Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: SUDDENLY SHE HEARD A VOICE, AND CHARLIE OXTON . . .
STEPPED UP ON THE BANK]
THE MAKING OF
A WOMAN
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE
AUTHOR OF "PROBABLE SONS," "THE MENDER,"
"A BIT OF ROUGH ROAD," "HEATHER'S MISTRESS," ETC., ETC.
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4 BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.4
Made in Great Britain
Printed by Unwin Brothers, Ltd.
London and Woking
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE CHISEL
TOMINA IN RETREAT
BRIDGET'S QUARTER DECK
THE CARVED CUPBOARD
A DAUGHTER OF THE SEA
HEATHER'S MISTRESS
HER HUSBAND'S PROPERTY
JOYCE AND THE RAMBLER
THE MAKING OF A WOMAN
THE MENDER
ODD MADE EVEN
OLIVE TRACY
DWELL DEEP
A HAPPY WOMAN
THE CHATEAU BY THE LAKE
THE DISCOVERY OF DAMARIS
[Illustration]
OF ALL BOOKSELLERS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A STAGNANT ATMOSPHERE
II. REBELLION
III. A SPEEDY RETURN
IV. A FRIEND IN NEED
V. A NEW LIFE
VI. DISILLUSION
VII. "SUNNIE"
VIII. "AN OUTSIDER"
IX. THE FIVE MARGARETS
X. CENTRES
XI. "WORTH SENDING FOR!"
XII. AN EVENTFUL RAILWAY JOURNEY
XIII. KINGSFORD FARM
XIV. CHARLIE OXTON
XV. A SUBSTITUTE
XVI. A DOCTOR'S VERDICT
XVII. TOWN FRIENDS
XVIII. SUNNIE'S MOTHER
XIX. SUCCESS
XX. TWO LETTERS
XXI. THE STRUGGLING PROFESSIONAL
XXII. IN DIRE STRAITS
XXIII. AN ARRIVAL
XXIV. THEIR FUTURE
XXV. LOOKING BACK
THE MAKING OF A WOMAN
CHAPTER I
A STAGNANT ATMOSPHERE
"God's silence on the outside of the house,
And we who did not speak too loud within."—Aurora Leigh.
SHE sat at her window overlooking the wide and dreary expanse of
marshland. A faint streak of light near the horizon was all that could
be seen of the sea. No trees or buildings broke the monotonous scene,
and Jean's deep inquiring blue eyes sought in vain for anything to
brighten her landscape. She was young, she was vigorous and healthy,
and her spirits were good as a rule; yet to-day she was in the depths
of depression, and the grey mist that was slowly rolling in from the
ocean and obliterating the russet-brown rushes and the coarse dank
grass that stretched for so many miles in front of her, only seemed a
fit emblem of the cloud over her soul.
She threw up her head at last with a weary sigh.
"He is my grandfather!" she exclaimed aloud. "My father's father! But
oh! If he had been my mother's father, how differently I should feel!"
She looked round her room, which was a large one, though barely and
insufficiently furnished. Her eyes fell on a small oil painting on the
wall. It was the portrait of her mother. The broad white brow, the
delicately chiselled little nose, and sweet tremulous lips with their
pathetic droop, and the deep earnest, soul-searching eyes, all combined
to portray a sweet and beautiful woman. Jean inherited her mother's
brow and eyes; her nose and mouth were more decided in character,
her chin round and determined, and humour lightened the corners of
her closely-shut lips. As her eyes met the ones in the portrait, she
suddenly saw a scene before her. It had been enacted in this very room
many years ago. A tiny curly-headed girl in black frock and white
pinafore stood hugging a picture to her breast, and defying a stern old
man before her.
"You sha'n't have my mother's picture! You've tooked her away from me
and locked her up in a box, and she made this picture for mine own
self, and I sha'n't give it to you! I shall grow up a big girl and
paint millions of pictures—more than any one else in the world!"
The old man made a step forward, and the much-prized picture was torn
from the child's tiny grasp. It was a pretty sketch of an old Italian
châlet with a group of children gathering flowers in the foreground. On
the floor were various bits of paper and a box of paints. Mr. Desmond
had surprised his little granddaughter in one of her first efforts to
follow in the steps of her artist mother. She had been happy all the
morning with one of her mother's paintings before her, and had with
untiring zeal been attempting to reproduce it upon scraps of writing
paper. Much paint on fingers and pinafore was the result, also certain
daubs of colour on the paper that meant much to her small mind, but
very little to any one else.
"Listen to me!" was the wrathful exclamation as the old man, picture
in hand, towered above her. "My son disgraced himself by marrying your
mother. He could have allied himself with the oldest family in the
county, and he refused. He died a beggar in Italy, and sent me his wife
and child to support. I took you in for his sake; you bore his name,
and when your mother had the audacity to sell her paintings with my
son's name upon them, I forbade her to touch a brush or pencil again as
long as she was under my roof. She obeyed me, and now that she is dead,
am I to stand still and see you strive to make yourself perfect in the
art that bewitched and ruined my only son? Who dared to give you pencil
and paints?"
The small child was not awed, as her mother had been.
"I shall draw pictures every day, and you're a wicked man, grandpapa!
Nurse did buy a paintbox for me, and if you take it away, I shall paint
out of your ink-pot! I will! I will paint pictures like mother did!"
Jean smiled as she thought of the small fury dancing up and down,
but she frowned when she recollected the summary chastisement that
followed, and the consequent collapse and penitence of the motherless
little one.
And then her mind left the past and dwelt in her present.
It was a very grey monotonous one, but there were gleams of brightness
in it. She lived alone with her grandfather in an old stone house
on the border of the marsh. For five years, she had been to a small
private school in the neighbouring town, about nine miles away, and
then at seventeen, her education was supposed to be complete. She came
back, and was installed as her grandfather's housekeeper and companion.
She was fond of music, but there was no piano in the house; a
great reader, but the only room that contained any books was her
grandfather's library, in which he sat and dared any one to molest him.
Drawing and painting were forbidden pastimes. At school, she had envied
her fellow pupils who used to attend an art school close by; but,
though she had never had a lesson, and in spite of her grandfather's
prohibition, she was seldom without a pencil and sketch-book. Beauty in
any shape or form intoxicated her; her lesson-books had not a margin
that was not covered with faces and forms of all descriptions. When
she returned home, she never rested till she had copied her mother's
portrait, and as she traced the delicate, pensive features, her whole
heart went out in love to her young mother, whose spirit had been
crushed and broken by the tyranny of her father-in-law. When that
occupation was finished, Jean looked around her, wondering how she
would pass her time.
Four elderly servants formed the household—two men and two women.
John and Mary were husband and wife; John was butler and valet to Mr.
Desmond, Mary the cook. Elsie was the housemaid, and was a soured,
miserable woman through numerous misfortunes in her life—chiefly the
iniquities and treachery of some of her early lovers. Rawlings was
gardener, and was the most cheerful individual of the community.
"Are you feelin' low?" he would say. "Come into the open air and it
will blow away your feelin's!"
It was in the garden that Jean eventually spent most of her time. She
learnt the times and seasons of every plant and flower from the old
man; she was initiated into the mysteries of grafting, potting, and
pruning. There was not a big flower garden; the wind swept over the
lawn, and the salt spray stunted and burnt the trees and shrubs. It
stood in the front of the house, unprotected from the open marshland,
but the kitchen garden behind was encircled by four high walls, and it
was there that Jean and Rawlings talked and worked together.
But lately the stormy spring weather had laid Rawlings low with an
attack of rheumatism, and Jean had shunned the garden.
She had taken the opportunity to steal into the library when her
grandfather was interviewing a tenant of his in the servants' hall.
And when he returned, she was too deep in a volume of Scott's poems to
notice his approach.
He looked at the girl as she sat on the floor by his bookcase, her head
resting against the books behind her, and her lap full of odd volumes
she had been glancing at. And then, harshly, he brought her out of the
stirring scenes of battle and of love in which her soul was feasting.
"Did I give you leave to touch my books?"
Jean started to her feet and faced her grandfather with sparkling eyes.
"No," she said with spirit, "but I am hoping every day that you will.
Grandfather, I cannot live this life much longer. You are starving me
whilst you are surrounded with plenty. Let me share some of your books
with you."
Mr. Desmond stooped and took up the book that she had laid down.
"Poems!" he sneered. "When a woman surfeits herself on romances and
poetry, she lays the foundation for worse to follow. No, Jean; keep to
your own province and let me keep to mine. Books are for men, household
tasks for women. Let Mary teach you to cook a dinner, and Elsie to mend
the house-linen. And never let me find you in this room again, unless I
send for you!"
"But," argued Jean, stung to the quick by the contempt expressed in
her grandfather's tone, "I have a brain as well as you. You don't want
two cooks in the house nor two women to mend the linen. I have nothing
to do these wet days. If you will not let me read your books, give me
money to buy some myself. You will hardly let me read the newspaper. I
shall turn into an imbecile, if I am treated like this! Oh! If I had
money, how different my life would be here!"
Passion was in her tone. He waved her away like a naughty child.
"I clothe you and feed you. You want no more."
But Jean would not be dismissed.
"Grandfather, if you do not let me read, I shall paint. I shall make it
my occupation in life."
The old man glared at her.
"If I ever catch you at it," he roared in fury, "I'll cast you out of
this house for ever!"
"Perhaps," muttered Jean, "that would be the best thing that could
happen to me!"
She left him, and went up to her room.
Would life always be like this? she wondered, and sitting at her
window, gloom descended on her soul. Then she went to her bookcase
and discontentedly viewed its contents. A Bible, a prayer-book, and a
dictionary, half a dozen children's story books, and Boswell's "Life of
Johnson." The latter was the only prize she had earned at school, and
she had read it through already five times.
"If only I had money of my own!" she sighed. "I wonder if I could by
any possibility earn any!"
Then she started up. "I will go out," she resolved; "as Rawlings says,
it will 'blow away my feelin's'!"
She put on her thick coat and hat, and in a few minutes was treading
the flat dreary road that led by the side of the marsh to the nearest
town.
It was already getting dusk; a flock of wild ducks suddenly rose close
to her, and flew screaming over the marsh towards the sea. There was
no wind; the croaking of frogs seemed the only sound that broke the
monotonous silence. She looked around her with keen alert eyes, but her
gaze fell on stunted gorse bushes, and beds of the green rushes that
were so familiar a landmark in this part of the country.
"Oh!" she said impatiently to herself, as she threw back her head with
a quick, imperious gesture, "I know this all so well, that I could
paint it with my eyes shut! It's a deadening part of the world to live
in. Stagnant life, and I am beginning to think that mine is like it!"
Then she looked eagerly in front of her. Two figures were walking
towards her. One of them she recognised. He was a friend of her
grandfather's, who lived about three miles away at his place called
the Hermitage, and on account of his quiet and studious habits was
nicknamed "the hermit" by his acquaintances.
Mr. Desmond had a good many friends in the literary world, and it was
of no uncommon occurrence for two or three men suddenly to turn up and
dine and sleep with no previous intimation of their arrival. Jean often
wished women would accompany them, but this was never the case. Old Mr.
Desmond looked upon the weaker sex as being utterly unfit to converse
intellectually with learned savants. He had never been a society man.
His wife had died four years after his marriage, and since her death,
he had become entirely absorbed in his books. Jean never had much to
say to the men who frequented her grandfather's house. She took her
seat at the dinner table, but did not see them afterwards. They looked
upon her as a schoolgirl still, and were like her grandfather, more
interested in science than in women.
Mr. Railton, "the hermit," was the one she knew and liked best. She
quickened her pace, and a bright smile came to her lips as she greeted
him.
"You are taking a constitutional," he said in his grave courteous
manner. "I was bringing a friend of mine to see your grandfather this
evening. Let me introduce him to you—Colonel Douglas. He has just come
home from wanderings in Persia."
Jean held out her hand. "Then, you are sure of a warm welcome from
grandfather," she said, "for the East is his pet part of the world."
As she gazed at the newcomer with some interest, she was conscious
of an amused scrutiny in his eye. He was a tall well-knit man, with
bronzed face and dark hair, and a certain humorous twist of countenance
softened the otherwise stern ruggedness of feature.
"Not quite so dry and old as most of them," she thought, and she noted
with appreciation his attire which, though irreproachable for a country
gentleman, had a smartness and up-to-date appearance that was not usual
amongst her grandfather's friends.
"And what is your favourite part of the world?" asked Colonel Douglas.
"This?"—with a wave of his hand over the desolate marsh.
Jean was quite taken aback. She was not accustomed to be asked what
were her likes or dislikes. She looked up at him earnestly.
"I should be happy anywhere away from this!"
A hidden fire and passion leapt to her eyes as she spoke, then she
passed on, and the two men went their way.
"A sleeping volcano," said the Colonel. "Who is she?"
"The only granddaughter of Desmond—a good little thing in her way, I
believe. She has not long been home from school. It is a dull life for
her."
They commenced to talk of other things.
Jean soon came to a standstill.
"Of course, they're coming to dinner. I wonder if Mary knows. I don't
believe she does. Mr. Railton won't make any difference, but this
stranger—he is accustomed to good dinners, I feel sure; I think I will
go back and warn her."