The resolution to return to France, announced, as has been set forth,
by Mr. St. Lawrence Coppinger, was not adhered to. In the first place,
there was Barty Mangan and the various affairs that he represented; in
the second place, there was the portrait; in the third place--which
might as well, if not better, have come first--the resolve had
expired, like the flame of a damp match, in the effort that gave it
birth.
Aunt Freddy welcomed the suggestion of the portrait with enthusiasm.
She had had four years of peace, "careing" Coppinger's Court for the
reigning Coppinger; to "care" the reigning Coppinger himself, was, she
felt, a far less peaceful undertaking. She agreed entirely with the
well-worn adage relative to idle hands, and had no illusions as to her
own capacity to offer alternative attractions.
"I felt," she remarked to Lady Isabel, "exactly as if someone had
deposited a half-broken young horse in the drawing-room, and had told
me to exercise it! My dear, Christian's portrait is a Godsend! But I
may tell you, in strict confidence, that, so far, it's far too clever
for an ignoramus like me to make head or tail of it!"
"It certainly fills their mornings very thoroughly," responded Lady
Isabel, rather dubiously; "Christian vanishes from breakfast time till
lunch. I suppose _you_ see more of them?"
Aunt Freddy's reply was less distinct and definite than was usual with
her. Oh, well--occasionally--yes, generally--at least, always
sometimes--he was painting her in the garden, on that seat by the yew
hedge--so sheltered and sunny, and the weather was so perfect; she was
working in the garden herself every morning. Thus did the righteous
Frederica wriggle and prevaricate, causing Lady Isabel to assume that
the full rigours of chaperonage were complied with, while to herself,
Aunt Freddy thought that it would be perfectly ideal. But what "it"
was, she did not particularise to anyone.
Mr. St. Lawrence Coppinger was not a great artist, but it had been
conceded to him, even in the studio, that he had pretty colour (which
was quite without reference to his own complexion) and a knack of
catching a likeness. Added to these gifts he possessed a third, in
being able to talk without hindering the activities of his brush. They
talked a great deal to each other during those long, delightful
mornings in the sunny corner by the yew-hedge; idle, intimate talk,
that wandered back to the days of the Companions of Finn, and on,
through stirring tales of the _Quartier Latin_ into the future,
and what it was to hold for them. Larry knew what his future must hold
if it was to satisfy him. Since the moment when "Love's sickness" had
laid hold of him (the same as a person would get a stitch leaning over
a churn) he had known it. While he painted her, staring deep and hard,
appraising, carefully, with his outer soul, the curve of her cheek,
the delicate drawing of her small ear, the tender droop of her dark
eyelashes, all the subtle values of light and shade, all the problem
of inherent colour, and the colour that was lent by the sky and the
green things round her, his inner soul was repeating the old saying:
"I love my eyes for looking at you!"
Sometimes he thought he would stand it no longer, he would throw down
his palette and his brushes, and let the portrait go to blazes, and
kneel at her feet, telling her, over and over again, that he loved
her, until she would have to believe him. Yet, for there is something
inhuman about the artist, he refrained. The portrait was going so
well--the best head he had ever done--out of sight better than
anything he had done at the studio (what wouldn't he give to have a
lesson on it from old Chose!). He wouldn't break the spell of
successful work until he could carry the picture no farther. Then, he
thought to himself, oh then, he would be strong to speak!
And, did he but know it, there was no need to speak; not any need at
all. For Christian knew. Not enough has been said about her if it has
not been made clear that, for her spirit, the barriers and coverings
that other spirits take to themselves wherewith to build hiding-places
and shelters were "of little avail. Motives and tendencies, the hidden
forces that underlie action, were perceptible to her as are to the
water-diviner the secret waters that bend and twist his hazel rod.
Well she knew that Larry loved her; he was not the first in whom she
had divined it, but he was the first whose heart, crying to her,
voicelessly, had wakened the answering chime in hers; the first, she
said to herself, and the last. She wondered, sometimes, if he knew; it
seemed incredible that he could be with her, watching her, studying
her least look, and not know. Yet, she loved him for not knowing, for
his boyishness, his babyishness, his simplicity. She wondered if she
were a fairy-woman, who by her arts had beguiled a mortal. She had met
an extraordinary woman once, in London, where anyone, however
extraordinary, is possible, and this being, so she told Larry, had
gazed at her, raptly, had then assured her that she saw her aura (blue
shot with gold) and had told her that she had a very aged soul..
"I felt as if I were an old boot!" said Christian.
"Old idiot herself!" Larry said hotly; "what else did she pretend to
know about you?"
"She said she had met me before, in a previous incarnation. She
couldn't believe that I didn't remember her. But I couldn't."
"I'm glad you couldn't," said Larry, still angry. "I won't have you
remembering lives that I wasn't in! Anyhow, I don't believe they were
half as good as this one. I call this a thundering good life. _I_
don't want to have been Julius Caesar or Queen Anne."
"Oh, I daresay you weren't," said Christian, consolingly; "you don't
remind me of either of them. What would be more to the point would be
to know what you were going to be. In this life, I mean."
"Oh, a painter first," said Larry, responding with alacrity, as do
most people, to the stimulus of discussing himself; "but not
exclusively. I shouldn't mind having the hounds for a bit, and I
should like to travel--the gorgeous East, you know--that sort of
thing. And I must say," he hesitated, "I'm rather keen to have a shot
at politics."
He put down his palette and brushes and began to roll a cigarette,
while he walked backwards away from his easel, staring alternately at
his canvas and his model.
"Have you forgotten that I'm the prospective candidate for this
constituency? The Home Rule ticket, you know!" He looked at his
audience with a touch of defiance; "I don't know what _you_ may
think--_my_ notion is--"
The prospective candidate launched forth into a statement of his
notions; what, precisely, they were, is a matter that may here be
omitted. The kaleidoscope of Irish politics has made many new patterns
since Larry outlined his views for Christian, and the pattern of 1907
interests us no more. The affinity that exists between politics and
eggs is not limited to the function of the latter in emphasising
criticism of the former; it also extends to individual characteristics.
The morning newspaper and the morning egg should be equally recent.
Larry's political notions, when he stated them, had at least the merit
of freshness, and it shall be left to them.
Christian, listening to his ambitions, felt herself older than ever.
"I think I should be a painter all the time, and let Bill keep the
hounds for me," she said, indulgently, "and I certainly should
_not_ play with politics--I'm certain you'd hate them."
"Well, but I'm pledged, you know! I'm absolutely in honour bound to
play up if I'm wanted--"
"Whether you know the game or no?" said Christian, mockingly. "Very
sporting! I'm _not_ a Home Ruler, as it happens. I've no breadth
of outlook! _I_ haven' been in France for four years!"
"You're a reactionary!" declared Larry; "I tell you Self-Government is
in the air!"
With all her suppleness of mind, Christian had in her something of the
inbred obstinacy of fidelity that often goes with long descent. Her
colour rose.
"_We_ have always stood for the King!" she said, holding up her
head, and looking past Larry to the high, sailing clouds.
Larry began to laugh.
"Christian! It's awfully becoming to you to talk politics! Keep quite
quiet and I'll make a study of you as Britannia--or Joan of Arc--"
It was characteristic of these young people, that in the heat of
political argument they joined battle as freely as if no other point
of contact existed for them. This it is to be born and bred in
Ireland, where people live their opinions, and everyone is a patriot
with a different point of view, and politics are a hereditary disease,
blatant as a port-wine mark, and persistent as a family nose.
Miss Frederica, with a guilty remembrance of Lady Isabel's enquiries,
had established her weeding apparatus at a bed near the yew-hedge. She
heard the voices raised in discussion, and, catching words here and
there, felt that if these were the topics that occupied her charges,
Isabel need not have inflicted upon her the abominable nuisance of
poking in her nose where it was not wanted. Thus did Miss Coppinger
summarise the duties of a chaperon; but it must be remembered that she
had never been broken to the work, and in any case she had been out of
harness for four years.
The luncheon gong sounded to her across the Michaelmas daisies, and
the tall scarlet lobelias, and the gorgeous dahlias of the September
garden; she gathered her tools together and projected a shriek in the
direction of the yew hedge.
"Children! Lunch!"
As, dizzy with stooping, she slowly reared herself to be full height,
she saw a black, moving blur on the drive beyond the garden. She
rubbed her eyes; the blur defined itself as a man in priestly black.
Not Mr. Fetherston, a she had first believed, but Father Sweeny.
"A wolf in sheep's clothing!" thought Frederica, using as was her
wont, the well-worn phrase with guileless zest. She held that although
it might not, primarily, have been intended to describe the Roman
Catholic Priesthood, its application in a later age was obvious.
With a cautious eye on the wolf, she approached the yew hedge.
"Larry! Father Sweeny's at the hall door. You must ask him in to
lunch!"
To herself she thought: "He's Larry's affair, thank goodness! And I'll
see that my young man does his duty!"
When Frederica spoke of, or to, her nephew, as "my young man," it was
generally in connection with what she felt to be his duty, and felt
also that it was her duty to see that his was not shirked.
Father Tim Sweeny, at lunch, at the house of his chief parishioner,
was a very different being from the damaged and ferocious bull in
hospital. Conscious of his priestly dignity and of the need of
supporting it, but shaken by the minor stresses of the situation, the
senseless multiplicity of forks and spoons, the bewildering
restrictions by which he felt himself to be webbed about, hampered,
mastered, Father Tim was as a wild bull in a net, and was even
pathetic in his unavailing efforts to prove himself equal to his
surroundings. He cleared his throat at intervals, with an authority
that seemed to prelude something more epoch-making than an assent to
one of Frederica's industrious platitudes; he snuffled and fidgeted,
eating scarcely at all, and repelling the reverential assiduities of
the servants with shattering abruptness.
"Christian saved the situation," Frederica said, in subsequent
conversation with the Reverend Charles Fetherston; she absolutely
'charmed him to a smile.' She said afterwards that the smile made her
think of a Druidic stone circle, slightly imperfect from age! She
always thinks of absurd things; but I was grateful to her! She has an
amazing gift for setting people at their ease."
"I'm not sure that our respected friend might not be more tolerable
when he was _not_ at his ease!" said the Reverend Charles.
"Larry simply sulked," continued Miss Coppinger; "I'm afraid Paris
life does not inculcate much respect for religion."
"Very possibly!" said the Reverend Charles, non-committally. "I feel
for poor Sweeny! He knows now what Purgatory is like!"
"I assure you I was as civil as I knew how to be," asserted Frederica.
"I'm sure you were!" said the Reverend Charles, stuffing a pipe as he
spoke, and sniggering into the bowl.
Miss Coppinger was justified in believing that Christian had been a
success with Father Sweeny.
"I declare I could like that gerr'l, Christian Lowry," he said to
Father Greer. "She's a good gerr'l enough. Decent! Civil!" Each
adjective of approval was launched on a snort that indicated some
co-existing irritation; "but I have me own opinion of young
Coppinger!"
"A good one?" simpered Father Greer.
"The reverrse!" said Father Tim, and a least four r's rang and rolled
in the word.