Society made much of the ethereal-looking girl. Society took to her
title of the "Windflower"; it was so romantic, so "old world." She went
for rides in the Row, drove in the Park, visited the opera and theatres,
was present at evening receptions, and at ladies' "tea and scandal"
parties--weak tea and strong scandal. Here she learned to fear her own
sex.
She was presented at Court in a low dress on a foggy afternoon; she went
everywhere in a sort of dream seeking her ideal, but she found no trace
of "Terah," the breather of good; and as time passed she grew sick at
heart, seeing on all hands the lust of self. Men battled for their idol
everywhere, women bartered away their souls to crown self with a diadem
of gold.
Presently she was permitted to go about unattended, a freedom that
inspired her with new hopes. She went down to the busy part of the city
and stood in the surging crowd that battled for life. The "Windflower"
was alone in a world of anxious men whose all-consuming passion was
self. Time was precious. All was hurry. Everybody had business on hand;
even at luncheon they seemed to be racing. Not a minute was to be lost;
hesitate but for an instant, and they were pushed aside, the great race
of self against self, pursuing its course without them. A few attained
the goal, but many were stricken down by the way. Those who reached it
bowed their heads to the ground and worshipped at the glittering shrine
where Gold and Self were throned kings of the human heart.
Her quest seemed to be failing entirely. Among the poor, who learned to
love her, she now and then found a trace of her lost "Terah," but it was
only a straggling ray of light in a nightmare of darkness and sin.
One night she was present at a great ball given in her honour by an
intimate friend of the Countess.
The room was filled with sweet perfumes, the mantel-pieces heaped with
lilies of the valley and white lilacs. All the wealth of spring flowers
lay fainting in the hot atmosphere. Not a drop of water to cool them,
not a breath of air to ease their pain. The band shrieked out its cheap
melodies, the dancers danced beneath the glare of electric lights. The
fashionable throng enjoyed itself. But one out of its number felt as
weary as the flowers. Dressed in clinging folds of soft satin, her hair
was arranged low in her neck, and in her hand she held a few loose
roses. She looked like a garden lily which had strayed from its home,
and grieved to find that it had exchanged the evening air and the
silence of the night for the glare of electric globes, the heat of a
crowded room, and the hubbub of countless voices.
"And so you do not like society?" said her partner, a young fellow whom
she had often met before, and whom she greatly interested.
"From what I know of it I do not. I think, too, that people who live in
cities are cruel. Look at the poor lilacs and lilies massed together to
faint and die. In my home we never think of letting flowers remain
without water. We look upon them as living things. Every blossom has a
life of its own; it knows pain and thirst. When I see them, torn from
hedge and meadow by careless hands and thrown on to the roads to die in
the dust, I know that for each flower an angel weeps."
"Do not talk of things that make you sad. I want you to be happy
to-night. You are enjoying yourself, are you not?" the young fellow
inquired wistfully. Dangerous question to ask the grave idealist, but he
had taken a great fancy to her, he sympathised with many of her
feelings. "If you cannot say that you are enjoying yourself, please
leave my question unanswered," he added hastily.
Lady Mercy looked up in surprise, then partly comprehending his words,
she said,--
"I like to talk with you; but I have had to converse with so many others
who have nothing to say that I am weary--men who asked me whether I had
seen this or that play, if I had been on the great wheel, did I approve
of bicycling for women? Had I tried golfing? And then, having finished
their stock of small talk, they taxed their poor ingenuity to pay me
compliments."
"I am not surprised," was the grave reply.
"Oh! I wish you had not said that. Why should a man seek to flatter a
woman; in short, to insult her?"
"I would not offend you for the world!" he cried. "Indeed I am sorry."
"And I am grieved to have spoken bitterly. Pardon me, I do not know how
to talk even to you, and everything is so strange," she said, flushing
deeply.
"Tell me of what you like most yourself; that will interest me beyond
all other subjects."
"I cannot speak of that," she answered, a gentle light playing on her
face. "I can only think about it. The remembrance of it is rooted in my
heart; it is a part of me."
"Mercy," he cried, his face flushing and his eyes becoming strangely
brilliant, "the Countess has told me of your dream, of your search for
some one who has never existed. Ah! give it up. Do you not know that
the bitterest chapter in the book of life is that which is headed
'Broken Ideals'? The pages are written in blood, they are blistered with
tears. The reader must decipher that chapter alone, the shattered
remains of what was once his divinity, his sunshine feeding on his
heart, and poisoning even his memory."
"But humanity should not let its ideals be broken. It should fight for
them, lock them safe in the inmost chamber of its mind. It should never
suffer a profane hand to destroy that which is dearer than itself," she
answered, with a fixed, far-away look in her eyes.
"Ah, my dear Mercy, believe me, should you appear to find he whom you
seek, you will but dream, and then awake to learn that your young, fresh
life has been wasted, and that your Ideal is false. Then age will be
passed in useless longing and vain regrets."
"I shall find him. I did know him once, and he left me, but he will come
back again." Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked so spiritual, so
beautiful, that her companion could contain himself no longer.
"Mercy, I love you!" he whispered.
The breathless words brought her back from dreamland, with its mists and
its dim beauties--back to a London ballroom, back to fading humanity
and faded flowers. The utter weariness and cheapness of it all struck
her painfully, the passionate cry of love associated itself in her mind
with the rustle and frippery of fashion.
"My life is his of whom we have spoken," she said gently in response to
his beseeching glance, as her hostess, a bright, fashionable woman,
hurried up and whispered effusively: "Wait here a moment, dear. I have
at last found some one whom I am sure will please you. He is very rich
and handsome, quite a king in the world of fashion, and yet a Christian
gentleman--and oh, so wise! We call him our Ideal."
She came back accompanied by a tall, fine man. Everybody thought him
beautiful--"pure Greek, you know"; but Lady Mercy started back in
terror, recovering herself the next minute. To her he was hideous--his
mouth misshapen, his eyes a dull red. Was it because her own soul was so
pure that she saw people's minds, not their faces, and when a mind was
evil its chief vice shone through its fleshly covering like a beacon?
"Delighted to meet you, Lady Mercy; will you dance?"
"No, thank you."
"We will sit it out, then, and talk. By the way, our mutual friend, Lady
R----, tells me that you are much distressed over the condition of the
unemployed in our great city?"
"Yes, I want mother to devise a scheme for helping them. I have seen so
much suffering since I have been here."
"Money thrown away, I assure you; they are a rascally set. If a man is
willing to work there is work to be had."
"I disagree, sir; work is most difficult to obtain. A character is
needed. Many of these poor, suffering creatures have no recommendation
that might entitle them to recognition at the hands of Christ's
followers. And most of them are not in a condition to work. They have
neither clothes, nor health, nor hope. Could you build with your feet
through your boots? Could you lift heavy weights with no strength in
your body and no hope in your soul?"
"You forget I am not one of the unemployed," he said, smiling.
"No? What do you do then?"
"Well, I do not exactly do anything."
"Then you are unemployed."
"I have no regular work; but I try to follow in Christ's steps. I am a
Christian like yourself. I believe that He was God, and worship Him as
such."
"Sir, I fear His would have been a poor, useless martyrdom if you were
indeed a Christian. Go home and read His life; see what He says about
the poor whom you despise. There, forgive me, I did not mean to say so
much. But I think you are in the wrong. Good-night."
"What an awful girl you introduced me to, Lady R----! She was positively
insulting; a regular windbag, not a flower."
"Didn't it make any impression? Poor Popsie," she replied, patting him
with her fan, "I hoped she would interest you; she is in search of the
Ideal. What a pity she did not recognise you! Never mind, I will
introduce you to Baby Joy, the music-hall singer who married Lord Clare.
You know? Come along."