II

The air was yellow and the pavements were slimy with what might at any

moment thicken into a December fog as Gillian made her way from the

workshop to the Highgate omnibus, where she had spent the morning

sitting to Jane. Nothing short of missing the last omnibus on a wet

night ever drove her into any Tube.

She had spent a depressing morning. Jane, who never worked on the model

with a sitter, had taken a few sketches and had then insisted on having

lunch, in order, as she frankly confessed, to talk to Gillian. Jane was

much happier since she had returned from her commissioned journey in Old

Winona’s retinue. The progress from château to château had been

marvellous in every aspect, whether as business and its involved and

legitimate pleasures, or as the illicit delight any prolonged

acquaintance with the mind and methods of that great and wonderful woman

could not fail to arouse in anyone so keenly alive to the varieties of

human experience as Jane Bird. But it was not only the refreshment of

that change which had calmed and illuminated Jane’s spirit. There was

now, as Gillian could not fail to notice, a new and a curiously peaceful

understanding between her and Larry. They no longer hailed each other

with torrents of esoteric abuse: indeed, they seemed to have quite

wonderfully little to say to each other in public. But every now and

again in general conversation it would appear that Jane or Larry

possessed the answer to some question asked of one or the other, and,

several times when she had been out alone or with V.V., at night,

watching the moon on the river or coming home from a play on the top of

an omnibus, she had seen Larry and Jane arm-in-arm strolling together

deep in talk and laughter. Gillian never saw Jane at the studio when she

went to fetch V.V. home from a sitting or to join her and Heinrich at

supper, and Larry never came into the workshop when she was sitting

herself to Jane, but it was clear that they spent a great deal of time

together and that each knew every detail of the other’s work. More than

once Gillian had been on the brink of asking whether Mr. Quist had taken

the glove-buttoning figure home, but the question had never been spoken,

and no reference to it appeared in the little descriptive catalogues of

Jane’s works which they had all drawn up together in preparation for the

coming exhibition of them.

But it was not of herself, nor of Larry, that Jane delivered opinions

that morning.

“It’s about Heinrich, Gillian. Do you think that painted mannequin of

yours is behaving properly to him?”

“V.V.? Why, yes. Why shouldn’t she?”

“Well, I don’t. Have you noticed the look in his face? His eyes get

nearer together every time I see him. The bridge of his nose hardly

separates them. It’s an ugly look. And he never takes his eyes off her

while she’s with him.”

“I know he doesn’t. It gets on her nerves a little.”

“She shouldn’t have nerves. No woman who undertakes Heinrich has any

business with nerves. He’s got more than enough for a whole family. And

she won’t let him have his sparrows in, or play with mice.”

“I know. She says the cat is enough now that it has killed the canary

which she _did_ like. She’s very tender-hearted.”

“Very _what_?”

“Tender-hearted, Jane. You don’t know V.V. as I do, and you are not fair

to her or about her.”

“Gillian, you’re dotty about that woman. And it isn’t right. You’re too

old. I know what I’m talking about. I was dotty about you two years ago.

Crazy. I didn’t think of anything but how to make you look at me again.

But I came through. And you were worth it. You meant something, and you

never set yourself to lead me on. Do you remember the King’s daughter?

You showed me the bit in that purple, locked book of yours. How did it

go? ‘Let us love her or none—to choose the false in mere impatience with

the true, that it is which degrades us....’ And that Vanderleyden woman

won’t see you through, Gillian. There’s nothing to her, once you’ve got

her colour and her bones—she’s a model, but only a model. It’s not worth

it—it’s not good enough. Not for you. Larry doesn’t like it either.”

Gillian was angry.

“I wish you’d not discuss my private affairs with all sorts of people.

Lilac was saying on Saturday that you’d slandered V.V. to her. She’s the

only person who bothers one little bit about me, and she never says one

unkind word about you.”

“Oh, all right. Lose your temper. It’s a symptom. Only when the crash

comes, remember I’m like the man in the Psalms: I’ve delivered my soul.”

“Well, I always did think that was the top note of self-seeking,” said

Gillian, getting up from the table and putting on her hat with emphasis,

rather on one side; “and besides, it isn’t Psalms, it’s Ezekiel.”

“Pedant!” said Jane. “You are right, ‘if he turn not from his wicked

way,’ which is what you’ve refused to do. And if you won’t finish your

lunch you won’t. There’ll be two lemon cheese-cakes for me. Also a

cream-cheese. You didn’t know that. But it’s too late now. You can’t

relent and forgive me just for cream-cheese.”

“I could,” said Gillian, “but I’ve got to go and buy some chrysanthemums

and get up to Highgate before it’s black dark.”

* * * * *

Outside in the raw, damp air Gillian’s temper cooled. She sat on the top

of the omnibus, on the left-hand corner seat, in front, her arms full of

the crisp, copper-coloured flowers, their festive winter scent filling

her brain with half-remembered excitements: children’s parties; her

first grown-up dance; the bouquets which came at New Year when they

lived at Lausanne—mimosa and carnations or chrysanthemums always. The

scented memories crowded out her resentment at Jane’s strictures as the

omnibus lumbered on and the heavy air cleared and lightened with every

mile. But there remained with her the half-guilty, half-puzzled sense

that had beset her before.

It was half-past three before she reached the top of Highgate Hill, and

there was a faint glow of sunset with a little shred of new moon dim

through the watery twilight above the trees in Mrs. Mortimer’s garden,

when Gillian rang the bell at the gate.

It was answered by Maggie, a devoted and entirely disrespectful retainer

who had “stood up to” Aunt Elizabeth for many years and was known to be

keeping a matrimonially inclined policeman at bay, until she could find

another person (Maggie did not care for the word “woman,” refused to say

“servant,” and considered “lady” to be an unsuitable description of the

ideal she sought) fit to take charge of “the mistress.”

“I’m glad you’ve come, Miss Gillian,” said Maggie in the tone of one who

could have said “and surprised,” “and I see you’ve remembered it’s the

mistress’s birthday. Seventy-three she is, and looks it. She’s been far

from well the last ten days and more.”

Gillian carried her flowers through the square hall where the

grandfather clock, which had belonged to her own great-grandfather,

ticked to the rocking of a full-rigged ship that tossed to and fro

across its aged face on a painted ocean very full of waves, and opened

the door of the room with the view.

Mrs. Mortimer sat in a chair by the fire, a pile of white muslin in her

lap. She was hemming window-curtains for Gillian’s flat.

“Lilac told me you’d none now she’s left you,” said she, as Gillian

kissed her and asked her why she tired herself with sewing in the fading

light.

“How lovely of you,” said Gillian, not daring or even wishing to tell

that she preferred her windows unblinded. “I believe you do it a little

out of vanity because you can see without glasses.”

But when she had arranged her chrysanthemums, to which Mrs. Mortimer

paid very little attention, flowers inside a house being, in her

opinion, out of place and in the way, Gillian, sitting on a low stool in

front of the fire, looked up at her great-aunt’s face and saw that she

was very tired. And Aunt Elizabeth, looking down at the young face

lifted to hers, saw a shadow there.

“Have you anything to tell me, my girl?” she said.

It was the consecrated phrase in which, ever since Gillian and Lilac

could remember, she had made open confession easy for them.

“Aunt Elizabeth,” said Gillian, “did love make you unhappy?”

“The Lord,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “dealt very graciously with me and gave

me the man of my choice.”

“But not for a great many years, Aunt Elizabeth.”

“He was given to me in the first moment I met him.”

“How did you know?”

The old woman was silent. Her dim eyes fixed on the glowing embers of

the fire.

“By a bodily pang,” she said at last.

Gillian was startled.

“Tell me about it,” she said, taking one of the thin old hands, its blue

veins dark under the transparent, silk-smooth skin, and laying her cheek

in its palm. “Tell me, Aunt Elizabeth. I want so much to know.”

“I was an unbeliever in those days,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “a wicked,

haughty girl, a Sabbath-breaker. I and my brothers, James and Penrhyn,

would ride together twenty miles on horseback and think nothing to dance

all night afterwards, and ride home again in the morning without sleep.

They called us the handsome Armstrongs. James was dark like an eagle,

and Penrhyn had red hair and a blue eye, piercing and terrible. Two

girls pined and died when Penrhyn had looked at them only. And I was

betwixt and between, cinder-colour they called my hair, and my eyes were

not so grey as James’s nor so blue as Penrhyn’s; but my hair was thick

and long so that I could sit in it and you could not see my hands if I

put them in my lap or behind my back, and it was curly. And my eyes were

well enough, even if my face was pale. Tall like a Maypole I was. ‘Long

Bess Armstrong,’ they called me, and I was mad for horses and pleasure.

Twice I broke my arm and once my collar-bone riding, and when I was

eighteen, I dressed in Penrhyn’s breeches and stole my father’s

riding-coat and won the steeplechase at Stone Crosses. My father was for

sending me away to London after that, but James and Penrhyn rebelled.

Neither of them would move without me to any ball or gala in the

countryside; and neither of them would marry, because there was not a

girl for miles around I could not put to shame in the pride of my

dancing and for riding the wickedest horse anywhere in the marches. And

many’s the man that would have tried for me in the face of Penrhyn’s vow

that the man I married must outride him and then throw him at wrestling.

But there was not one of them I would put to the test.

“But one night, as we rode home just before harvest, we came to a narrow

lane that ran along a field of corn, sloping up the hillside. And the

dawn was breaking and the wind ran up the cornfield in waves and shadows

like hounds in full cry, and I was riding ahead because of the

narrowness of the lane. And there, at the end of the lane where the

hedges ended and the fields lay open, I saw a light before me, and a

voice coming out of the light called me by name, ‘Elizabeth Armstrong,’

three times. And my horse heard the voice and saw the light and would

not go forward. But I said nothing to the boys when they came up with

me, and we rode home together laughing at the way Penrhyn spoke of what

my mother had told us the day before. She had told us that she was

giving the two rooms at the end of the house to a young student from

Trevecca. The rooms were part of an old cottage that had been built into

the main part by my grandfather when he married his third wife and had

more children. My grandfather had twenty-four children, and they all

lived to grow up. And this young student was coming to finish his study

for a degree in theology. He was going to the Valley Farm. But smallpox

had broken out there. And the pest-house was full and they had to keep

three cases in the house. So my mother said she would be ashamed for a

young and godly man to go there, to his death maybe, and she with more

rooms in the house than we could ever fill, and the student should come

to us and the payment should go just the same to Mrs. Pryce at the Farm

and be towards the nursing of the sick.

“In my heart I knew that my mother was right; but I joined with James

and Penrhyn in mocking at her for taking sides with a Methody man. And,

as we rode on, the sun rose higher, and Penrhyn laughed and said we

should come into the village a little late for church. It was a Sunday

morning, and presently we could hear the bells ringing for Morning

Prayer at ten o’clock. And Penrhyn said, ‘Let us ride into church and

support the parson. Maybe he is too drunk again this morning to read the

prayers without aid.’ But James and I would not ride our horses into the

churchyard. So we got down at the gate and gave our horses to a boy to

lead home and walked into church as we were, in our riding-things. I had

on a green habit, with laced frills at the neck, and a black hat with a

feather in it, and I stood for a moment in the porch to smell the roses

that grew over it and to wait for the General Confession to be ended and

the Absolution, so that we could walk into church with less scandal—it

was bad enough to be going straight from our dancing and in our

riding-clothes—when the congregation stood up to say the Venite. There

was no singing in church in those days, my girl, till it came to the

hymn, and not then if Tom and Harry Pryce had been harvesting all week

and were too tired to play the flute and the cornet at ten o’clock in

the morning.

“And as I stood there I saw Evan Mortimer. And he stood up in his place

when he saw me. And my heart broke within me and my tongue was stiff in

my mouth, and I walked straight into the church and stood beside him.

And when we knelt down I prayed to God for the first time since I was a

child and my mother made me pray at her knee, and my prayer was, ‘O God,

give me this man.’”

“And was he the Methody student?” said Gillian.

“He was, my girl,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “and he would none of me, knowing

of my ungodly life. But he had not known who I was when he saw me, and

by the grace of God, the desire of my flesh inflamed my soul and I

believed and was saved.”

“But did you love God because of Uncle Evan?”

“God showed me first His creature who had beauty that I might desire him

and so come to know Him whom no man hath at any time seen. The love of

man will lead to the love of God, or to the slavery of the Devil. I

served God, through Evan, and was saved. But my brother Penrhyn, who

mocked at my love and would never speak to me again after he knew that

Evan and I had promised marriage to each other, he went a-whoring after

women and was lost.”

“I thought he went to America,” said Gillian.

“He went to America, with the Squire’s young wife; shamefully, in open

sin, and died there before I married Evan. Evan had gone to Africa away

from me, and I was alone, for the grace of God to work in me, when your

father was born, and James’s wife—a poor and sickly creature who thought

more of the new book of poems by Robert Browning than of James or of her

unborn child—died. And I took the child, for the Lord had denied

children to my body. Sometimes,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “when love is as

great as it was between Evan and me, there is no child according to the

flesh, born of it.”

“Why didn’t you go to Africa with Uncle Evan?”

“There was a time when your uncle turned from me, fearing that he was

losing God in his love for me,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “and until he had

purged himself of that fear we remained apart. But the Lord blessed his

ministry and brought us together in it at the end.”

“Goodness,” said Gillian, “it gets more and more difficult. I thought

love always made people want to live together for ever.”

“Love,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “divides like a sword if it is only of the

flesh. But when its roots in the flesh come to their flowering in the

heart and in the soul, it is from everlasting to everlasting; death and

the grave have no power upon it; it cannot consume away.”

Night had blackened the uncurtained windows, and the fire had died into

a dull gleam as they talked; but the room was filled with the living

flame of the old woman’s passion and they needed no grosser light.

Gillian sat, with her head against her aunt’s knee, and listened to the

faint ticking of the austere little polished granite clock that, flanked

by two bronze vases, presided, from the centre of the marble mantelpiece

over the gaunt, Victorian room. The locked glass doors of the bookcase

shutting in volumes of sermons and the lives of John and Charles Wesley,

together with the works of other latter-day saints, reflected the

firelight and cast a dim flicker on the polished wood of the walnut

davenport at which Mrs. Mortimer inconveniently conducted her direct and

concise correspondence. A fine steel-engraving after Rubens, _The

Descent from the Cross_, hung between the two windows, and a coloured

print of Turner’s _Golden Bough_ occupied the opposite wall, hanging

over a Victorian sofa on which the hardiest frame could find no repose

without the aid of the cushions which Mrs. Mortimer kept upstairs in a

cupboard, except at such times as illness warranted their temporary

release.

Gillian knew now why no vestiges of her African life appeared in Mrs.

Mortimer’s parlour. The carved and woven trophies of heathen art, the

pink-lipped tropic shells, the plaited mats that proclaimed the past in

Mrs. Middleton’s flat, were absent from her friend’s retreat. The

heathen in his blindness had been to Elizabeth Mortimer the necessary

means through which God had worked to bring peace to Evan Mortimer’s

soul. She had helped to clothe the negro nakedness; she had taught the

African girl to read the New Testament and to substitute the name of

Jesus in her automatic prayers for those of the more awful though not

less blood-stained deities of her native religion, but she had not let

her eyes be beguiled by the ingenuous art of her proselytes. Her pupils

had taught her nothing. She went out to preach the Gospel in a strange

place, and, that duty accomplished, she returned to wait the day of

reunion with her husband in surroundings as removed from the wild folly

of her youth as they were untouched by the missionary adventure of her

middle life.

Gillian had known for many years that under the rigid performance of

such duties to society at large and to the members of her own family in

particular as Aunt Elizabeth felt called upon to discharge there burned

a deeper, more individual flame. She was accustomed to the sight of Evan

Mortimer’s portrait, a miniature, faded but still clear with the fine,

grave beauty the artist had seen in the ascetic face and had transferred

to the yellowing ivory. It lay, in its worn leather case, beside the

Bible and the clean, lavender-scented, always folded handkerchief Mrs.

Mortimer kept with a carafe of cold water on a table by her bedside. She

knew that her aunt entertained a living belief that her husband, clothed

in the immortalized flesh of his mortality, answering to his earthly

name, speaking with his human voice, would be waiting for her when, in a

glorified but still tangible shape, she, too, should ford the river of

death (“cross Jordan” was Aunt Elizabeth’s phrase) and be welcomed on

the farther side, knew, too that it was in the strength of this

conviction that she was possessing her soul through the years of

waiting. But in Gillian’s mind, relegated to the class, formed in

childhood, of impertinent questions which it was not her business to

ask, the actual nature of the feeling on which this expectation was

founded had escaped definition. That Aunt Elizabeth should ever have

been shaken by, that she should still openly admit the dominion of

physical passion, was to Gillian an amazing discovery. And the most

amazing part of it was that the revelation left Aunt Elizabeth herself

untouched, the same emphatic Puritan as she had always been; but love,

this thing of the body from which she had until now turned her timid

thought, became exalted and magnified “of a reasonable soul and human

flesh subsisting one altogether.” What was it she was saying? “And they

that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have

done evil into everlasting fire.”

“Aunt Elizabeth. Do you know, you’ve made me think of the Athanasian

Creed?”

“I daresay, my girl,” said Aunt Elizabeth. But she was sunk in a dream,

and Gillian was not sure that she had heard her.

And presently Maggie came in and lit the incandescent gas-burners, one

on each side of the fireplace, and drew, the long, red, repp curtains

across the windows and stirred the fire and said tea was ready in the

dining-room, and she hoped Miss Gillian wouldn’t go making her auntie

talk too much or she’d have another of her bad nights again.