UNDER THE ACACIAS
"Out of drawing; flesh tints infamous; chiaroscuro grossly muddled; no
breadth; not much story in it; badly composed; badly treated; badly
painted altogether."
So said the reviews, laying down the infallible law of the writer,
concerning Simon Perkins's great picture. The public followed the
reviews, of course, in accordance with a generous instinct, urging
it to believe that he who can write his own language, not, indeed,
accurately, but with a certain force and rapidity, must therefore
be conversant with all the subjects on which he chooses to declaim.
Statesman, chemist, engineer, shipbuilder, soldier, above all,
navigator, painter, plasterer, and statuary; like the hungry Greek
adventurer of Juvenal, _omnia novit_: like Horace's wise man amongst
the Stoics; be the subject boots, beauty, bullocks, or the beer-trade,
he is universal instructor and referee.
"Et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est rex."
So reviewers abused the picture persistently, and Lord Bearwarden was
furious, brandishing a weekly newspaper above his head, and striding
about the little Putney lawn with an energy that threatened to immerse
him in the river, forgetful of those narrow limits, suggesting the
proverbial extent of a fisherman's walk on deck, "two steps and
overboard."
His audience, though, were partial and indulgent. The old ladies
in the drawing-room, overhearing an occasional sentence, devoutly
believed their nephew was the first painter of his time, Lord
Bearwarden the wisest critic that ever lived, the greatest nobleman,
the bravest soldier, the kindest husband, always excepting, perhaps,
that other husband smoking there under the acacia, interchanging with
his lordship many a pleasant jest and smile, that argued the good
understanding existing between them.
Dick Stanmore and Lord Bearwarden were now inseparable. Their alliance
furnished a standing joke for their wives. "They have the same
perverted tastes, my dear, and like the same sort of people,"
lighthearted Nina would observe to the sister whom she had not found
till the close of her girlish life. "It's always fast friends, or, at
least, men with a strong tendency to friendship, who are in love with
the same woman, and I don't believe they hate each other half as much
as we should, even for _that_!"
To which Maud would make no reply, gazing with her dark eyes out upon
the river, and wondering whether Dick had ever told the wife he loved
how fondly he once worshipped another face so like her own.
For my part, I don't think he had. I don't think he could realise the
force of those past feelings, nor comprehend that he could ever have
cared much for any one but the darling who now made the joy of his
whole life. When first he fell in love with Nina, it was for her
likeness to her sister. Now, though in his eyes the likeness was
fading every day, that sister's face was chiefly dear to him because
of its resemblance to his wife's.
Never was there a happier family party than these persons constituted.
Lord and Lady Bearwarden, Mr. and Mrs. Stanmore, drove down from
London many days in the week to the pretty Putney villa. Simon was
truly rejoiced to see them, while the old ladies vibrated all over,
caps, fronts, ribbons, lockets, and laces, with excitement and
delight. The very flowers had a sweeter perfume, the laburnums a
richer gold, the river a softer ripple, than in the experience of all
previous springs.
"They may say what they like," continued Lord Bearwarden, still with
the weekly paper in his hand. "I maintain the criterion of merit
is success. I maintain that the Rhymer and the Fairy Queen is an
extraordinary picture, and the general public the best judge. Why
there was no getting near it at the Academy. The people crowded round
as they do about a Cheap Jack at a fair. I'm not a little fellow, but
I couldn't catch a glimpse of any part except the Fairy Queen's head.
I think it's _the_ most beautiful face I ever saw in my life!"
"Thank you, Lord Bearwarden," said Nina, laughing. "He'd such a
subject, you know; it's no wonder he made a good picture of it."
No wonder, indeed! Did she ever think his brush was dipped in colours
ground on the poor artist's heart?
"It's very like _you_ and it's very like Maud," answered Lord
Bearwarden. "Somehow you don't seem to me so like each other as you
used to be. And yet how puzzled I was the second time I ever set eyes
on you!"
"How cross you were! and how you scolded!" answered saucy Mrs.
Stanmore. "I wouldn't have stood it from Dick. Do you ever speak to
Maud like that?"
The look that passed between Lord and Lady Bearwarden was a sufficient
reply. The crowning beauty had come to those dark eyes of hers, now
that their pride was centred in another, their lustre deepened and
softened with the light of love.
"It was lucky for you, dear, that he _was_ angry," said her ladyship.
"If he had hesitated a moment, it's frightful to think what would have
become of you, at the mercy of those reckless, desperate men!"
"They were punished, at any rate," observed Nina gravely. "I shall
never forget that dead fixed face in the hall. Nor the other man's
look, the cowardly one, while he prayed to be forgiven. Forgiven,
indeed! One ought to forgive a great deal, but not such an enormity as
that!"
"I think he got off very cheap," interposed Dick Stanmore. "He
deserved to be hanged, in my opinion, and they only transported
him--not even for life!"
"Think of the temptation, Dick," replied Nina, with another saucy
smile. "How would you like it yourself?"
"And you were in pursuit of the same object. You can't deny that, only
he hit upon me first."
"I was more sorry for the other villain," said Lord Bearwarden, who
had heard long ago the history of Gentleman Jim's persecution of her
ladyship. "He was a daring, reckless scoundrel, and I should like to
have killed him myself, but _it_ did seem hard lines to be shot by his
own confederate in the row!"
"I pity that poor woman most of all," observed Lady Bearwarden, with a
sigh. "It is quite a mercy that she should have lost her senses. She
suffered so dreadfully till her mind failed."
"How is she?" "Have you seen her?" came from the others in a breath.
"I was with her this morning," answered Maud. "She didn't know me.
I don't think she knows anybody. They can't get her to read, nor do
needlework, nor even walk out into the garden. She's never still, poor
thing! but paces up and down the room mumbling over a bent halfcrown
and a knot of ribbon," added Lady Bearwarden, with a meaning glance
at her husband, "that they found on the dead man's body, and keeps
pressing it against her breast while she mutters something about their
wanting to take it away. It's a sad, sad sight! I can't get that wild
vacant stare out of my head. It's the same expression that frightened
me so on her face that day by the Serpentine. It has haunted me
ever since. She seemed to be looking miles away across the water at
something I couldn't see. I wonder what it was. I wonder what she
looks at now!"
"She's never been in her right senses, has she, since that dreadful
night?" asked Nina. "If she were a lady, and well dressed, and
respectable, one would say it's quite a romance. Don't you think
perhaps, after all, it's more touching as it is?" and Nina, who liked
to make little heartless speeches she did not mean, looked lovingly
on Dick, with her dark eyes full of tears, as she wondered what would
become of her if anything happened to _him_!
"I can scarcely bear to think of it," answered Maud, laying her
hand on her husband's shoulder. "Through all the happiness of that
night--far, far the happiest of my whole life--this poor thing's utter
misery comes back to me like a warning and a reproach. If I live to a
hundred I shall never forget her when she looked up to heaven from the
long rigid figure with its fixed white face, and tried to pray, and
couldn't, and didn't know how! O! my darling!"--and here Maud's voice
sank to a whisper, while the haughty head drooped lovingly and humbly
towards her husband's arm,--"what have I done that I should be so
blessed, while there is all this misery and disappointment and despair
in the world?"
He made no attempt at explanation. The philosophy of our Household
Cavalry, like the religion of Napoleon's "Old Guard," is adapted for
action rather than casuistry. He did not tell her that in the journey
of life for some the path is made smooth and easy, for others paved
with flint and choked with thorns; but that a wise Director knows best
the capabilities of the wayfarer, and the amount of toil required to
fit him for his rest. So up and down, through rough and smooth, in
storm and sunshine--all these devious tracks lead home at last. If
Lord Bearwarden thought this, he could not put it into words, but his
arm stole lovingly round the slender waist, and over his brave, manly
face came a gentle look that seemed to say he asked no better than
to lighten every load for that dear one through life, and bear her
tenderly with him on the road to heaven.
"_C'est l'amour_!" laughed Nina, "that makes all the bother and
complications of our artificial state of existence!"
"And all its sorrows!" said Lord Bearwarden.
"And all its sin!" said her ladyship.
"And all its beauty!" said Dick.
"And all its happiness!" added the painter, who had not yet spoken,
from his seat under the acacia that grew by the water's edge.
"Well put!" exclaimed the others, "and you need not go out of this
dear little garden in search of the proof."
But Simon made no answer. Once more he was looking wistfully on the
river, thinking how it freshened and fertilised all about it as it
passed by. Fulfilling its noble task--bearing riches, comforts,
health, happiness, yet taking to deck its own bosom, not one of
the humblest wildflowers that must droop and die but for its love.
Consoler, sympathiser, benefactor, night and day. Gently, noiselessly,
imperceptibly speeding its good work, making no pause, knowing no
rest, till far away beyond that dim horizon, under the golden heaven,
it merged into the sea.
THE END