his usual scholarly calm. His boys were coming home. Jane-Anne shared his excitement, and even Mrs. Dew felt it necessary to make a large cake and "to get in" quantities of stores of every description.
Jane-Anne was strung up to the highest pitch of expectation. Although she had seen comparatively little of the "young gentlemen" when she first came to Holywell, she had heard about them so much and so constantly from the master, that she felt she, too, owned them. There was, moreover, the delightful sense of an "understanding" with Montagu. He had asked her to look after his guardian and she had done her best. Moreover, quick and sympathetic always, she early realised that not even the Greek Myths were so entrancing a subject to Mr. Wycherly as these two boys of his, and during their walks together she invariably led the conversation in their direction, and found it an easy and fascinating path.
At last the great day came. The boys were to meet in London and come down together to Oxford by a train getting in just before tea.
At the last moment Mr. Wycherly bade Jane-Anne come with him to the station.
She was pale with excitement and could hardly speak.
When at last the train came in and the boys, brown and jolly and full of rejoicing at getting home, jumped on to the platform, and the first exciting greetings had passed, Jane-Anne suddenly flung her arms round Edmund's neck and burst into tears upon his shoulder.
Edmund looked across the weeping damsel at his guardian in comical dismay. "I say," he exclaimed. "If she does this when she meets me, whatever will she do when we go away?"
"I beg your pardon, Master Edmund," sobbed Jane-Anne, hastily withdrawing her arms, "but we have wanted it so, and now it's come."
"Well, that's nothing to cry for," Montagu said, patting her back consolingly. "Cheer up."
Jane-Anne dried her eyes, and the four went home in a cab laden with luggage.
The next few days drove Mrs. Dew almost to desperation. It was impossible to make Jane-Anne "keep herself to herself," as that good woman considered decorous and desirable.
Wherever the young gentlemen were, there was Jane-Anne, and it wasn't altogether her own fault. They sought her out. She fielded at impromptu cricket matches, and discussed high subjects with Montagu. She proudly displayed her knowledge of the Greek alphabet, and assisted to stick in stamps in a long-neglected album. She even confided to the boys her misfortune with the "Magnolia Bloom," nor was she wholly crushed by their scorn for her silliness.Aproposof this, one day, she said:
"I wouldn't mind so much being brown if only I had curly hair."
"The Greeks always had curly hair," Montagu announced authoritatively. "I can't think why you've been left out, 'ribbed and rippled like the wet sea-sand,'" he quoted.
"I wonder," Edmund remarked, with a gravity that would have warned a wiser person, "that you never wash it in beer, then it would curl like anything."
"Wouldit?" exclaimed Jane-Anne, in great excitement. "Is that why yours is so curly?"
Edmund winked at Montagu, who grinned appreciatively. "Of course it is," he cried; "all our chaps wash their heads in beer every Saturday, that's why we've all got such ripping hair. Look at it." And Edmund thrust his head under Jane-Anne's nose.
She ran her hand gently over the short, fair hair that was indeed "ribbed and rippled like the wet sea-sand," then she sniffed delicately, remarking: "I wonder it doesn't smell of it."
"Oh, the smell soon goes off," Edmund answered airily.
"Why don't you do it?" she asked Montagu. "Your hair's as straight as mine."
"He's too slack," Edmund remarked.
"Oh, I can't be bothered," Montagu said carelessly; "I don't want curly hair. If I did I should wash it in beer."
At that moment Mr. Wycherly called the boys to go out with him, and they rushed off leaving Jane-Anne to digest this seemingly simple specific for curly hair.
Reflection unfollowed by action was impossible to Jane-Anne.
The beds were made. Her share of the dusting was done. The boys and Mr. Wycherly would be out until luncheon, and her aunt was busy in the kitchen where she strongly objected to have Jane-Anne, as she described it, "clutterin' round."
There was a large cask of beer in the cellar, and the key was in the door. The cellar was to the front of the house under the dining-room, and was consequently some distance from the kitchen.
Jane-Anne rushed upstairs, seized her large bedroom jug, emptied it, and descended with it to the cellar.
The cask was near the steps, and, with the door at the top left open, she could see quite well. She turned the tap and the good brown ale foamed gaily into the jug.
Just as, by its weight, she judged it to be about half full, she heard a sound as though her aunt were coming.
She seized her jug and rushed up the steps, forgetting to shut the door at the top, and hid in the parlour. No, she was wrong, Mrs. Dew was still busy in the kitchen.
As quietly as she could, she crept back to her room, and, once there, bolted the door.
Her heart was thumping in her ears, and she panted with excitement.
She had a good large basin in her room and a foot-bath. She chose the foot-bath and what was in the jug filled it half full of the strong brown ale of Oxford.
What a smell it had!
Jane-Anne knelt down, unplaited her hair and shook it forward over her face. She held her nose tightly with one hand and with the other plunged her heavy mane into the foaming beer. The smell was overpowering. She was obliged to let go of her nose for she was choking, and as she did so the beer, forced higher in the foot-bath by the mass of hair, splashed her in the face.
Gasping and choking, she persevered; she laved her head with beer, she rubbed it in with both hands, rejoicing that it made a beautiful lather, and she spat out vigorously what had been forced into her open mouth while she held her nose.
It was a horrible experience, but the blood of the Spartans ran in Jane-Anne's veins, and she endured till every hair and a large proportion of her upper garments was thoroughly saturated with beer.
At last she felt the treatment had had full justice, and she drew out what appeared to be yards of sticky, sodden pulp that had once been human hair.
"Of course it won't curl till it's dry," she said to herself, and proceeded to sprinkle more beer about her bedroom in her efforts to free her hair from that nourishing beverage.
But it wouldn't dry.
Her bedroom already smelt like ten public-houses rolled into one, and brown stains were everywhere.
Not a ripple nor a rib appeared on her matted and bedraggled head.
Her towels were already saturated with beer, and only seemed to make matters worse.
Her eyes smarted and her nose was scarlet. The strong smell made her feel quite faint.
She began to cry bitterly; her hair was stickier than ever and showed no signs of even waving.
In her ardent pursuit of beauty she had forgotten that explanation would be necessary, and what explanation would be possible in the face of all these stains and this terrific smell? She hung her head out of the window and it dripped into the stone-cutter's yard.
A man passed underneath, sniffed, and looked up; all he saw was a wet mass of something that dripped beer. "Waste o' good liquor," he muttered, and passed on.
Jane-Anne was getting desperate when there came a rattling of the handle of her door, a hasty push against it, then a tremendous knocking and Edmund's voice:
"Are you there, Jane-Anne?"
"Yes," in a muffled sniff.
"What are you doing? Come out."
"I can't."
"Well, let me in, then. I want to speak to you."
"I daren't."
"Oh, nonsense, let me in quick, I say, I've something important to tell you."
Curiosity was too strong in her to resist this. She opened the door, hiding herself behind it as she did so.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Edmund. "It's here, too."
Then, as he saw the foot-bath on the floor, the beery stains everywhere, and lastly, the distracted figure behind the door shrouded in sticky locks that still dripped beer, he subsided upon the bed in fits of laughter.
Jane-Anne banged the door, bolted it, and faced him indignantly.
"Why are you laughing?" she demanded.
"You've never gone and done it really—well, youarethe simplest juggins."
"D'you mean," Jane-Anne demanded sternly, "that itdoesn'tmake hair curl?"
"Not that I know of," gurgled the perjured boy; "it may," and relapsing into howls of mirth he buried his face in her pillow to stifle them.
Jane-Anne clasped her beery hands and wrung them. "And I've endured all this for nothing," she cried indignantly.
"And wasted a whole cask of beer," Edmund continued. "You left it running, and the cellar's flooded and you can smell us half-way down the street; there's quite a little crowd outside," he announced gleefully.
"I wish I was dead," she moaned.
"I'd have a bath if I were you, quick," said Edmund. "If you're safe in there, locked in, no one can get at you. Mrs. Dew and Montagu and Guardie are all at the cellar. Montagu's wading about in it, scooping it up, and I want to go too, only I thought it would be mean not to fetch you——"
"You can't be meaner than you've been already," she cried angrily. "Why did you tell me such a lie?"
"Nonsense like that isn't lies," Edmund answered, angry in his turn. "It's chaff. I never dreamt you'd be such a fool as to go and do it."
"Is it really no use?" she pleaded, still clinging fondly even yet to the hope that all might not have been in vain.
Edmund looked at her and began to laugh again.
CHAPTER XVII
THE PHILOSOPHY OF EFFORT
"A man's fortunes are the fruits of his character." RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
When one has passed fifty, four years—provided no one of them brings severe illness or great sorrow—make little if any difference in outward appearance. Time is usually kind to the middle-aged, and it is only when we reach middle-age ourselves, and the dear old landmarks are removed one by one, that we realise how much we unconsciously depended on this stability of appearance, this changelessness in those who helped to shape our destiny.
Thus if there was little change in Mrs. Dew and Mr. Wycherly four years after Jane-Anne had flooded the Holywell cellar with beer, Jane-Anne herself and the boys looked back upon the children of that time with a kind of affectionate scorn.
Montagu was now taller than Mr. Wycherly, thin-faced and analytic as ever, only waiting for the following October to take up his scholarship at New College.
Edmund was on theBritannia, all uniform and gold buttons, naval phrases, and nonsense. When he appeared for his "leaves" (he scorned to call it holidays) he imported so much liveliness and laughter, to say nothing of visitors from the outer world, into the quiet household that during these hilarious weeks Jane-Anne forgot to be earnest.
For Jane-Anne was very earnest.
Four years of school-life had wrought great changes in Jane-Anne.
For one thing, no one any longer had to worry about her lungs. Crepitations were things of the past. She was strong as a Shetland pony with fully as much endurance.
There was nothing in her physique to prevent her becoming a most efficient housemaid. Moreover, she was tall enough for even the most exacting situation. But even Mrs. Dew had ceased to include that idea among practical politics.
For Jane-Anne had turned out "clever at her books" beyond all expectation. She went first of all to a nice school over Magdalen Bridge, but she got on so fast and was so unusually receptive a pupil that the head mistress herself called upon Mr. Wycherly and suggested that Jane-Anne should go on to the High School. Mr. Wycherly consulted Lord Dursley, who still continued to take a vicarious sort of interest in the child, and the matter was arranged without much difficulty.
Here Jane-Anne fell under the influence of Miss Willows and became strenuous and earnest to the last degree.
Miss Willows taught the top form, and she did more than teach it, she moulded it.
She was twenty-eight years old and was fully determined to be a head mistress herself before many years had passed. She was of the stuff head mistresses are made and she was modern of the moderns. She was tall and strong and handsome, good at games and a first in classics, and hers was indeed the doctrine of perfection.
"Don't only try to do things as well as other people," she would say; "try to do them a little better. Never be content with mediocrity."
Courage and strength were her watchwords and her ambition was that her girls should go forth into the world not to be shielded from temptation but armed to withstand it. Silliness she abhorred, and, satisfactory pupil as Jane-Anne was, she was thankful that Miss Willows could not, as she put it, "see inside her," for Jane-Anne was conscious that she frequently lapsed from grace, was often frankly and unashamedly silly and enjoyed it.
Miss Willows was always beautifully dressed, and taught her girls to care a good deal about their clothes. She was sarcastic, and the clumsy and untidy trembled before her.
Jane-Anne never trembled. She admired and adored and perhaps "inside" she was a little afraid of her, but outwardly she was quite fearless, and Miss Willows respected her in consequence. Even more did she respect the girl's quite extraordinary command of English and her familiarity with schools of philosophy that were to most of the class mere names.
Miss Willows had settled Jane-Anne's career. She was to go on to one of the women's colleges and then she was to teach. It was her plain duty. Jane-Anne said nothing, seemed to acquiesce in all these wise and benevolent plans on her behalf, and all the time dreamed dreams and saw visions of something very different indeed.
She had not wavered in her allegiance to Lord Byron. He was still her hero, and she stoutly refused to displace him by Mr. Robert Browning, who was the chosen prophet of Miss Willows.
"Lord Byron is so obvious," that lady said one day, when she had found fault with a quotation from "Childe Harold" that Jane-Anne had dragged into an essay.
"It is impossible to misunderstand what he means," Jane-Anne said quickly, ever ready to take up arms on behalf of "her oldest friend," as she called him.
"He is not subtle," Miss Willows continued.
"He is never obscure, never unmusical," quoth Jane-Anne.
"I am sorry," Miss Willows said gravely, "that you make such a hero of Lord Byron, the more so, that, from what I can make out, you do not do so in ignorance of his character. You say you have read his life?"
"Years ago."
Miss Willows made a point of never being shocked at anything her girls might say—to be shocked showed weakness. Nevertheless, she rather wondered what Mr. Wycherly could have been about to allow such a thing. And there was a black mark against him in her mind.
Curiously enough, it was Mr. Wycherly himself who first aroused Jane-Anne to any enthusiasm for the works of Robert Browning, and it came about in this way.
She still passionately desired curly hair. It was the desire of the moth for the star, for her hair remained obstinately straight. That it was beautiful in colour, texture and abundance, did not comfort her; it was straight, uncompromisingly straight, though it maintained its upward, outward sweep round her broad, low forehead.
Mr. Wycherly thought it was hard for Jane-Anne to have no money, and insisted on paying her five shillings a month for waiting upon him. Out of this, her aunt insisted that she must keep herself in stockings and gloves, which the child faithfully did.
But a girl at school enlightened her as to the uses of curling tongs, and Jane-Anne succumbed to temptation. She borrowed the goffering irons, heated them in the kitchen fire and burnt both her hair and her forehead rather badly.
Mr. Wycherly was infinitely more distressed about this than over the beer episode and took her gently to task for trying to improve upon what Nature had already made so harmonious and pleasing to the eye.
That was the way to get at Jane-Anne. As always, she was perfectly frank with him.
"Miss Willows says it is the duty of everyone to look as pretty as possible. 'Do your best and then think nothing more about it,' she says. But I seem obliged to think about it. You see, IknowI'd be so much nicer if my hair was frizzy."
"But I don't think you would," Mr. Wycherly argued. "Your type is severe and classical; 'frizziness' would be quite dreadful and incongruous."
"But couldanyonebe beautiful with straight hair?"
"Why not?"
"Lord Byron had wavy hair,youhave wavy hair, all the goddesses and people and Helen of Troy had wavy hair."
"I assure you," Mr. Wycherly declared, absently passing a long, slender hand over his thick white locks, "I never think about my hair at all, except when I have to go and get it cut."
"You never think about it, my dear, because you are so sure it is all right. Youknowyou are a most beautiful old person and that people must admire you if they looked at you at all,thereforeyou can afford not to think about it."
"My dear Jane-Anne, you are talking nonsense."
"I'm not; really, truly, not. I often see people look at you in the street and I often hear them say nice things——"
"Good heavens," cried Mr. Wycherly, "how dreadful!"
"I shouldn't think it a bit dreadful if they said such things about me," Jane-Anne said, "but they don't yet—not often."
"Do they ever?" Mr. Wycherly asked anxiously.
"If I told you, you would say it was impertinent, so I won't tell you, dear master."
"Will you promise me to let your hair alone?"
"If I promise, I should have to," Jane-Anne said doubtfully.
"That's why I want you to promise."
"Will a year do?" pleaded Jane-Anne.
"Three years," Mr. Wycherly maintained.
Jane-Anne sighed deeply. "Well, I promise—but if at the end of that time I find something that will really truly make it curl, without smelling horrible or burning or spoiling it——"
"Three years will do," said Mr. Wycherly.
That evening when she went to say good-night to him he read her "A Face," by Robert Browning.
"If one could have that little head of hersPainted upon a background of pure gold...."
"If one could have that little head of hersPainted upon a background of pure gold...."
"If one could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pure gold...."
Jane-Anne listened, breathless, charmed. When he had finished he turned to her:
"That always makes me think of you, and I wish I could have you painted so. But you wouldn't be a bit like it if you had different hair."
Jane-Anne was silent for nearly two minutes; then she said thoughtfully:
"I rather like Browning's poetry after all. I'll quote a bit in my next scripture just to please Miss Willows."
At first her position in the school was something of an anomaly. Her exceptional ability and her fleetness of foot gave her an assured place in the school work and games at once. Her personal appearance and her eager charm brought her friends. Then one of the girls, who had asked her to tea, a girl living in a large house in the Woodstock Road, whose people had nothing whatever to do with any of the colleges, discovered that she was no relation to the old gentleman in whose house she lived and that her aunt was his servant.
The girl was horrified, told every girl she could get to listen, and always concluded the harangue with the remark: "We all know the school's mixed enough, but it's getting a bit too much when they take the daughters of domestic servants. Someone ought to write and complain."
She forthwith cut Jane-Anne, as did several others. Jane-Anne was puzzled, then angry, and finally forced the girl to explain her conduct in the playground.
"Your aunt's his servant," the girl concluded, "and we don't like it."
"I'm his servant, too," Jane-Anne said haughtily, "and I'd rather be his servant than your friend any day."
"You won't have much chance of being that," the girl said angrily. "I wouldn't be seen with you for the world."
"The whole of Oxford," cried Jane-Anne, "can see me with him, and he's a great gentleman and a scholar; and you—you're a carroty-haired, ill-bred little nobody who can't write a French exercise without getting somebody else to do half of it."
The school took sides, and the best and cleverest half finally sided with Jane-Anne. She never told anybody but Montagu what she had gone through, but whenever any new girl made friendly advances Jane-Anne took care to inform her that Mrs. Dew, Mr. Wycherly's housekeeper, was her aunt, that she loved her and wasn't in the least ashamed of it. "And now," she always concluded, "you can go on being friends with me or not, just as you choose."
The girls were friendly enough in school, but she knew very few of them at home. Those she did know were nearly all friends of Mrs. Methuen and girls whose position was assured. Thus it happened that Jane-Anne's few friends were the nicest girls in the school. But she had very little time for friendship. She still helped her aunt in the house as much as ever she could. She had really hard and heavy homework to prepare—only her extraordinary quickness got her through it in the time she allowed for it, and she was, moreover, always to the fore if any play or recitation or fancy dancing was toward. She was so easily and far beyond any other girl in things of that sort that she could never be spared. The dancing-class was her greatest joy. Mr. Wycherly had insisted on her learning to dance whenever she went to school. He paid the fees himself, and sometimes even braved the phalanx of girls at the class in order to go himself and see her dance.
And once a year Curly came with his company and acted in the Oxford Theatre. Mr. Wycherly always took Jane-Anne and Curly always came to see them in Holywell, and every time he came he asked Mr. Wycherly the same question: "Well, and have you settled yet what she is to be?"
"She talks," said Mr. Wycherly, "of being a teacher of dancing—but it seems to me that in that case her education is rather thrown away."
"A teacher of dancing!" Curly repeated ironically. "I think I see her teaching dancing for long."
"She came to me last night," Mr. Wycherly continued, as though he had not heard, "and asked abruptly, 'Do you think one can serve God and dance for a living?'"
"Ah," said Curly, "that's a different thing; and what did you say, sir?"
"I fear," said Mr. Wycherly humbly, "that I made no very definite answer."
"I should like to know what you think," Curly persisted. "You consider dancing to be one of the beautiful and delightful arts?"
"I do."
"And in Jane-Anne that art finds the subtlest and most delicate expression?"
Mr. Wycherly groaned.
"Why should she not serve God as well in that way as in any other?"
"Because," said Mr. Wycherly haughtily, "I should dislike it extremely."
Curly laughed.
"I have an idea," he said, "that Miss Allegra Stavrides will find another mode of expressing the artist that is in her."
Mr. Wycherly groaned again. "She is so young," he said; "why should she be anything at all for years and years?"
"Because," said Curly, "the race is to the swift, and the child is very fleet of foot."
"You will not, promise me you will not, say or do anything to put such an idea into her head," Mr. Wycherly pleaded.
"My dear old friend, the idea has been there for years—and it is quite possible it may come to nothing."
But though Curly spake comfortable words there was no conviction in his voice.
CHAPTER XVIII
GANTRY BILL
"Oh, why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian!I've lost my rest at night, my peace by day,For want of some brown holland or Venetian,Over the way."TOM HOOD
"Oh, why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian!I've lost my rest at night, my peace by day,For want of some brown holland or Venetian,Over the way."TOM HOOD
"Oh, why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian!
I've lost my rest at night, my peace by day,
I've lost my rest at night, my peace by day,
For want of some brown holland or Venetian,
Over the way."TOM HOOD
Over the way."
TOM HOOD
TOM HOOD
Old Holywell in Oxford town is an interesting street. Not only does every house there differ from its neighbour, but the inhabitants are just as varied.
Opposite Mr. Wycherly's was a tall, straight, grey house, which had been let as rooms to generations of undergraduates when the time came for them to "live out." Some two years before, Jane-Anne had watched these young gentlemen, as she then still called them, with the greatest interest; in fact, undergraduates as a class held for her one supreme possibility—one of them might fulfil in the flesh all she had dreamed in the spirit of Lord Byron.
She had never met one that in the least resembled her dream. They were, for the most part, broad-shouldered, brown-faced, exceedingly untidy young men, who slouched about Oxford in ancient Norfolk jackets, baggy grey flannel trousers, and slippers down at the heel. Most of them looked in the best of health and spirits. The few who might, perhaps, be suspected of soulfulness were so plain-looking, that she dismissed them at once; they were out of the running altogether.
Montagu was good-looking in a straight-featured, quiet sort of way. Edmund was radiantly and riotously handsome. Mr. Wycherly, in Jane-Anne's opinion and that of several other people, was the most beautiful person in Oxford. Therefore she was hard to please.
After she came under the influence of Miss Willows, young men interested her no more. True to her theory that every eventuality should be met fearlessly, Miss Willows never omitted the possibility of marriage from talks with her girls. With her, they regarded it as a rather commonplace fate, that might perhaps fall to the lot of some of them. But there were many more interesting things in life than that.
Miss Willows never, by word or look, hinted to her girls that young men were dangerous, and therefore to be avoided. They were there in Oxford in large numbers, let the girls meet them in society if possible, let them judge of them dispassionately. Let there be no glamour of the forbidden about them. They might talk to them; listen to them; weigh their conversation in the balance of reason, and—she always added inwardly—"find it wanting." But she never said this; she implied it, and the girls, with youthful earnestness and scorn, finished the sentence for themselves.
Jane-Anne met no young men. Every undergraduate at New College knew Mr. Wycherly by sight, but not one knew any more of him. At the time when Jane-Anne took an interest in them they took no sort of interest in her. Now that she was tall and straight, with frocks down to her ankles, and bright eyes that rained influence, a good many undergraduates wished they knew Mr. Wycherly. As for Jane-Anne, she desired no notice from foolish young men. The notice she craved was larger and more impersonal, and although she was an impatient young person, she was content to wait for it. She knew that she was not wasting her time. She studied Greek dramatists with Mr. Wycherly, and read eagerly every word of his translation of Aristotle's "Poetics," laying to heart many of its maxims. She walked to and from school by herself, she went on occasional errands for Mrs. Dew, but beyond that she was rarely seen in Oxford except accompanied by Mr. Wycherly. With him she wandered in college gardens, and by the banks of the Cherwell. When the boys came back, she spent long days on the river with them, and every new dance she learned at school she danced again for "the master," and in summer always danced barefooted on the lawn.
Mr. Wycherly allowed her to do her evening work in the parlour, which was quieter than the housekeeper's room in such close proximity to Mrs. Dew. The May nights were hot, and Jane-Anne opened the window and drew back the short white curtains to let in as much air as possible. People might look in if they liked. It mattered nothing to Jane-Anne, loftily absorbed in work for Miss Willows.
There she sat at the round, rosewood table in the middle of the room, the electric light shaded and drawn low over her papers (Mr. Wycherly never allowed her to work in a bad light), her delicate Greek profile presented to every chance observer, severe, detached, an example of studious girlhood most edifying to behold.
So evidently thought the undergraduate who lived opposite. For no sooner had she turned on her light than he extinguished his and took a seat in the window, which, a little above the level of hers, commanded an excellent view of Mr. Wycherly's parlour. His watch was shared by a white bull terrier, who spent long hours sitting on the sill.
That undergraduate was a rowing man, the Eights came on in another fortnight, and in the evenings he "did a slack."
He was musical, this undergraduate, possessed a piano and a pleasing tenor voice, and sometimes after dinner, although Jane-Anne would not have dreamed of interrupting her work for one instant to listen, she was vaguely conscious that the music was agreeable, and was sorry when it ceased.
One evening, however, she did listen, for there came from the house opposite strains that were, to her, curiously familiar; a queer, old-fashioned song, and then with a little leap of the heart she recognised a poem she knew and loved. The young man opposite had evidently been well taught, it was quite possible to hear his words. She stopped short in the middle of a complicated sentence to the effect that the aim of discipline is to produce a self-governing unit, laid down her pen, and, forgetful that the light was behind her, went to the window and leaned out.
The young man seated at the piano in the darkness of the room opposite smiled gleefully, and sang more loudly and with increased fervour:
"By those tresses unconfinedWoo'd by each Ægean wind;By those lids whose jetty fringeKiss thy soft cheek's blooming tinge;By those soft eyes like the roe ..."
"By those tresses unconfinedWoo'd by each Ægean wind;By those lids whose jetty fringeKiss thy soft cheek's blooming tinge;By those soft eyes like the roe ..."
"By those tresses unconfined
Woo'd by each Ægean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheek's blooming tinge;
By those soft eyes like the roe ..."
Then followed the passionate Greek invocation with which each line of Byron's "Maid of Athens" concludes.
Miss Willows would doubtless have dismissed words and music as hackneyed and obvious. But her pupil had read the verses till she knew them by heart, feeling, as in the case of "She walks in beauty like the night," that Lord Byron had written them for her and about her; she had not heard them sung since her mother sang them to her when she was a very little child. Now in the soft spring night the once familiar strains came floating across the quiet street charged full of innocent and tender memories.
In the semi-darkness, Jane-Anne beheld a ghostly white dog, seated solemn and sedate on the window-ledge. The dog also noticed Jane-Anne, and while his master still passionately proclaimed the fact that his heart had passed into the possession of "The Maid of Athens," the dog pricked forward his long ears, after the fashion of a bull-terrier when interested, and wagged his tail. At that instant the music ceased with a crash of chords.
"Oh, you dear!" exclaimed Jane-Anne, and went back to her work.
The singer came and sat in the window again.
"Gantry Bill," he said softly, "which of us did she call a dear?"
Gantry Bill wagged his tail again.
Hehadn't the smallest doubt.
"That seemed to fetch her rather," the singer continued.
Gantry Bill evidently thought this a foolish remark, for he made no response.
"It's a shame to make such a pretty girl work so hard, ain't it, Bill?"
Here Gantry Bill was more sympathetic, and tried to lick his master's face.
"We'll try another," said that gentleman, "we'll fetch her again, won't us, Bill?"
But he sang the most passionate love songs in his repertoire, apparently to deaf ears. The little head, with its cameo-like profile and dark wealth of hair, remained studiously bent under the shaded light. The self-governing unit had triumphed.
Her opposite neighbour might shout himself hoarse for all she cared. She wanted full marks and a "plus" for her essay.
Night after night that week from the house opposite a tenor voice apostrophised some peerless she. But never again did Jane-Anne go to the window, and Gantry Bill laid his head sideways on his paws, his ears flopped forwards, and snored gently, while his master, at the top of his voice, proclaimed "the thousand beauties that he knew so well."
He was a patient dog, Gantry Bill. More patient than his master who, by-and-bye, gave it up as a bad job—and went out. He occasionally attended lectures, too, whither the dog could not accompany him. Then would Bill sit on the window-ledge watching the passers-by with a wise reflective air, or sleep in that pathetic abandonment of attitude habitual to the bull-terrier.
Jane-Anne sometimes crossed the street, spoke to him, caressed him, and peeped into the empty room behind—a most untidy room.
"Poor doggie," she said, one Saturday afternoon, "alone so much; would you like to come and play in our garden, Gantry Bill? It's much cooler than over here. The master's out, and you'll not bother anybody."
Gantry Bill looked at her, and evidently was tempted. In fact, a pretty girl in a white frock on a hot July afternoon is always a pleasing apparition.
Very slowly, like a stiff old gentleman, Gantry Bill arose and stood on the window-ledge. He smiled at Jane-Anne, and playfully took her hand into his mouth and mumbled it, in token of his approval.
"He's gone to the boats, he'll be hours and hours," she said. "I saw him rushing up the street in those awful little short knickerbockers, and you left all alone to mope, poor dear! Why shouldn't you have a little amusement, too?"
This appeared a sound argument. Gantry Bill dropped from the window-ledge into the street, and followed Jane-Anne across the road. Into the garden she took him by devious ways that did not challenge the observation of Mrs. Dew. She fetched him water in a pie-dish and presented him with a chocolate biscuit, then she sat down under the apple-tree to mend her stockings. But Gantry Bill hadn't come out for the afternoon to watch people mend stockings.
He spied a hockey ball lying on the path, seized it in his mouth, and galumphed heavily towards Jane-Anne, laid it at her feet, barked and made a series of short rushes at her in token that he desired to play.
"Hush," said Jane-Anne, holding up a needle in her finger and thumb, "you mustn't bark, else aunt'll hear you and come out. What do you want?"
Another short rush, another "wouf," and an eager head, ears cocked forward, eyes beseeching Jane-Anne.
"You want me to throw it, do you?"
This was exactly what Gantry Bill did want, and for twenty minutes he kept Jane-Anne very busy indeed. Then, hot and exhausted, they both sat down under the apple-tree, and she was permitted to mend her stocking. This was the first of many meetings.
Gantry Bill's master had no idea his dog made assignations with the young lady of the Greek profile and the long, thick pig-tail. Otherwise he would have insisted upon an introduction. She showed no signs of playing Eurydice to his Orpheus, sang he never so. None of his pals knew Mr. Wycherly, and Mr. Wycherly's friends in Oxford he did not know; and just because the thing seemed so impossible he ardently desired to meet Jane-Anne, and he had never wanted much to know any girl before. He was not a ladies' man.
After all, it was Gantry Bill who brought the thing about.
Mrs. Dew was very particular about eggs. Shop eggs she declined to use even for the "egg and bread crumb" of fish, and all eggs in Holywell came from an old woman who lived on the Iffley Road, kept large numbers of fowls, and sold her eggs to a chosen few who would fetch them.
It was one of Jane-Anne's duties to fetch eggs twice a week. It happened, however, that Mrs. Dew "ran short" one day when she particularly wanted to make an omelette for Mr. Wycherly's dinner. So after tea she sent Jane-Anne, with a shilling tucked into her glove, to bring the required eggs. Jane-Anne walked quickly and procured the eggs without adventure of any kind, carrying them in a little round basket shaped like the hilt of a single-stick.
It was hot, and on her return she walked more slowly, dreaming as she went. She held the basket rather loosely in one hand, and was quite unprepared when a heavy body bounced at her from behind and knocked her over. The basket flew from her hand, the eggs were scattered and smashed; and much startled and confused she felt two strong hands under her armpits that raised her to her feet, while a penitent voice exclaimed:
"I say, I am most awfully sorry; it's that brute of a dog. I can't think what possessed him to bounce at you like that. He's never done it before to anybody. I dohopeyou're not hurt or very frightened. Down, sir! Down, you brute! You shall have a good thrashing for this."
Jane-Anne recovered her senses to perceive that a tall young man, in a blazer and white flannel trousers, had picked her up, that two other young men stood by, looking rather amused, and that Gantry Bill was cringing at her feet in evident expectation of the beating his master had promised him, while round about them the broken eggs were drawing maps upon the dusty road.
"Please don't beat him," she said, hastily settling her hat, which had been knocked over her nose. "He didn't mean to knock me down; he was only saying how-do-you-do. He's a great friend of mine, really."
"Lucky beggar," said the young man; "but I don't see why he should show his friendship in such an inconvenient fashion. He must be a tremendous weight to knock you down like that."
The two other young men had discreetly strolled on. Jane-Anne, Gantry Bill and his master stood in the road encircled by broken eggs, and looked at one another. Jane-Anne saw a tall, broad-shouldered young man with a brown face, a very clean brown face that had once been fair. He was not handsome—his nose was too broad and his mouth too big; but he had splendid strong white teeth and merry blue eyes, which, at that moment, looked into her own full of contrition and commiseration.
"I think," he added hastily, "that we are neighbours; don't you live opposite?"
"That's how I knew your dog," Jane-Anne explained. "You leave him alone a great deal."
"I can't take him to lectures."
"I'm sure he'd behave very well. But, as I was saying, you leave him alone and I was sorry for him, and so he sometimes comes and visits me, and we're great friends, aren't we, Gantry Bill?"
"You know his name?" the young man exclaimed.
"Of course. I'm not deaf, and the street is not wide. Oh, dear! whatever shall I do about the eggs?"
"Where did you get them, and we'll go and get some more?"
"But I haven't any more money, and we always pay for them."
"Of course, you must allow me to pay for them. My dog broke them."
"If you wouldn't mind—just for to-day. You see, if I don't take them back aunt couldn't make an omelette for Mr. Wycherly's dinner."
"Let's go and get them at once. We can get them at the nearest grocer's."
"Oh, you needn't trouble to come with me. I must go back, for aunt won't get eggs anywhere else. If you could lend me the shilling——"
"I'm going to carry those eggs, and see you safe home. You might feel faint or something after such a shock."
Jane-Anne laughed, but she did not forbid him to accompany her. Gantry Bill gambolled on ahead, and together they bought another shilling's worth of eggs from Mrs. Dew's old woman.
As they walked down the Iffley Road together, he said rather diffidently: "Gantry Bill is more fortunate than his master, since he seems to know you, Miss Wycherly."
"My name's not Wycherly," Jane-Anne answered. "It's Stavrides. I'm no relation to Mr. Wycherly; my aunt is his housekeeper, and he lets me live there. I love him dearly."
"My name's George Gordon."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Are you any relation to Lord Byron?"
"Certainly not, I'm glad to say," he remarked decidedly. "We're quite another lot of Gordons. It's a big clan, you know. We're the Dumfrieshire Gordons. The poet was a gloomy sort of chap, wasn't he?"
Jane-Anne stood still, and gazed at the Gordon at her side with great indignation.
"Gloomy," she repeated; "sad, if you like, sometimes, but very witty and amusing; have you read his letters?"
George Gordon hung his head; the brown eyes looking up into his were so grave and accusing.
"I'm afraid I know very little about him," he said humbly; "perhaps he was an ancestor of yours—I'm awfully sorry——"
Again Jane-Anne laughed, and he thought she had the prettiest laugh. "Do you only defend people when they are your relations?" she asked. "I admire Lord Byron's poetry, and I am grateful to him because he gave his life for my country—but he's not the least little bit of an ancestor. I don't think I've got any."
"That must be rather jolly, because then you can play off your own bat, and people aren't always expecting things of you because your great-great-uncle did something or other last century."
"Oh, I'd like them if I'd got them," she said; "but as I haven't—it's no use fretting. Have you a great many?"
"Nothing to speak of," he said, blushing. "I can't think how we've got on to such a footling subject. You like Gantry Bill, don't you?"
"He's a perfect dear, but why is he called Gantry Bill? What's gantry mean—I looked it up in the dictionary, and it says——"
"Oh, it's nothing to do with that—it's some soldiers' lingo—he belonged to my elder brother; he's a gunner and he had to go to Nigeria and couldn't take him, so he gave him to me. He's a faithful beast, and understands every word you say to him."
By this time they had reached Long Wall, and as they strolled along in intimate converse they met Miss Willows, who looked hard at Jane-Anne and her escort carrying the basket of eggs.
When they reached the archway leading into the builder's yard, Jane-Anne stopped and bade him farewell.
"I can't pay you the shilling now," she said, "for I haven't got one, but the minute I have one I'll bring it over. I've spent my allowance for this month already."
"Oh, please," he said, looking most unhappy; "please don't speak of it. I broke the eggs, at least Bill did—so, of course——"
"Good-bye," said Jane-Anne, and vanished in at the side-door.
George Gordon crossed the road very slowly, with Gantry Bill following sedately at his heels; when they reached his sitting-room he sank heavily into the chair by the window, and the bull-terrier leapt up on to his seat on the window-sill.
"I say, Bill," his master asked, "how have you contrived to see so much of her?"
The shilling weighed heavily on Jane-Anne's mind. She could not repay it herself, for she had spent four-and-elevenpence-halfpenny on the first of May, the day she got her allowance, on a pair of black silk stockings declared to be "half-price," which she had greatly coveted to dance in.
Mrs. Dew would undoubtedly repay the shilling, but she would, at the same time, ask so many questions and comment so severely on Jane-Anne's carelessness, and (this was what Jane-Anne particularly dreaded) express such horror at her "forwardness" in walking home with George Gordon, that Jane-Anne simply could not summon up enough moral courage to confess herself to her aunt.
Therefore, as had happened hundreds of times in the past, there was nothing for it but to go to "the master" who would, she knew, get her out of the difficulty, and ask no questions. Yet—she felt shy even of the master.
Suppose he forbade her ever to speak to George Gordon or Gantry Bill again?
Still, the shilling must be got back to George Gordon that night, and it was already seven o'clock, time for her to lay dinner. She ran up to Mr. Wycherly's study, and found him sitting in his arm-chair by the window reading Horace.
She went and stood before his chair, clasped her hands behind her, and announced:
"I broke a whole basketful of eggs, sir, this afternoon. They cost a shilling."
"Do you think," said Mr. Wycherly, smiling, "that the domestic exchequer will stand such a heavy drain upon it?"
"But that's not all," she continued breathlessly. "He picked me up, and as I hadn't another shilling he paid for the eggs, and I've spent all my money, and can't pay him back till June. Will you lend me the money to pay him?"
Mr. Wycherly no longer lounged in his chair. He sat up very straight, but he spoke gently as usual, saying:
"Do you mind explaining to me who 'he' is, and why you should need to be picked up?"
"Gantry Bill, that's his dog, bounced at me from behind; we're great friends and he was glad to see me, and I was thinking deeply, and he knocked me over and the eggs flew all about and made a great mess, so he helped me up and we went together to buy more eggs, and he carried them home for me."
"Gantry Bill, as you call him," Mr. Wycherly said, his eyes twinkling, "seems a very remarkable dog. First, he knocks you down, then he picks you up and gives you a shilling to buy eggs, which he politely carries home for you. Is it this intelligent animal that you propose to repay?"
"No," said Jane-Anne, blushing hotly; "it's the intelligent animal's master. He lives just opposite. He's at New College."
"And is it he who is such a great friend of yours?" Mr. Wycherly asked, as though it were the most natural conclusion possible.
"No," said Jane-Anne, rosier than ever; "I never spoke to him before, though I knew him by sight. He's rather nice," she added; "his name is George Gordon, but he's no relation to dear Lord Byron—and he doesn't seem a bit sorry. May I take the shilling over?"
"I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "that perhaps it would be better if I took him the shilling myself. After all, you know, the eggs were for the house, and therefore my affair."
"Oh, would you?" cried Jane-Anne. "That is perfectly lovely of you, and then you'll see him, and see if you like him."
"Exactly," said Mr. Wycherly, "that's why I want to go."
"You will give it back to-night, won't you?" she begged.
"Directly after dinner; I hope he will be at home."
"Oh, he's sure to be at home," she said simply. "He generally sings then; I hear him while I'm working. He sings 'Maid of Athens' most beautifully."
"Does he indeed?" said Mr. Wycherly.