The music is over, the lesson concluded, and July sits timidly before
the piano, striking faint notes with one finger, and marvelling greatly
how it is possible to extract anything like an intelligible strain from
this waste of unknown chords. Miss Annie is about in the room once more,
giving dainty touches to its somewhat defective arrangement—throwing
down a book here, and there altering an ornament. Patience, Menie
Laurie! many another one before you has sat in resolute outward calm,
with a heart all a-throb and trembling, even as yours is. Patience;
though it is hard to bear the rustling of Miss Annie’s dress—the faint
discords of July’s music. It must have been one time or another, this
most momentous interview—all will be over when it is over. Patience, we
must wait.
But it is a strange piece of provocation on Miss Annie’s part, that she
should choose this time and no other for looking over that little heap
of Menie’s drawings upon the table. Menie is not ambitious as an
artist—few ideas or romances are in these little works of hers; they are
only some faces—not very well executed—the faces of those two or three
people whom Menie calls her own.
“Come and show them to me, my love.” Menie must not disobey, though her
first impulse is to spring out of the low opened window, and rush away
somewhere out of reach of all interruption till this long suspense is
done. But Menie does not rush away; she only rises slowly—comes to Miss
Annie’s side—feels the pressure of Miss Annie’s embracing arm round
her—and turns over the drawings; strangely aware of every line in them,
yet all the while in a maze of abstraction, listening for their return.
Here is Menie’s mother—and here again another, and yet another, sketch
of her; and this is Randall Home.
“Do you know, I think they are very like,” said Miss Annie: “you must do
my portrait, Menie, darling—you must indeed. I shall take no denial; you
shall do me in my white muslin, among my flowers; and we will put Mr
Home’s sweet book on the table, and open it at that scene—that scene,
you know, I pointed out to you the other day. I know what inspired him
when he wrote that. Come, my love, it will divert you from thinking of
this trouble—your mamma should not have told you—shall we begin now? But
Menie, dear, don’t you think you have put a strange look in this face of
Mr Randall? It is like him—but I would not choose you to do me with such
an expression as that.”
Half wild with her suspense, Menie by this time scarcely heard the words
that rang into her ears, scarcely saw the face she looked upon; but
suddenly, as Miss Annie spoke, a new light seemed to burst upon this
picture, and there before her, looking into her eyes, with the smile of
cold supervision which she always feared to see, with the incipient curl
of contempt upon his lip—the pride of self-estimation in his eye—was
Randall’s face, glowing with contradiction to all her sudden hopes. Her
own work, and she has never had any will to look at him in this aspect;
but the little picture blazes out upon her like a sudden enlightenment.
Here is another one, done by the loving hand of memory a year ago; but,
alas! there is no enchantment to bring back this ideal glory, this glow
of genial love and life that makes it bright—a face of the imagination,
taking all its wealth of expression from the heart which suffused these
well-remembered features with a radiance of its own; but the reality
looks out on Menie darkly; the face of a man not to be moved by womanish
influences—not to be changed by a burst of strong emotion—not to be
softened, mellowed, won, by any tenderness—a heart that can love,
indeed, but never can forget itself; a mind sufficient for its own rule,
a soul which knows no generous _abandon_, which holds its own will and
manner firm and strong above all other earthly things. This is the face
which looks on Menie Laurie out of her own picture, startling her heart,
half distraught with fond hopes and dreams into the chill daylight
again—full awake.
“I will make portraits,” said Menie, hastily, in a flood of sudden
bitterness, “when we go away, when we go home—I can do it—this shall be
my trade.”
And Menie closed the little portfolio abruptly, and went back to her
seat without another word; went back with the blood tingling through her
veins, with all her pride and all her strength astir; with a vague
impetuous excitement about her—an impulse of defiance. So long—so long:
what keeps them abroad lingering among these glistening trees?—perhaps
because they are afraid to tell her that her fate is sealed; and,
starting to her feet, the thought is strong on Menie to go forth and
meet them, to bid them have no fear for her, to tell them her delusion
is gone for ever, and that there is no more light remaining under the
skies.
Hush! there are footsteps on the path. Who are these that come together,
leaning, the elder on the younger, the mother on the son! With such a
grace this lofty head stoops to our mother; with such a kindly glance
she lifts her eyes to him; and they are busy still with the consultation
which has occupied so long a time. While she stands arrested, looking at
them as they draw near—growing aware of their full amity and union—a
shiver of great emotion comes upon Menie—then, or ever she is conscious,
a burst of tears. In another moment all her sudden enlightenment is
gone, quenched out of her eyes, out of her heart—and Menie puts the
tears away with a faltering hand, and stands still to meet them in a
quiet tremor of joy, the same loving Menie as of old.
“_My_ bairn!” Mrs Laurie says nothing more as she draws her daughter
close to her, and puts her lips softly to Menie’s brow. It is the seal
of the new bond. The mother and the son have been brought together; the
past is gone for ever like a dream of the night; and into the blessed
daylight, full of the peaceful rays God sends us out of heaven, we open
our eyes as to another life. Peace and sweet harmony to Menie Laurie’s
heart!
Put away the picture; lay it by where no one again shall believe its
slander true; put away this false-reporting face; put away the strange
clear-sightedness which came upon us like a curse. No need to inquire
how much was false—it is past, and we begin anew.