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AUDREY CRAVEN
BY
MAY SINCLAIR
AUTHOR OF "THE DIVINE FIRE," ETC.
"Made subject to vanity"
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1906
_AUTHOR'S EDITION_
_TO_
_MY MOTHER_
AUDREY CRAVEN
CHAPTER I
Everybody knew that Miss Audrey Craven was the original of "Laura," the
heroine of Langley Wyndham's masterpiece. She first attracted the
attention of that student of human nature at Oxford, at a dinner given
by her guardian, the Dean of St. Benedict's, ostensibly in honour of the
new Master of Lazarus, in reality for his ward's entertainment and
instruction in the bewildering art of life.
It was thunder-weather. Out of doors, a hot and sleepy air hung over the
city; indoors, the forecast was no less heavy and depressing. Not so,
however, to Miss Audrey Craven. The party was large and mixed; and to
the fresh, untutored mind of a tyro, this in itself was promising. The
Dean pursued the ruinous policy of being all things to all men; and
to-night, together with nonentities and Oxonians of European renown,
there was a sprinkling of celebrities from the outside world. Among
these were Mr. Langley Wyndham, the eminent novelist, and his friend
Mr. Percival Knowles, the critic who had helped him to his eminence.
Having collected these discordant elements around him, the Dean withdrew
from the unequal contest, and hovered, smiling ineffectually, on the
outskirts of his little chaos. Perhaps he tried to find comfort in a
conscience satisfied for a party spoiled. But for Audrey this wild
confusion was rich in possibility. However baffling to those officially
responsible, it offered a wider field for individual enterprise; and if
she did not possess that fine flow of animal spirits which sometimes
supports lesser minds under such circumstances, she had other qualities
which stood her in good stead. Conspicuous amongst these was an
indomitable moral courage. She prepared to hurl herself into the breach.
Wyndham was standing a little apart from the herd, leaning against the
wall, as if overcome by an atmosphere too oppressive for endurance, when
he saw his friend approaching him. Knowles was looking about him with
eyes alert, and that furtive but uncontrollable smile which made ladies
say, "Yes; but Mr. Knowles is so dreadfully cynical, you know."
"By the way, Wyndham--I don't want to startle you, but there is a lady
here who particularly wants me to introduce you to her."
Wyndham turned on him a look terrible in its dignified reproach.
"Anything but that, my dear fellow. No more introductions to-night,
please. I've just suffered torture from an unspeakable youth from
Aberdeen, who expected me to rejoice with him because Oxford is at last
recognising the 'exeestence of a metapheesical principle in the wur-r-ld
and mon----'"
"I admit that the party is dull, from a mere worldling's point of view.
But it's a glorious field for the student of human nature. And here's an
opportunity for exceptional research--something quite off the beaten
track. The admirer of you and all your works is the lovely Miss Craven,
and I assure you she's creating a sensation at the other end of the
room."
"Which is she?"
"There, the girl with the copper-coloured hair, talking to Broadbent."
"Ah, that one. No, thanks. I know what you're going to tell me--she
_writes_."
"She doesn't, but she's pretty enough to do that or anything else she
chooses. Scandal says she's looking for a religion. She must be a simple
soul if she thinks she can pick up the article in Oxford."
"Oh, I don't know. Religions are cheap everywhere nowadays, the supply
being so remarkably in excess of the demand, and Miss Craven's soul may
be immortal (we'll give it the benefit of the doubt), but its simplicity
is _un grand peut-etre_. What's the matter?"
"It makes me ill to see the way these fellows go about leading captive
silly women. Do look at Broadbent cramming his spiritual pabulum into
that girl's mouth. Moral platitudes--all the old crusts he can lay his
hands on, soaked in the milk-and-water of sentiment."
"And a little new wine--with the alcohol extracted by the latest
process; no possible risk of injury to the bottles. Don't be uneasy;
I've been watching her all evening, ever since I found her in a corner
with the unspeakable youth, talking transcendentalism. A woman who can
look you in the face and ask you if you have ever doubted your own
existence, and if it isn't a very weird and unaccountable sensation,
would be capable of anything. Five minutes afterwards she was
complimenting Flaxman Reed on the splendid logic of the Roman Faith, and
now I've no doubt she's contributing valuable material to Broadbent's
great work on the Fourth Gospel."
He was wrong. At that moment the earnest seeker after truth was gazing
abstractedly in his direction, and had left the Canon lecturing to empty
benches, balancing himself on his toes, while he defined his theological
position with convincing emphasis of finger and thumb. What he said is
neither here nor there. Then Wyndham repented of his rudeness. He waited
till Knowles was looking another way, and made for the Dean in a
bee-line, approaching him from the rear to find him introducing a late
arrival to his niece. He heard the name Mr. Jackson, and noted the faint
shade of annoyance on the girl's face, as the interloper sat down beside
her with a smile of dreamy content. It was enough to quench Wyndham's
languid ardour. He was not going to take any more trouble to get an
introduction to Miss Audrey Craven.
He saw her once more that evening as he turned to take leave of his
host. She was still sitting beside Mr. Jackson, and Wyndham watched them
furtively. Mr. Jackson was a heavy, flaxen-haired young man, with a
large eye-glass and no profile to speak of. To judge by Miss Craven's
expression, his conversation was not very interesting, though he was
evidently exerting himself to give it a humorous turn. Wyndham smiled in
spite of himself.
"Hard lines, wasn't it?" said Knowles at his elbow. "Brilliant idea of
the Dean's, though--introduce the biggest bore in the county to the
prettiest girl in the room."
The unconscious Mr. Jackson burst into laughter, and Audrey raised her
eyebrows; she looked from Mr. Jackson to Wyndham, and from Wyndham to
Mr. Jackson, and laughed a low musical laugh, without any humour in it,
which echoed unmusically in the memory. Wyndham turned abruptly away,
and Audrey looked after him as he turned. Her face was that of one who
sees her last hope disappearing. Poor Audrey! Who would not have pitied
her? After hovering all evening on the verge of an introduction to his
Eminence, it was hard to bear the irony of this decline, unsustained by
any sense of its comedy. He had avoided her in the most marked manner;
but all the same, she wondered whether he was thinking about her, and
if so, what he was thinking.
What he thought that night, and the next, and the next after that, was
something like this: "My dear lady, you think yourself remarkably
clever. But really there is nothing striking about you except the colour
of your hair. Biggest bore in the county--prettiest girl in the room? If
it weren't for your prettiness--well, as yet that may have saved you
from being a bore." After that he laughed whenever he caught himself
trying to piece together the image which his memory persistently
presented to him in fragments: now an oval face tinged with a childlike
bloom, now grey eyes ringed with black, under dark eyebrows and lashes;
or a little Roman nose with a sensitive tip, or a mouth that to the best
of his recollection curled up at the corners, making a perpetual dimple
in each cheek. They were frivolous details, but for weeks he carried
them about with him along with his more valuable property.