Three days after Lanty’s interview with Hemans, Mabella paid a visit to
Vashti.
Sally, grown in stature if not in grace, promptly carried off Dorothy,
and the two cousins sat down opposite each other in the dainty room which
served as a sitting-room and drawing-room in the Dole parsonage.
There was a great contrast between the two women; despite the beauty and
hauteur of Vashti’s face there was a shadow of ineffable sadness upon it.
Life was none too sweet upon her lips.
The seed sown in barren Mullein meadow had brought forth a harvest of
bitter herbs—wormwood and rue, smartweed and nettles.
Shadowing her eyes was the vague, ever-present unrest of those who do
battle with spectres of the mind; there is no expression more pitiful,
because it speaks of unending warfare. But upon her brow there shone the
majesty of an unconquered will; she had not been bent beneath the knee of
man’s authority, nor ground into the mire by poverty’s iron heel, nor
bowed beneath the burden of physical pain.
She was in some strange way suggestive of the absolute entity of the
individual.
Human ties and relationships seemed, when considered in connection with
her, no more than the fragments of the wild vine, which, having striven
to bind down the branches of the oak, has been torn from its roots by
the merciless vigour of the branch to which it clung, and left to wither
without sustenance.
Now and then against the background of The Times there stands forth one
figure sublimely alone, superimposed upon the fabric of his generation in
splendid isolation—a triumphant, individualized _ego_.
It is almost impossible to study and comprehend these individuals in
their relations to others, the sweep of impulse and energy, the imperious
flood of passion, the tumultuous tide of his which animates their
being and stimulates their actions is so different from the sluggish,
well-regulated stream whose current controls their contemporaries.
They _must_ be regarded as individuals; adown the vista of the world’s
perspective we see them, splendid, but eternally alone in the centre
of the stage, brilliant and brief, like the passing of a meteor coming
from chaos, going—alas! almost inevitably—to tragedy; leaving a luminous
trail to which trembling shades creep forth to light feeble lamps of
imitation, by which to trace the footsteps of the Great Unknown.
But we never understand these people, who, great in their good or evil,
baffle us always—defying the scalpel which would fain anatomize them—now
and then, as by revelation, we catch a glimpse of their purpose, a hint
of their significance, but when we would fix the impression it eludes us
as the living sunshine mocks at the palette of the painter, and spends
itself royally upon the roof-trees of peasants, when we would wish to fix
it for ever in unfading pigments and hang it upon the walls of kings’
palaces.
In her degree Vashti Lansing was one of these baffling ones.
Compared with her cousin Mabella, she was like a beautiful
impressionistic picture beside a carefully designed mosaic.
The one compound of daring and imagination, gorgeous in colour, replete
with possibilities if barren of achievement, offending against every
canon, yet suggesting a higher cult than the criticism which condemns
it; the other typical of the most severe and elaborated convention,
executed in narrow limits, yet charming by its delicacy and stability,
an exponent of the most formal design, yet winning admiration for the
conscientiousness with which its somewhat meagre possibilities have been
materialized.
Yet Mabella Lansing’s face was eloquent.
It was composite of all the pure elements of womanhood—the womanhood
which loves and bears and suffers but does not soar. In her eyes was the
soft fire of conjugal and maternal love. With the tender, near-sighted
gaze of the home-maker, her eyes were bent upon the simple joys and petty
pains of every-day life.
Upon her countenance there shone a tender joyousness, veiled but not
extinguished by a certain piteous apprehension; indeed, there was much of
appeal in Mabella’s face, and bravery too—the bravery of the good soldier
who faces death because of others’ quarrels and faults.
But above all it was the face of the Mother.
Surely no one would dispute the fact that motherhood is the crowning
glory of woman, the great holy miracle of mankind; but while it is
impious to deny this, it is unreasonable and absurd to say that for all
women it is the highest good.
There are different degrees of holiness; even the angels differ one from
the other in glory; why, then, should the same crown be thought to fit
all women?
The golden diadem may be more precious, but shall we deny royalty to the
crown of wild olive or to the laurel wreath?
The mother is the pole-star of the race, but there are other stars which
light up the dark places; why should their lonely radiance be scoffed at?
Women such as Mabella Lansing are the few chosen out of the many called.
There was in her that intuitive and exquisite motherliness which all
the ethics on earth cannot produce. A simple and not brilliant country
girl, she yet had a sense of responsibility in regard to her child which
elucidated to her all the problems of heredity.
It is probable that she was a trifle too much impressed with her
importance as a mother, that she had rather too much contempt for
childless women, but that is an attitude which is universal enough to
demand forgiveness—it seems to come with the mother’s milk—yet it is
an unlovely thing, and whilst bowing the head in honest admiration
of every mother, rich or poor, honest or shamed, one would wish to
whisper sometimes to them that there are other vocations not lacking in
potentialities for good.
“What a lovely house you have, Vashti!” said Mabella, irrepressible
admiration in her voice, a hint of housewifely envy in her eyes.
“Yes, it is very comfortable,” said Vashti, with a perfectly unaffected
air of having lived in such rooms all her days.
“Comfortable!” echoed Mabella; then remembering her one treasure which
outweighed all these things, she added, a little priggishly: “it’s a good
thing there are no babies here to pull things about.”
Vashti smiled in quiet amusement.
“What’s the news in the village?” she asked. “You know a minister’s wife
never hears anything.”
Mabella brightened. Good little Mabella had a healthful interest in the
social polity of the world in which she lived, and Vashti’s disdain of
the village gossip had sometimes been a trial to her. Vashti usually
treated “news” with an indifference which was discouragingly repressive,
but to-day she seemed distinctly amiable, and Mabella proceeded to
improve the opportunity.
“Well,” she said, “the village is just simply all stirred up about
Temperance’s quarrel with Mrs. Ranger. I always knew Temperance couldn’t
abide Mrs. Ranger, but I never thought she’d give way and say things,
but they do say that the way Temperance talked was just something awful.
I wasn’t there; it was at the sewing circle, and for the life of me I
can’t find out what started it, but, anyhow, Temperance gave Mrs. Ranger
a regular setting out. I asked Temperance about it, but the old dear was
as cross as two sticks and wouldn’t tell me a thing. So I suppose it was
something about Nathan. Young Ab Ranger has got three cross-bar gates
making at Nathan’s shop, and they’ve been done these three days, and he
has never gone for them; he’s fixing up the place at a great rate. I
suppose you know about him and Minty Smilie? Mrs. Smilie’s going about
saying Ab isn’t good enough for Minty; and they say Mrs. Ranger is just
worked up about it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if matters came to
a head one of these days, and Ab and Minty just went over to Brixton
and came back married—” suddenly Mabella arrested her speech and a more
earnest expression sweetened her mouth. “Vashti,” she resumed, “there
is something I wanted to ask you. Ann Serrup sent me word that she was
coming to church next Sunday, and I want you to speak to Sidney and get
him to preach one of his lovely helpful sermons for her. I’m sure he
will if you ask him. Something to brace her up and comfort her, and,
Vashti—I’m awfully sorry for her.” Mabella paused, rather breathlessly
and a little red; “one never knew exactly where one was” with Vashti, as
Temperance was fond of saying.
For a fleeting instant during Mabella’s little recital Vashti’s eyes had
contracted in almost feline fashion, but she replied very suavely:
“I’ll tell Sidney, but, well—you know I never interfere in the slightest
with his sermons.”
“Oh, no,” said Mabella with really excessive promptitude; “Oh, no, you
wouldn’t dare to do that.”
“Of course not,” said Vashti with so much of acquiescence in her voice
that it was almost mocking.
“I know how men think of these things,” continued Mabella with the calm
front of one thoroughly acquainted with the world and its ways. “But
Sidney is different; he is so good, so gentle, and he seems to know just
how one feels”—a reminiscent tone came to Mabella’s voice, she recalled
various hours when she had needed comfort sorely and had found it in
the gracious promises Sidney held out to his listeners. “It is a great
comfort to me,” she went on; “lately it has seemed to me as if he just
held up the thoughts of my own heart and showed me where I was strong and
where lay my weakness.” Mabella arrested herself with an uncomfortable
knowledge that Vashti was smiling, but when Vashti spoke a silky
gentleness made her voice suave.
“I will tell Sidney what you say, and no doubt he will preach with a
special thought of you and Ann Serrup.”
“Well, I’m glad I spoke of it,” said Mabella; “I wasn’t sure how you’d
take it.”
Vashti continued to smile serenely, as one who recognizes and understands
cause for uncertainty. Her gaze was attracted to the window.
“Look!” she said suddenly.
Passing in plain view of the window was a most extraordinary figure. A
creature with a face blacker than any Ethiopian, surmounted by a shock of
fair hair—this individual was further adorned by the skirt of a bright
blue dress, which, being made for a grown-up woman, dragged a foot or so
on the ground behind; about the neck was a pink silk tie, showing signs
of contact with the black, which was evidently not “fast”; above her head
she held a parasol bordered with white cotton lace—thus caparisoned
Sally paced it forth for the amusement of little Dorothy, who tottered
upon her legs by reason of the violence of her laughter. Surrounding the
pair, and joining apparently in the amusement, were the two dachshund
puppies (Sidney’s latest importation to Dole), the collie, who followed
with the sneaking expression of one who enjoys a _risqué_ joke (and yet
he could not forbear biting surreptitiously at the dragging flounces as
they passed), and little Jim Shinar, who followed in a trance-like state
of wide-eyed fascination. He lived nearer to the parsonage than any other
child, and between the evil fascination which Sally exerted over him and
the dread of finding himself within the gates of a man “who spoke out
loud in church,” Jim’s life was oppressed with continual resistance to
temptation, but he had frequent falls from grace, for Sally could do more
things with her mouth and eyes than eat and see, indeed her capabilities
in the line of facial expression were never exhausted, and there was a
weirdness about her grimaces which fascinated older children than poor
round-faced little Jim.
Sally peacocked it up and down before her admiring satellites, until
suddenly there rang through the parsonage a vigorous expression uttered
in a rich brogue, and at the same instant a large, red-faced woman rushed
out of the kitchen door and appeared round the corner of the house.
Sally arrested her parade, paused, showed an inclination to flee, paused
again, then with a gibe for which she dived back into her Blueberry
Ally vocabulary, fled from the irate “work-lady,” who had unwittingly
furnished forth the fine feathers in which Sally was strutting. Mary
promptly gave chase, and that too with an agility which her bulk belied.
The area of the hunting ground was not very great being bounded by the
prim palings of the little garden, but no landscape gardener ever made
more of his space than did Sally. She doubled and turned and twisted,
and eluded Mary’s grasp by a hand-breadth, as she darted under her
outstretched arms, but Sally was very unwise, for she used her breath in
taunts and gibes, whilst Mary pursued the dishonoured flounces of her
Sunday gown in a silence which was the more ominous because of her wonted
volubility.
Sally was getting slightly winded, and was wishing she could get the
gate open and give Mary a straightaway lead, but she had her doubts of
the gate, sometimes it opened and sometimes it didn’t. Sally knew if
it was obstinate that her fate was sealed; she was casting about for
another means of escape when her adherents began to take a share in the
proceedings. First, little Jim Shinar, standing rooted to the spot, saw
the chase descending upon him; Sally dodged him, but Mary was too close
behind and too eager for her prey to change her route quickly, so she
charged into him and went over like a shot. Jim gave a howl, and Mary
gathered herself up, and, breaking silence for the first time, ordered
him home in a way not fit for ears polite, and then resumed the chase;
but the dachshunds, seeing their playmate little Jim in the thick of it,
concluded that there might be some fun in it for them also, and promptly
precipitated themselves upon Mary in a way which impeded her progress so
much that Sally was able to make the gate and get it half open before
Mary shook herself free, but when she did she came like a whirlwind
towards the gate, cheered on by the collie, whose excitement had at
last slipped the collar and vented itself in sharp barks. Sally whisked
through the gate, but Mary was at her heels. Sally felt the breath of
the open, and knew if she escaped Mary’s first sprint that she was safe.
So with a derisive taunt she sprang forward, jubilant, but alas, in
the excitement of the crisis Sally let go her hold of the long skirt,
which immediately fell about her heels, and in an instant the chase was
ended, for Mary, panting, blown, and enraged beyond expression, was on
Sally in a second, and fell with her as the long skirt laid her low—the
dachshunds arrived a little later, and the collie, seduced by their evil
example, threw decorum to the winds, and seizing an end of the bright
flounce where it fluttered under the angry clutch of Mary, he tugged at
it with might and main, and this was the scene which greeted Sidney, as,
returning from his walk, he approached his own gate.
He had met a herald of the war in the person of little Jim Shinar, who
was fleeing home as fast as his sturdy legs would carry him, crying at
the same time from pure bewilderment.
A word and a small coin healed all little Jim’s hurts, and Sidney
proceeded, wondering what had frightened the child, whom he was used to
seeing about the kitchen or in Sally’s wake when she went errands.
Now, as was recorded afterwards in Dole, Sidney conducted himself
under these trying circumstances with a seeming forgetfulness of his
ministerial dignity which was altogether inexplicable, for, instead of
immediately putting the offenders to open shame, he laughed, and even
slapped his leg (so rumour said, though this was doubted), and called to
the dachshunds, who were amusing themselves demolishing Mary’s coiffure,
in a way which savoured more of encouragement than rebuke.
It is hard to live up to “what is expected of us,” and for once the
Dole preacher was disappointing—but nevertheless, his presence brought
the peace which he should have commanded. For Sally’s unregenerate soul
owned one reverence, one love—for her master she would have cut off her
right hand. To have him see her thus! There was a violent upheaval in
the struggling mass, then Sally was free of it and speeding towards the
house at a rate which suggested that her former efforts had not been her
best. Mary gathered herself up, and seeing Sidney, by this time outwardly
grave, standing looking at her, she too made for the house, and Sidney
was left still very stupefied, gazing upon the two dachshunds, which,
suddenly finding themselves deprived of amusement, fell upon each other
with a good will which proved them fresh in the field.
Sidney entered the house where Mabella and Vashti waited laughing.
Sidney was very pleased to see his wife’s face irradiate with girlish
laughter. She had been so grave and quiet of late that his loving heart
had ached over it. Was she not happy, this beautiful wife of his?
She had a far keener appreciation of the real humour of the situation
than had Mabella, and when her husband entered her eyes danced a welcome.
He was enthralled by the sight, and was more than glad to give Mary the
price of two dresses to mend her flounces and her temper. Nor did he
rebuke Sally too severely for the unauthorized loan she had levied upon
Mary’s wardrobe. He knew Sally had been sufficiently punished by his
appearance. Mabella had rescued Dorothy at the first alarm, and the child
had looked upon the whole proceeding as an amiable effort on Mary’s part
to amuse her.
Shortly after Sidney’s arrival Mabella departed, having enjoyed her
visit greatly, and Lanty and she spent an hour that evening listening
to Dorothy, as, with lisping baby tongue and inadequate vocabulary, she
endeavoured to describe how Sally had blackened her face with blacklead
to amuse her.
That night Sidney sat alone in his study; his shuttered window was open,
and, between the slats, the moths and tiny flying creatures of the
night came flitting in. Soon his student lamp was nimbused by a circle
of fluttering wings. Now and then an unusually loud hum distracted his
attention from the loose-paged manuscripts before him, and he laid them
down to rescue some moth, which, allured too near the light, had come
within dangerous proximity to the flame.
These poor, half-scorched creatures he sent fluttering forth into the
night again, yet, in spite of this, several lay dead upon the green baize
below the student lamp; others walked busily about in the circle of light
cast by the lamp-shade upon the table, and presently he put aside all
pretence of work and watched them with curious kindly eyes.
His heart, that great tender heart which was for ever bleeding for
others, whilst its own grievous wound was all unhealed, went out even to
these aimless creatures of a day.
Surely some leaven of the divine Eternal Pity wrought in the clay of this
man’s humanity, making it quick with a higher life than that breathed by
his nostrils.
“Not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain,”
he said to himself, and then before his watching eyes there seemed to be
mimicked forth all the brave-hearted struggle of humanity towards the
light, which, alas! too often scorched and blasted those nearest to it.
Well, was it better, he wondered, to have endured and known the full
radiance for an instant, even if the moment after the wings were folded
for ever, or was it wiser to be content upon the dimmer plane as those
little creatures were who ran about the table-top instead of striving
upward to the light? But happily, as he looked at these latter ones, his
attention was diverted from the more painful problem, as his eyes, always
delicately sensitive to the beauty of little things, dwelt with delight
upon the exquisite, fragile little creatures.
How marvellously their delicate wings were poised and proportioned!
Some had the texture of velvet and some the sheen of satin; and nature,
out of sheer extravagance, had touched them with gold and powdered
them with silver. And did ever lord or lady bear a plume so daintily
poised as those little creatures bore their delicate _antennæ_? And
presently a white creature fluttered in from the bosom of the darkness,
a large albino moth with a body covered with white fur and two fern-like
_antennæ_; white as a snow-flake it rested upon the green baize.
Just then Vashti entered, coming up to his table in her stately fashion.
“How foolish you are to sit with your window open,” she said. “Don’t you
know that the light attracts all those insects?”
Sidney had risen when his wife entered the room. He was almost courtly in
his politeness to her. But it was so natural for him to be courteous that
all little formalities were graceful as he observed them.
As he rose he knocked down a book. He stooped to pick it up; as he
straightened himself he saw Vashti’s hand upraised to strike the white
moth.
“Oh, Vashti! don’t! don’t!” he cried, irrepressible pain in his voice;
but the blow had fallen.
The moth fluttered about dazedly, trying to escape the shadow of the
upraised hand; there was a powdery white mark on the green baize
table-top where the first blow had fallen upon it, maiming it without
killing it outright.
Sidney’s face grew pale as death.
“Oh, Vashti! Vashti!” he cried again. “Do not kill it, there is so much
room in the world.”
He gathered the half-crushed creature, which would never fly again, into
a tender hollowed palm, and, opening the shutter, put it forth to die in
the darkness from whence it had been drawn by the glimmer of his lamp.
Alas! alas! how many wounded and maimed have been cast forth to die in
the darkness from out which their aspirations had drawn them to receive
their death wounds. Sidney came back to his table, a sick pain at his
heart.
Presently Vashti put her arms about his head, and drawing it back upon
her breast, placed her cool finger-tips upon his eyes.
He accepted the mute apology with swift responsive tenderness. And as she
held him thus the woman’s weakness, latent even in her, forced itself to
the surface for a moment.
“You suffer for every little thing,” she said. “I can only feel when my
very soul is torn.”
He felt two tears fall upon his face; he drew her towards him; she sank
beside his chair upon her knees, and he pressed her head against his
breast, and she submitted to the caress and rested upon him in a sort of
weary content, as one who pauses upon a hard journey; he put down his
face till it leaned upon her hair, and thus, so near together that heart
beat against heart, so far apart that the cry of the one soul died and
was lost ere it reached the other, they remained for long, whilst before
them the silver lamp and its white flame grew dimmer and dimmer, as its
light was obscured by the shimmering veil of tiny creatures who danced
about it.
Oh, piteous allegory! Can it indeed be that by our very efforts to find
Truth we hide its radiance from others?