"Et non, non, non,Vous n'êtes plus Lisette,Ne portez plus ce nom."
"Et non, non, non,Vous n'êtes plus Lisette,Ne portez plus ce nom."
"Et non, non, non,Vous n'êtes plus Lisette,Ne portez plus ce nom."
"Et non, non, non,
Vous n'êtes plus Lisette,
Ne portez plus ce nom."
As the footsteps drew nearer the words of the song could be clearly distinguished.
Gertrude turned towards the door, which fronted the fire-place, and as she did so the song ceased, the curtain was pushed aside, and a person, presumably the singer, came into the room.
He was a man of middle height, and middle age, with light brown hair, parted in the centre, and a moustache and Vandyke beard of the same colour. He was not, strictly speaking, handsome, but he wore that air of distinction which power and the assurance of power alone can confer. His whole appearance was a masterly combination of the correct and the picturesque.
He advanced deliberately towards Gertrude.
"Allow me, Miss Lorimer, to introduce myself."
He spoke carelessly, yet with a note of disappointment in his voice, and a shade of moodiness in his heavy-lidded eyes.
Gertrude, looking up and meeting the cold, grey glance, became suddenly conscious that her hat was shabby, that her boots were patched and clumsy, that the wind had blown the wisps of hair about herface. What was there in this man's gaze that made her, all at once, feel old and awkward, ridiculous and dowdy; that made her long to snatch up her heavy camera and flee from his presence, never to return?
What, indeed? Gertrude, we know, had a vivid imagination, and that perhaps was responsible for the sense of oppression, defiance, and self-distrust with which she followed Mr. Darrell across the room to one of the easels, on which was displayed a remarkable study in oils of a winter aspect of the Grand Canal at Venice.
There was certainly, superficially speaking, no ground for her feeling in the artist's conduct. With his own hands he set up and fixed the heavy camera on the tripod stand, questioned her, in his low, listless tones, as to her convenience, and observed, by way of polite conversation, that he had had the pleasure of meeting her sister the week before at the Oakleys.
To her own unutterable vexation, Gertrude found herself rather cowed by the man and his indifferent politeness, through which she seemed to detect the lurking contempt; and as his glance of cold irony fell upon her from time to time, from beneaththe heavy lids, she found herself beginning to take part not only against herself but also against the type of woman to which she belonged.
Having made the necessary adjustments, and given the necessary directions, Darrell went over to the fire-place, and cast himself into a lounge, where the leather screen shut out his well-appointed person from Gertrude's sight. She, on her part, set about her task without enjoyment, and was glad when it was over and she could pack up the dark-slides. As she was unscrewing the camera from the stand, the curtain before the doorway was pushed aside for the second time, and a man entered unannounced. At the same moment Darrell advanced from behind his screen, and the two men met in the middle of the room.
"Delighted to see you back, my dear fellow."
It seemed to Gertrude that a shade of deference had infused itself into the artist's manner, as he cordially clasped hands with the new comer.
This person was a tall, sinewy man of from thirty-five to forty years of age, with stooping shoulders and a brown beard. From hercorner by the easel Miss Lorimer could see his face, and her casual glance falling upon it was arrested by a sudden sense of recognition.
Where had she seen them before; the ample forehead, the clear, grey eyes, the rough yet generous lines of the features?
This man's face was sunburnt, cheery, smiling; the face which it recalled had been pale, haggard, worn with watching and sorrow. Then, as by a flash, she saw it all again before her eyes; the dainty room flooded with October sunlight; the dead woman lying there with her golden hair spread on the pillow; the bearded, averted face, and stooping form of the figure that crouched by the window.
"I only hope," she reflected, "that he will not recognise me. The recollections that the sight of me would summon up could scarcely be pleasant. I have no wish to enact the part of skeleton at the feast."
With a desponding sense that she had no right to her existence, Gertrude gathered up her possessions and made her way across the room.
Darrell came forward slowly, "Oh, put down those heavy things," he said.
Lord Watergate, for it was he, went over to the fire-place and stood there warming his hands.
"May I trouble you to have a cab called?"
Gertrude spoke in her most dignified manner.
"Certainly. But won't you come to the fire?"
Darrell rang a bell which stood on the mantelshelf, and indicated to Gertrude a chair by the screen.
Gertrude, however, preferred to stand, and for some moments the three people on the tiger-skin hearthrug stared into the fire in silence.
Then Darrell said in an offhand manner: "Miss Lorimer has been kind enough to photograph my 'Grand Canal' for me."
Lord Watergate, looking up suddenly, met Gertrude's glance. For a moment a puzzled expression came into his eyes, then changed to one of recognition and recollection. After some hesitation, he said:
"It must be difficult to do justice in a photograph to such a picture."
She threw him back his commonplace:
"Oh, the gradations of tone often come out surprisingly well."
Inwardly she was saying, "How he must hate the sight of me."
Darrell looked from one to the other, dimly suspicious of their mutual consciousness, then rejected the suspicion as an absurd one.
"I will write to you about those sketches," he said, as the cab was announced.
Lucy and Phyllis were frisking about the studio, as young creatures will do in the spring, when Gertrude entered, weary and dispirited, from her expedition to The Sycamores.
The girls fell upon her at once for news.
She flung herself into the sitter's chair, which half revolved with the violence of the action.
"Say something nice to me," she cried. "Compliment me on my beauty, my talents, my virtues. There is no flattery so gross that I could not swallow it."
Phyllis looked from her to Lucy and tapped her forehead in significant pantomime.
"You are everything that is most delightful," said Lucy; "only do tell us about the great man."
"He was odious," cried Gertrude.
"She has never been quarrelling, I will not say with her own, but withourbread-and-butter," said Phyllis, in affected dismay.
"I will never go there again, if that's what you mean."
"But what is the matter, Gerty? I found him quite polite."
"Polite? It is worse than rudeness, a politeness which says so plainly: 'This is for my own sake, not for yours.'"
"You are really cross, Gerty; what has the illustrious Sidney been doing to you?" said Lucy, who did not suffer from violent likes and dislikes.
"Oh," cried Gertrude, laughing ruefully; "how shall I explain? He is this sort of man;—if a woman were talking to him of—of the motions of the heavenly bodies, he would be thinking all the time of the shape of her ankles."
"Great heavens, Gerty, did you make the experiment?"
Phyllis opened her pretty eyes their widest as she spoke.
"We all know," remarked Lucy, with a twinkle in her eye, "that it is best to begin with a little aversion."
Phyllis struck an attitude:
"'Friends meet to part, but foes once joined——'"
"Girls, what has come over you?" exclaimed Gertrude, dismayed.
"Gerty is shocked," said Lucy; "one is always stumbling unawares on her sense of propriety."
"She is like the Bishop of Rumtyfoo," added Phyllis; "she does draw the line at such unexpected places."
La science l'avait gardé naïf.Alphonse Daudet.
La science l'avait gardé naïf.Alphonse Daudet.
La science l'avait gardé naïf.Alphonse Daudet.
La science l'avait gardé naïf.
Alphonse Daudet.
The last Sunday in March was Show Sunday; and Frank, who was of a festive disposition, had invited all the people he knew in London to inspect his pictures and Mr. Oakley's before they were sent in to the Royal Academy.
Mr. Oakley was a middle-aged Bohemian, who had made a small success in his youth and never got beyond it. It had been enough, however, to launch him into the artistic world, and it was probably only owing to the countenance of his brothers ofthe brush that he was able to sell his pictures at all. Oakley was an accepted fact, if nothing more; the critics treated him with respect if without enthusiasm; the exhibition committees hung him, though not indeed on the line, and the public bought his pictures, which had the advantage of being moderate in price and signed with a name that everybody knew.
Of course this indifferent child of the earth had a wife and family; and he had been only too glad to share his studio expenses with young Jermyn, whose father, the Cornish clergyman, had been a friend of his own youth.
"I wonder," said Gertrude, as the Lorimers dressed for Frank's party, "if there will be a lot of gorgeous people this afternoon?" And she looked ruefully at the patch on her boot, with a humiliating reminiscence of Darrell's watchful eye.
"I don't expect so," answered Phyllis, whose pretty feet were appropriately shod. "You know what dowdy people one meets at the Oakleys. Oh, of course they know others, but they don't turn up, somehow."
"Then there will be Mr. Jermyn's people,"said Lucy, inspecting her gloves with a frown.
"A lot of pretty, well-dressed girls, no doubt," answered Phyllis; "I expect that well-beloved youth has a wife in every port, or at least a young woman in every suburb."
"Apropos," said Gertrude, "I wonder if the Devonshires will be there. We never seem to see Conny in these days."
"Isn't it rather a strain on friendship," answered Phyllis, shrewdly, "when two sets of our friends become acquainted, and seem to prefer one another tous, the old and tried and trusty friend of each?"
"What horrid things you say sometimes, Phyllis," objected Lucy, as the three sisters trooped downstairs.
Fanny was not with them; she was spending the day with some relations of her mother's.
A curious, dreamlike sensation stole over Gertrude at finding herself once again in a roomful of people; and as an old war-horse is said to become excited at the sound of battle, so she felt the social instincts rise strongly within her as the familiar, forgotten pageant of nods and becks and wreathed smiles burst anew upon her.
Frank shot across the room, like an arrow from the bow, as the Lorimers entered.
"How late you are," he said; "I was beginning to have a horrible fear that you were not coming at all."
"How pretty it all is," said Lucy, sweetly. "Those great brass jars with the daffodils are charming; and what an overwhelming number of people."
Conny came up to them, splendid as ever, but with a restless light in her eyes, an unnatural flush on her cheek.
"How do you do, girls?" she said, abruptly. "You look seedy, Gerty." Then, as Frank moved off to fetch them some tea: "I do so hate afternoon affairs, don't you?"
"How pretty Frank looks," whispered Phyllis to Lucy; "I like to see him flying in and out among the people, as though his life depended on it, don't you? And the daffodil in his coat just suits his complexion."
"Phyllis, don't be so silly!"
Lucy refrained from smiling, but her eyes followed, with some amusement, the picturesque and active figure of her host, as he went about his duties with his usual air of earnestness and candour.
"Come and look at the pictures, Lucy. That's what you're here for, you know," remarked Fred, who had joined their group, and was looking the very embodiment of Philistine comeliness. "I haven't seen you for an age," he added, as they made their way to one of the easels.
"That is your own fault, isn't it?" said Lucy, lightly.
"Conny has got it into her head that you don't care to see us."
"How can Conny be so silly?"
"Don't tell her I told you. She would be in no end of a wax," he added, as Phyllis and Constance pressed by them in the crush.
Gertrude was still standing near the doorway, sipping her tea, and looking about her with a rather wistful interest. She had caught here and there glimpses of familiar faces, faces from her own old world—that world which, takenen masse, she had so fervently disliked; but no one had taken any notice of the young woman by the doorway, with her pale face and suit of rusty black.
"I feel like a ghost," she said to Frank, as she handed him her empty cup.
"You do look horribly white," heanswered, with genuine concern; "I wish you were looking as well as your sisters—Miss Phyllis for instance."
He glanced across as he spoke with undisguised admiration at the slim young figure, and blooming face of the girl, who stood smiling down with amiable indifference at one of his own canvasses.
Phyllis Lorimer belonged to that rare order of women who are absolutely independent of their clothes.
By the side of her old black gown and well-worn hat, Constance Devonshire's elaborate spring costume looked vulgar and obtrusive; and Constance herself, in the light of her friend's more delicate beauty, seemedbourgeoiseand overblown.
The effect of this contrast was not lost on two men who, at this point of the proceedings, strolled into the room, and whom the Oakleys came forward with someempressementto receive.
"I have brought you Lord Watergate," Gertrude heard one of them say, in a voice which she recognised at once, the sound of which filled her with a vague sense of discomfort.
"Darrell, by all that's wonderful!"said Frank,sotto voce, his eyes shining with enthusiasm; "there, with the light Vandyke beard—but you know him already."
"Hasn't he a Show Sunday of his own?" replied Gertrude, in a voice that implied that the wish was father to the thought.
"He has a gallery all to himself in Bond Street this season. I wonder if he will sing this afternoon."
"Mr. Darrell is a person of many accomplishments it seems."
"Oh, rather!" and Frank went off to offer a pleased and modest welcome to the illustrious guest.
Sidney Darrell, having succeeded in escaping from the Oakleys and their tea-table, made his way across the room, stopping here and there to exchange greetings with the people that he knew, and moving with that ostentatious air of lack of purpose which is so often assumed in society to mask a set and deliberate plan.
"How do you do, Miss Lorimer?" He stopped in front of Phyllis and held out his hand.
Phyllis's flower-face brightened at this recognition from the great man.
"Now, don't you think this is the most ridiculous institution on the face of the earth?" said Darrell, as he took his place beside her, for Conny had moved off discreetly at his approach.
"Which institution? Tea, pictures, people?"
"Their incongruous combination under the name of Show Sunday."
"Oh, I think it's fun. But then I have never seen the sort of thing before."
"You are greatly to be envied, Miss Lorimer."
"How lovely Phyllis is looking," cried Conny, who had joined Gertrude near the doorway; "she grows prettier every day."
"Do you think so?" answered Gertrude. "She looks to me more delicate than ever, with that flush on her cheek, and that shining in her eyes."
"Nonsense, Gerty; you are quite ridiculous about Phyllis. She appears to be amusing Mr. Darrell, at any rate. She says just the sort of things Mr. Lorimer used to. She is more like him than any of you."
"Yes." Gertrude winced; then, looking up, saw Mr. Oakley and a tall man standing before her.
"Lord Watergate, Miss Lorimer."
The grey eyes looked straight into hers, and a deep voice said—
"We have met before. But I scarcely ventured to regard myself as introduced to you."
Lord Watergate smiled as he spoke, and, with a sense of relief, Gertrude felt that here, at least, was a friendly presence.
"I met you at The Sycamores on Wednesday."
"If it could be called a meeting. That's a wonderful picture of Darrell's."
"Yes."
"Oakley has been telling me about the great success in photography of you and your sisters."
"I don't know about success!" Gertrude laughed.
"You look so tired, Miss Lorimer; let me find you a seat."
"No, thank you; I prefer to stand. One sees the world so much better."
"Ah, you like to see the world?"
"Yes; it is always interesting."
"It is to be assumed that you are fond of society?"
"Does one follow from the other?"
"No; I merely hazarded the question."
"One demands so much more of a game in which one is taking part," said Gertrude; "and with social intercourse, one is always thinking how much better managed it might be."
They both laughed.
"Now what is your ideal society, Miss Lorimer?"
"A society not of class, caste, or family—but of picked individuals."
"I think we tend more and more towards such a society, at least in London," said Lord Watergate; then added, "You are a democrat, Miss Lorimer."
"And you are an optimist, Lord Watergate."
"Oh, I'm quite unformulated. But let us leave off this mutual recrimination for the present; and perhaps you can tell me who is the lady talking to Sidney Darrell."
Lord Watergate's attention had been suddenly caught by Phyllis; Gertrude noted that he was looking at her with all his eyes.
"That is one of my sisters," she said.
He turned towards her with a start;there was a note of constraint in his tones as he said—
"She is very beautiful."
What was there in his voice, in his face, that suddenly brought before Gertrude's vision the image of the dead woman, her golden hair, and haggard beauty?
Phyllis, on her part, had been aware of the brief but intense gaze which the grey eyes had cast upon her from the other side of the room.
"Who is that person talking to my sister?" she said.
Darrell looked across coldly, and answered: "Oh, that's Lord Watergate, the great physiologist."
"I have never met a lord before."
"And, after all, this isn't much of a lord, because the peer is quite swallowed up in the man of science."
Oakley came up, entreating Darrell to sing.
"But isn't it quite irregular, to-day?"
"Oh, we don't pretend to be fashionable. This isn't 'Show Sunday,' pure and simple, but just a pretext for seeing one's friends."
"By the by," said the artist, as Oakley went off to open the little piano, "is it anygood my sending the sketches this week? though it's horribly bad form to talk shop."
"You must ask my sister about those things."
"Oh, your sister is far and away too clever for me."
"Gertrude is clever, but not in the way you mean."
"Nevertheless, I am horribly afraid of her."
Darrell went over to the piano and sang a little French song, with perfect art, in his rich baritone. Gertrude watched him, as he sat there playing his own accompaniment, and a vague terror stole over her of this irreproachable-looking person, who did everything so well; whose quiet presence was redolent of an immeasurable, because an unknown strength; and who, she felt (indignantly remembering the cold irony of his glance) could never, under any circumstances, be made to appear ridiculous.
At the end of the song, Phyllis came over to Gertrude.
"Aren't we going, Gerty?" she said; "It is quite unfashionable to 'make a nightof it' like this. One is just supposed to look round and sail off to half-a-dozen other studios."
Lord Watergate, who stood near, caught the half-whispered words, and smiled, as one smiles at the nonsense of a pretty child. Gertrude saw the expression of his face as she answered—
"Yes, it is time we went. Tell Lucy; there she is with Mr. Jermyn."
Darrell came over to them as they were going, and shook hands, first with Gertrude, and then with Phyllis.
"Thank you," he said to the latter, "for a very pleasant afternoon."
Both he and Lord Watergate lingered in York Place till the other guests had departed, when they fell upon Frank for further information respecting the photographic studio.
"It doesn't look as if it paid them," remarked Darrell, by way of administering a damper to loyal Frank's enthusiasm.
"I wonder," said Lord Watergate, "if they would think it worth while to prepare some slides for me?"
"For the Royal Institution lectures?" Darrell sat down to the piano as he spoke,and ran his hands over the keys. "She is a charming creature—Phyllis."
"Charming!" cried Frank; "and so is Miss Lucy. And Gertrude is charming, too; she is the clever one."
"Oh, yes, Gertrude is the clever one; you can see that by her boots."
Meanwhile the Lorimers and the Devonshires were walking up Baker Street together, engaged, on their part also, in discussing the people from whom they had just parted.
"You are quite wrong, Gerty, about Mr. Darrell," cried Phyllis; "he is very nice, and great fun."
"What, the fellow with the goatee?" said Fred.
"Oh, Fred, his beautiful Vandyke beard!"
"I don't care, I don't like him."
"Nor do I, Fred," said Gertrude, with decision, as the whole party turned into Number 20B, and went up to the sitting-room.
"I think really you are a little unreasonable," said Lucy, putting her arm round her sister's waist; "he seemed quite a nice person."
"He looks," put in Conny, speaking forthe first time, "as though he meant to have the best of everything. But so do a great many of us mean that."
"But not," cried Gertrude, "by trampling over the bodies of other people. Ah, you are all laughing at me. But can one be expected to think well of a person who makes one feel like a strong-minded clown?"
They laughed more than ever at the curious image summoned up by her words; then Phyllis remarked, critically—
"There is one thing I don't like about him, and that is his eye. I particularly detest that sort of eye; prominent, with heavy lids, and those little puffy bags underneath."
"Phyllis, spare us these realistic descriptions," protested Lucy, "and let us dismiss Mr. Darrell, for the present at least. Perhaps our revered chaperon will tell us something of her experiences with a certain noble lord," she added, placing in her dress, with a smile of thanks, the gardenia of which Fred had divested himself in her favour.
"It was very nice of him," said Gertrude, gravely, "to get Mr. Oakley to introducehim to me, if only to show me that the sight of me did not make him sick."
"I like his face," added Lucy; "there is something almost boyish about it. Do you remember what Daudet says of the old doctor inJack, 'La science l'avait gardé naïf.'"
"What a set of gossips we are," cried Conny, who had taken little part in the conversation. "Come along, Fred; you know we are dining at the Greys to-night."
"Botheration! They are certain to give me Nelly to take in," grumbled Fred, who, like many of his sex, was extremely modest where his feelings were concerned, but cherished a belief that the mass of womankind had designs upon him; "and we never know what on earth to say to one another."
"There goes Mr. Jermyn," observed Phyllis, as the door closed on the brother and sister; "he said something about coming in here to-night."
Lucy, who was seated at some distance from the window, allowed herself to look up, and smiled as she remarked—
"What ages ago it seems since we usedto wonder about him and call him 'Conny's man.'"
"'Conny's man,'" added Phyllis, with a curl of her pretty lips, "who does not care two straws for Conny."
J'ai peur d'Avril, peur de l'émoiQu'éveille sa douceur touchante.Sully Prudhomme.
J'ai peur d'Avril, peur de l'émoiQu'éveille sa douceur touchante.Sully Prudhomme.
J'ai peur d'Avril, peur de l'émoiQu'éveille sa douceur touchante.Sully Prudhomme.
J'ai peur d'Avril, peur de l'émoi
Qu'éveille sa douceur touchante.
Sully Prudhomme.
April had come round again; and, like M. Sully Prudhomme, Gertrude was afraid of April.
As Fanny had remarked to Frank, the month had very painful associations for them all; but Gertrude's terror was older than their troubles, and was founded, not on the recollection of past sorrow, so much as on the cruel hunger for a present joy. And now again, after all her struggles, her passionate care for others, her resolute putting away of all thoughts of personalhappiness, now again the Spring was stirring in her veins, and voices which she had believed silenced for ever arose once more in her heart and clamoured for a hearing.
Often, before business hours, Gertrude might be seen walking round Regent's Park at a swinging pace, exorcising her demons; she was obliged, as she said, to ride her soul on the curb, and be very careful that it did not take the bit between its teeth—this poor, weak Gertrude, who seemed such a fountain-head of wisdom, such a tower of strength to the people among whom she dwelt.
At this period, also, she had had recourse, in the pauses of professional work, to her old consolation of literary effort, and had even sent some of her productions to Paternoster Row, with the same unsatisfactory results as of yore, she and Frank uniting their voices in that bitter cry of the rejected contributor, which in these days is heard through the breadth and length of the land.
One morning she came into the studio after her walk, to find Lucy engaged in focussing Frank, who was seated, wearingan air of immense solemnity, in the sitter's chair. Phyllis, meanwhile, hovered about, bestowing hints and suggestions on them both, secretly enjoying the quiet humour of the scene.
"It is Mr. Jermyn's birthday present," she announced, as Gertrude entered. "He is going to send it to Cornwall, which will be a nice advertisement for us."
Frank blushed slightly; and Lucy cried from beneath her black cloth, "Don't get up, Mr. Jermyn; Gertrude will excuse you, I am sure."
Gertrude, laughing, retreated to the waiting-room; where, throwing herself into a chair, and leaning both her elbows on a rickety scarlet table, she stared vaguely at the little picture of youth and grace which the parted curtains revealed to her.
How could they be so cheerful, so heedless? cried her heart, with a sudden impatience. Was this life, this ceaseless messing about in a pokey glass out-house, this eating and drinking and sleeping in the shabby London rooms?
Was any human creature to be blamed who rebelled against it? Did not flesh and blood cry out against such sordidness, withall the revel of the spring-time going on in the world beyond?
It is base and ignoble perhaps to scorn the common round, the trivial task, but is it not also ignoble and base to become so immersed in them as to desire nothing beyond?
"What mean thoughts I am thinking," cried Gertrude to herself, shocked at her own mood; then, gazing mechanically in front of her, saw Lucy disappear into the dark-room, and Frank come forward with outstretched hand.
"At last I can say 'good-morning,' Miss Lorimer."
Gertrude gave him her hand with a smile; Jermyn's was a presence that somehow always cleared the moral atmosphere.
"You will never guess," said Frank, "what I have brought you."
As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a number ofThe Woodcut, damp from the press, and opening it at a particular page, spread it on the table before her.
Phyllis, becoming aware of these proceedings, came across to the waiting-room and leaned over her sister's shoulder.
"Oh, Gerty, what fun."
On one side of the page was a large wood-engraving representing four people on a lawn-tennis court. Three of them were girls, in whom could be traced distinct resemblance to the three Lorimers; while the fourth, a man, had about him an unmistakable suggestion of Jermyn himself. The initials "F. J." were writ large in a corner of the picture, and on the opposite page were the following verses:—
What wonder that I should be dreaming[A]Out here in the garden to-day?The light through the leaves is streaming;Paulina cries, "Play!"The birds to each other are calling;The freshly-cut grasses smell sweet—To Teddy's dismay comes fallingThe ball at my feet!"Your stroke should be over, not under.""But that's such a difficult way!"The place is a spring-tide wonderOf lilac and may.Of lilac and may and laburnam;Of blossom—"we're losing the set!Those volleys of Jenny's, return them,Stand close to the net!"
What wonder that I should be dreaming[A]Out here in the garden to-day?The light through the leaves is streaming;Paulina cries, "Play!"The birds to each other are calling;The freshly-cut grasses smell sweet—To Teddy's dismay comes fallingThe ball at my feet!"Your stroke should be over, not under.""But that's such a difficult way!"The place is a spring-tide wonderOf lilac and may.Of lilac and may and laburnam;Of blossom—"we're losing the set!Those volleys of Jenny's, return them,Stand close to the net!"
What wonder that I should be dreaming[A]Out here in the garden to-day?The light through the leaves is streaming;Paulina cries, "Play!"
What wonder that I should be dreaming[A]
Out here in the garden to-day?
The light through the leaves is streaming;
Paulina cries, "Play!"
The birds to each other are calling;The freshly-cut grasses smell sweet—To Teddy's dismay comes fallingThe ball at my feet!
The birds to each other are calling;
The freshly-cut grasses smell sweet—
To Teddy's dismay comes falling
The ball at my feet!
"Your stroke should be over, not under.""But that's such a difficult way!"The place is a spring-tide wonderOf lilac and may.
"Your stroke should be over, not under."
"But that's such a difficult way!"
The place is a spring-tide wonder
Of lilac and may.
Of lilac and may and laburnam;Of blossom—"we're losing the set!Those volleys of Jenny's, return them,Stand close to the net!"
Of lilac and may and laburnam;
Of blossom—"we're losing the set!
Those volleys of Jenny's, return them,
Stand close to the net!"
Envoi.You are so fond of the may-time,My friend far away,Small wonder that I should be dreamingOf you in the garden to-day.
Envoi.You are so fond of the may-time,My friend far away,Small wonder that I should be dreamingOf you in the garden to-day.
Envoi.
Envoi.
You are so fond of the may-time,My friend far away,Small wonder that I should be dreamingOf you in the garden to-day.
You are so fond of the may-time,
My friend far away,
Small wonder that I should be dreaming
Of you in the garden to-day.
The verses were signed "G. Lorimer"; and Gertrude's eyes rested on them with the peculiar tenderness with which we all of us regard our efforts the first time that we see ourselves in print.
"How nice they look, Gerty," cried Phyllis. "And Mr. Jermyn's picture. But I think they have spoilt it a little in the engraving."
"It is rather a come down afterCharlotte Corday, isn't it?" said Gertrude, pleased yet rueful.
Frank, who had been told the history of that unfortunate tragedy, answered rather wistfully—
"We have all to get off our high horse, Miss Lorimer, if we want to live. I had ten guineas this morning for that thing; and there is theDeath of Œdipuswith its face to the wall in the studio—and likely to remain there, unless we run short of firewood one of these days."
"Do you remember," said Gertrude,"how Warrington threw cold water on Pendennis by telling him to stick to poems like theChurch Porchand abandon his belovedAriadne in Naxos?"
"Yes," answered Frank, "and I never could share Warrington's—and presumably Thackeray's—admiration for those verses."
"Nor I," said Gertrude, as Lucy emerged triumphantly from the dark-room and announced the startling success of her negatives.
She was shown the wonderful poem, and the no less wonderful picture, and then Phyllis said—
"Don't gloat so over it, Gerty." For Gertrude was still sitting at the table absorbed in contemplation of the printed sheet spread out before her.
Gertrude laughed and pushed the paper away; and Lucy quoted gravely—
"'We all, the foolish and the wise,Regard our verse with fascination,Through asinine-paternal eyes,And hues of fancy's own creation!'"
"'We all, the foolish and the wise,Regard our verse with fascination,Through asinine-paternal eyes,And hues of fancy's own creation!'"
"'We all, the foolish and the wise,Regard our verse with fascination,Through asinine-paternal eyes,And hues of fancy's own creation!'"
"'We all, the foolish and the wise,
Regard our verse with fascination,
Through asinine-paternal eyes,
And hues of fancy's own creation!'"
A vociferous little clock on the mantelpiece struck ten.
"I must be off," said Frank; "therewill be my model waiting for me. I am afraid I have wasted a great deal of your time this morning."
"No, indeed," said Lucy, as Gertrude rose and folded the seductiveWoodcut, with a get-thee-behind-me-Satan air; "though I am glad to say we are quite busy."
"There are Lord Watergate's slides," added Phyllis; "and Mr. Darrell's sketches to finish off; not to speak of possible chance-comers."
"How do you get on with Darrell?" said Frank, who seemed to have forgotten his model, and made no movement to go.
"He has only been here once," answered Lucy, promptly; "but I like what I have seen of him."
"So do I," cried Phyllis.
"And I," added Frank.
In the face of this unanimity Gertrude wisely held her peace.
"Well then, good-bye," said Frank, reluctantly holding out his hand to each in turn—to Lucy, last. "I am dining out to-night and to-morrow, so shall not see you for an age, I suppose."
"Gay person," said Lucy, whose handlingered in his; held there firmly, and without resistance on her part.
"It's a bore," cried Frank, making wistful eyebrows, and looking at her very hard.
Gertrude started, struck for the first time by something in the tone and attitude of them both. With a shock that bewildered her, she realised the secret of their mutual content; and, stirred up by this unconscious revelation, a conflicting throng of thoughts, images, and emotions arose within her.
Gertrude worked like a nigger that day, which, fortunately for her state of mind, turned out an unusually busy one. Lucy was industrious too, but went about her work humming little tunes, with a serenity that contrasted with her sister's rather feverish laboriousness. Even Phyllis condescended to lend a hand to the finishing off of the prints of Sidney Darrell's sketches.
All three were rather tired by the time they joined Fanny round the supper-table, who, herself, presented a pathetic picture of ladylike boredom.
The meal proceeded for some time insilence, broken occasionally by a professional remark from one or other of them; then Lucy said—
"You're not eating, Fanny."
"I'm not hungry," answered Fan, with an injured air.
She looked more like a superannuated baby than ever, with her pale eyebrows arched to her hair, and the corners of her small thin mouth drooped peevishly.
"This pudding isn't half bad, really, Fan," said Phyllis, good-naturedly, as she helped herself to a second portion. "I should advise you to try it."
Fanny's under-lip quivered in a touchingly infantile manner, and, in another moment, splash! fell a great tear on the table-cloth.
"It's all very well to talk about pudding," she cried, struggling helplessly with the gurgling sobs. "To leave one alone all the blessed day, and not a word to throw at one when you do come upstairs, unless, if you please, it's 'pudding!' Pudding!" went on Fan, with contemptuous emphasis, and abandoning herself completely to her rising emotions. "You seem to take me for an idiot, all of you, who think yourselves so clever. What do you care how dull it is forme up here all day, alone from morning till night, while you are amusing yourselves below, or gadding about at gentlemen's studios."
"That sounds just like Aunt Caroline," said Phyllis, in a stage-whisper; but Lucy, rising, went round to her weeping sister, and, gathering the big, silly head, and wide moist face to her bosom, proceeded to administer comfort after the usual inarticulate, feminine fashion.
"Fanny is right," cried Gertrude, smitten with sudden remorse. "It is horribly dull for her, and we are very thoughtless."
"I am sorry I said anything about it," sobbed Fanny; "but flesh and blood couldn't stand it any longer."
"You were quite right to tell us, Fan. We have been horrid," cried Lucy, as she gently led her from the room. "Come upstairs with me, and lie down. You have not been looking well all the week."
In about ten minutes Lucy re-appeared alone, to find the table cleared, and her sisters sewing by the lamplight.
"Fan has gone to bed," she announced; "she was a little hysterical, and I persuaded her to undress."
"Itisdull for her, I know," said Gertrude, really distressed; "but what is to be done?"
"And she has been so good all these months," answered Lucy. "She has had none of the fun, and all the anxiety and pinching, and this is the first complaint we have heard from her."
"Yes, she has come out surprisingly well through it all."
Gertrude sighed as she spoke, secretly reproaching herself that there was not more love in her heart for poor Fanny.
Mrs. Maryon appeared at this point to offer the young ladies her own copy of theWaterloo Place Gazette, a little bit of neighbourly courtesy in which she often indulged, and which to-night was especially appreciated, as creating a diversion from an unpleasant topic.
"'A woman shot at Turnham Green,'" cried Phyllis, glancing down a column of miscellaneous items, while the lamplight fell on her bent brown head. "'More fighting in Africa.' Ah, here's something interesting at last.—'We understand that the exhibition of Mr. Sidney Darrell, A.R.A.'s pictures, to be held in the Berkeley Galleries, New Bond Street, will be opened to the publicon the first of next month. The event is looked forward to with great interest in artistic circles, as the collection is said to include many works never before exhibited in London.'Ishall go like a shot; sha'n't you, Gerty?"
"Yes, and slip little dynamite machines behind the pictures. Let me look at that paper, Phyllis."
Phyllis pushed it towards her, and, as she took it up, her eye fell on the date of the month printed at the top of the page.
"Do you know," she said, "that it is a year to-day that we finally decided on starting our business?"
"Is it?" said Lucy. "Do you mean from that day when Aunt Caroline came and pitched into us all?"
"Yes; and when Mr. Russel's letter appeared on the scene, just as we were thinking of rushing in a body to the nearest chemist's for laudanum."
"And when we made a lot of good resolutions; do you remember?" cried Phyllis.
"What were they?" said Gertrude. "One was, that we would be happy."
"Well, I think we have kept that one at least," observed Lucy, with decision.
Gertrude looked across at her sister rather wistfully, as she answered, "Yes, on the whole. What was the other resolution? That we would not be cynical, was it not?"
"There hasn't been the slightest ground for cynicism; quite the other way," said Lucy. "It is not much credit to us to have kept that resolution."
"Oh, I don't know," observed Phyllis, lightly; "some people have been rather horrid; have forgotten all about us, or not been nice. Don't you remember, Gerty, how Gerald St. Aubyn dodged round the corner at Baker Street the other day because he didn't care to be seen bowing to two shabby young women with heavy parcels? And, Lucy, have you forgotten what you told us about Jack Sinclair, when you met him, travelling from the north? How he never took any notice of you, because you happened to be riding third class, and had your old gown on? Jack, who used to make such a fuss about picking up one's pocket-handkerchief and opening the door for one."
"It seems to me," said Gertrude, "that to think about those sort of things makesone almost as mean as the people who do them."
"And directly a person shows himself capable of doing them, why, it ceases to matter about him in the least," added Lucy, with youthful magnificence.
Gertrude was silent a moment, then said, with something of an effort: "Let us direct our attention to the charming new people we have got to know. One gets to know them in such a much more pleasant way, somehow."
Lucy bent her head over her work, hiding her flushed face as she answered, "That is the best of being poor; one's chances of artificial acquaintanceships are so much lessened. One gains in quality what one loses in quantity."
"How moral we are growing," cried Phyllis. "We shall be quoting Scripture next, and saying it is harder for the camel to get through the needle's eye, &c., &c."
Gertrude laughed.
"There is another point to consider," she said. "I suppose you both know that we are not making our fortunes?"
"Yes," answered Lucy; "but, at the same time, the business has almost doubled itself in the course of the last three months."
"That sounds more prosperous than it really is, Lucy. If it hadn't done so, we should have had to think seriously of giving it up. And, as it is, we cannot be sure, till the end of the year, that we shall be able to hold on."
"You mean the end of the business year; next June?"
"Yes; Mr. Russel is coming, and there is to be a great overhauling of accounts."
Gertrude lay awake that night long after her sisters were asleep. Her brief rebellious mood of the morning had passed away, and, looking back on the year behind her, she experienced a measure of the content which we all feel after something attempted, something done. That she had been brought face to face with the sterner side of life, had lost some illusions, suffered some pain, she did not regret. It seemed to her that she had not paid too great a price for the increased reality of her present existence.
She fell asleep, then woke at dawn with a low cry. She had been dreaming of Lucy and Frank; had seen their faces, as she had seen them the day before, bright with the glow of the light which never was on sea and land. Oh, she had always known, nay,hoped, that this, or rather something akin to this, would come; yet sharp was the pang that ran through her at the recollection.
It had always seemed to her highly improbable that her sisters, portionless as they were, should remain unmarried. One day, she had always told herself, they would go away, and she and Fanny would be left alone. She did not wish it otherwise. She had a feminine belief in love as the crown and flower of life; yet, as the shadow of the coming separation fell upon her, her spirit grew desolate and afraid; and, lying there in the chill grey morning, she wept very bitterly.