The climax had come. It had rushed upon her with an unexpectedness that
was overwhelming and had left her too stunned to even think connectedly.
Only the night before she had been so full of glad expectation, and now
everything seemed at an end and all the gladness vanished. She walked
unsteadily back to her old seat by the window, and fingered absently the
book St. John had sent. It was a new volume, and had been a gift; for
he had written her name on the fly leaf. The fact had given her
pleasure last night, now she wondered why he had done it, and laid the
book down again wearily, all her former interest gone. There were other
evidences of his gifts about the room in the shape of baskets once
containing fruit and flowers. The fruit had been all eaten, and the
flowers were dead; a bunch of them, fading fast, drooped in a vase upon
the table; the rest, dried and discoloured, with all their beauty
perished, were hidden away in Jill's little bedroom where only she could
see them, and recall the pleasure they had given; and from her exalted
position on on the bracket which she occupied alone, Clytie looked down
white, and pure, and pensive, seeming to understand. Oh! it was hard,
and cruel, and bitter,--all the more bitter, that the mistake had been
her own. She drew from the bosom of her frock St. John's brief note,
the note that had made her so happy, and read it again by the light of
her new understanding, `Don't worry about the lessons; I am enjoying the
holiday.' Perhaps he had meant it literally and not, as she had
imagined, penned the clause solely with a thoughtful desire to save her
anxiety. How vain she had been!--how mad! `I have something to say to
you which will not keep.' So vague a sentence, and yet she had fancied
that she had guessed his meaning rightly. He might have meant a hundred
things, and what more probable than the announcement of his engagement?
Jill crouched by the window for the rest of the morning hugging this new
trouble which had dwarfed all the others into insignificance. At first
she was too dazed to feel anything much, then gradually the anguish of
mind grew keener until it seemed unbearable, and finally exhausted
itself by its own violence. After that came a lull, and then followed
resentment, fierce, active, healthy resentment that left absolutely no
room for any other emotion; resentment against her recent visitor,
angry, contemptuous, indignant; resentment against Miss Bolton of the
fiercely jealous order; but keenest of all resentment against St. John,
the cold, inflexible, heartsore resentment of wounded love. He ought to
have told her of his engagement; if not actually dishonourable it was
mean of him to have suppressed the fact when he must have seen that he
was becoming necessary to her, when he knew, too, that she was more
than, under the circumstances, she should have been to him; for that he
did care for her she did not doubt--infatuation his father had called
it, and it might be that he was right. At any rate St. John should have
left the Art School before it had grown too late. This feeling of anger
acted as a tonic to Jill; it braced her nerves and put her on her
mettle, so that she determined to face her trouble and conquer it, and
if possible show St. John what a poor opinion she had of him. But then
came the remembrance of her small debts and her poverty. It had been a
bad thing for her this acquaintance with St. John; she had not relied
sufficiently on herself. When he was gone the fee would cease, and she
had not sold any work for weeks. The last canvas that she had been
engaged upon before her illness, painting from a model St. John had
employed, stood against the wall unfinished and there were others ready
for sale but nowhere to dispose of them. In the afternoon she went
out--there was no time for holidays now--in search of a market, and
returned in the evening weary, footsore, miserable, having had no luck
at all with her canvasses, but--oh! the degradation to Jill's
artist-soul--having been obliged to accept as the only thing going an
order for half-a-dozen nightdress sachets--`pyjama bags' as the oily,
leering, facetious individual who had given her the commission called
them.
"There was a run on 'em," he had added, "the swells like painted satin
things to keep their night-gear in."
Jill had agreed to do the work, but she looked far from happy over it,
and very nearly cried as she turned to leave the shop. The facetious
individual had chucked her under the chin, and told her to `buck up,'
and he would look round and see if there wasn't something else he could
find her to `daub.' Then he winked at her, and Jill had broken away in
haste fearing that these overtures would lead to an embrace. And so she
reached home, and that night went early to bed, and Thursday ended
unhappily even as it had begun.
The next morning when she rose, the feeling of anger was still
paramount. She had suffered so keenly yesterday that she did not think
it possible that she could feel any greater pain, and she found it
difficult to realise yet all that this sudden breaking with St. John
must mean. She steeled herself to meet her old pupil with composure
though she had not yet determined upon what she should say or do. At
first she had thought of writing and forbidding him ever to come to the
Art School again, but had subsequently rejected this plan as
impracticable; what reason had she to offer? She could not say on
account of your engagement, such an excuse would have placed her in a
false position, and given St. John a right to put what construction he
chose upon her motive. The only thing that remained for her was to
receive him, and by saying as little as possible convince him how
indifferent she was, and how very determined at the same time. And at
nine thirty sharp he arrived, clattering up the steep stairs like a
noisy schoolboy and marching through the open door straight into the
studio where Jill stood white and nervous, but outwardly calm, waiting
to receive him. There was a pleased, eager, confident air about him in
striking contrast to the chilling quiet of her manner, and he grasped
her hand before she could prevent him with a very hearty grip of genuine
sincerity.
"This is good to see you about again," he began. Then he stopped short
struck by something in her face, and exclaimed anxiously. "Nothing the
matter I hope, Miss Erskine?"
Jill was standing with her back to the light so that she had the
advantage of him that way; but St. John's sight was good and he detected
at once the suppressed agitation of her manner; though she, herself, was
unaware of it there was a whole life's tragedy in the depths of her grey
eyes.
"No," she answered; "nothing beyond a trifling annoyance that I have
been subjected to lately, and which I have determined to put an end to
for good and all. It is absurd of course and really not worth
discussing, but these petty worries are even more trying than big ones."
"If it is not worth discussion," he said, "we'll let it slide for to-day
at any rate. I have got so much to say that is worth discussing, that I
want to say it at once. I give you fair warning that I haven't come to
work."
As a matter of fact there was no work put ready for him; but he had not
time to notice that. He was so boyish and impulsive, so gay and
self-complacent that her anger gathered strength from his sheer
light-heartedness.
"Come and sit beside me on the stool by the window, Jill," he said, "and
then we can talk at our ease."
It was the first time that he had addressed her by her Christian name,
and he glanced at her half smiling, half diffident, to see how she would
take it.
"No," she answered coldly, "what I have to say can very well be said
where I am, and it will be as well to get through with it at once. You
will think it rather sudden no doubt after my note of Wednesday, but, as
I told you, I have been subjected to a great deal of annoyance lately
and what I experienced yesterday has decided me to put an end to the
existing state of affairs. I regret having to spring this upon you so
abruptly, and in the middle of a quarter too, but I wish you to
understand that I cannot teach you any longer, I wish you to leave this
Art School."
St. John looked mystified and incredulous, he was astounded at her
request, at the cold precision of her voice, and the apathy of her
expression. He felt annoyed with her and not a little hurt.
"May I enquire why you dismiss me thus suddenly?" he asked schooling
himself to keep his vexation in check. "I should like to know what has
induced you to act so precipitately."
"No, you may not," Jill answered crossly; "I only took you on trial,
remember."
"For a quarter yes, but then the probation was over, and it is hardly
etiquette to dismiss a pupil in the middle of a term without vouchsafing
any reason."
"I consider it quite sufficient that I do dismiss you," Miss Erskine
responded. "We will not discuss the matter further, if you please."
"Oh! yes, we will," he answered, his temper like her own beginning to
get the upper hand. "In fact I refuse to leave without an alleged
complaint before my term is expired; you are bound to give a proper
notice."
"Not if I expel you," Jill retorted.
"Expel me!" he scoffed. "What would you expel me for? You couldn't do
that without a reason."
"But I have a reason."
"A reason!" he repeated aghast, "a reason sufficient to expel me? What
reason pray?"
"Making love to me."
Silence followed--a depressing silence during which neither of them
moved. She had spoken in the heat of the moment, the next she could
have bitten out her tongue for her indiscretion. St. John stared at her
fully a minute. Then he smiled rudely.
"Making love to you!" he repeated. "Absurd! I have never spoken a word
of love to you in my life."
It was true; he had not, and Jill's cup of humiliation was full. What
had induced her to make such an egregious error?
"You'll be running me in for breach of promise, I suppose?" he continued
ruthlessly. "Don't you think that you're a little--a little--well,
conceited to be so premature?"
Jill turned upon him wrathfully.
"How dare you speak to me like that?" she cried. "It is only what
people think. For myself it wouldn't have mattered whether you had made
love to me or not; I should soon have settled that."
He changed from angry crimson to dead white, and gazed at her in hurt
displeasure.
"You mean that?" he asked.
"Certainly," she answered with vindictive and unnecessary emphasis, "I
am not in the habit of prevaricating."
"Very well," he said in a tone of forced calm which contrasted ill with
the pained expression of his face, "I believe you. And under the
circumstances am quite of your opinion that further acquaintance had
better cease. It was a mistake my coming at all both for you and for
me. Good morning, Miss Erskine, and good-bye."
He paused, thinking that perhaps her mood had been prompted by caprice,
and that she might relent yet and call him back; but she made no
movement at all beyond a bend of the head, and her voice was no kinder
when she wished him farewell. Then he went, striding down the stairs
and out into the street, resentful, angry, heartsore, little guessing
how very much greater was the unhappiness he had left behind him where
Jill, alone now in every sense of the word, stood battling with her
grief and her emotion, and trying to face the difficulties which seemed
crowding upon her on every side. She got out her satin work when he had
gone and started upon the sachets with eager haste, glad of the
miserable order now; for it kept her employed, and diverted the train of
her thoughts. And all that day she sat working, working feverishly,
dining, when the light failed so that she could see to paint no longer,
off a crust of bread, the best her larder had to offer--indeed the only
thing.
The next morning by the early post she received a letter from St. John.
Her hand trembled so violently as she took it up that she could hardly
unfasten the envelope, but, finally tearing it open she withdrew the
contents, a sheet of notepaper with St. John's compliments inscribed
thereon, and enclosed within a cheque for the fee paid in full up to the
end of the present quarter. The cheque fell to the ground unheeded but
the sheet of paper Jill spread out on the table before her and then sat
staring at it as though she could not take it in. It was the first
brief missive of the sort that she had received; its very brevity
chilled her. "With Mr St. John's compliments." So he had accepted his
dismissal? It was better so, of course; but it was very hard to bear
all the same.