"You're not looking well, Janet?"
"I'm rather tired," she answered lightly; "I've been troubled lately,
the weight of the world----but I'm quite well."
Lady Beamish made no answer. Janet could not tell why she had felt an
impulse to speak the truth, perhaps just because she was afraid of
her, and gave up the task of feeling easy as hopeless. They talked of
Gertrude again. Dinner was quickly finished. Instead of going back
into the drawing-room, Lady Beamish took her upstairs into her own
room.
"I'm sorry you have troubles which are making you thin and pale. At
your age life ought to be bright and full of romance: you ought to
have no troubles at all. I heard that you weren't going to travel with
your father, but begin work on your own account: it seems to me you're
quite right, and I admire your courage."
Janet was surprised that Lady Beamish should show so much interest.
"My courage somehow doesn't make me feel cheerful," Janet answered,
laughing, "and I can't see anything hopeful in the future to look
forward to----" "Why am I saying all this to her?" she wondered.
"No? And the consciousness of doing right as an upholding power--that
is generally a fallacy. I think you are certainly right there."
Janet looked at Lady Beamish, astonished and comforted to hear these
words from the lips of an old experienced woman.
"I _am_ grateful to you for saying that!"
"It must be a hard wrench to begin a new kind of life."
"It's not the work or even the change which I mind; if only there were
some assurance in life, something certain and hopeful: I feel so
miserably alone, acting on my own responsibility in the only way
possible, and yet for no reason----"
"My poor girl----" and she stretched out her arms. Janet rose from her
chair and took both her hands and sat down on the footstool at her
feet. She looked up at her handsome face; it seemed divine to her
lighted by that smile, and the wrinkles infinitely touching and
beautiful. There was an intimate air about the room.
"You've decided to go away to Bristol?"
"I thought I'd be thorough: I might stay in London and get work; a
friend of mine is editor of a lady's paper, and I suppose she could
give me something to do; and there are other things I could do; but
that doesn't seem to me thorough enough----"
The superiority of the older experienced women made the girl feel
weak. She would have a joy in confessing herself.
"I suppose it was chiefly Gerty's marriage which set me thinking I'd
better change. Until then I'd lived contentedly enough. I'm easily
occupied, and I felt no necessity to work. But when I was left alone
with father, I began gradually to feel as if I couldn't go on living
so, as if I hadn't the right; nothing I ever did pleased him. And then
I wondered what I was waiting for----"
She looked up at Lady Beamish and saw her fine features set
attentively to her story; she could tell everything to such a
face--all these things of which she had never spoken to anyone. She
looked away again.
"Was I waiting to get married? That idea tortured me. Why should ideas
come and trouble us when they're untrue and bear no likeness to our
character?"
She turned her head once more to glance at the face above her.
"I looked into myself. Was it true of me that my only outlook in life
was a man, that _that_ was the only aim of my life? It wasn't
necessary to answer the question, for it flashed into my mind with
bitter truth that if I'd been playing that game, I'd been singularly
unsuccessful, so I needn't trouble about the question----"
Astonished at herself, she moved her hand up, and Lady Beamish
stretched out hers, and held the girl's hand upon her lap. Then, half
ashamed of her frankness, she went on quickly and in a more ordinary
tone:
"Oh, that and everything else--I was afraid of growing bitter, When my
father threw up his work and decided to go to Algiers with his old
friends, that seemed a good opportunity; I would do something for
myself, you're justified if you work. It seemed hopeful then; but now
the prospect is as hopeless and desolate as before."
Janet saw the tears collecting in Lady Beamish's eyes, and her
underlip beginning to quiver. Lady Beamish dared not kiss the girl for
fear of breaking into tears: she stood up and went towards the fire,
and trying to conquer her tears said: "Seeing you in trouble makes all
my old wounds break out afresh."
Janet gazed in wonder at her, feeling greatly comforted. Lady Beamish
put her hand on the girl's head as she sat before her and said
smiling: "It's strange how one sorrow brings up another, and if you
cry you can't tell for what exactly you're crying. As I hear you talk
of loneliness, I'm reminded of my own loneliness, so different from
yours. As long as my own great friend was living, there was no
possibility of loneliness; I was proud, I could have faced the whole
world. But since he died, every year has made me feel the want of a
sister or brother, some one of my own generation. I don't suppose you
can understand what I mean. You say: 'You have sons, and many friends
who love and respect you'; that's true, and, indeed, without my sons I
should not live; but they've all got past me, even Harry, the
youngest. I can do nothing more for them, and as years go by I grow
less able to do anything for anybody; my energy leaves me, and I sit
still and see the world in front of me, see men and women whom I
admire, whose conduct I commend inwardly, but that is all. My heart
aches sometimes for a companion of my own age who would sit still with
me, who understands my ideas, who has no new object in view, who has
done life and has been left behind too----"
"Extremes meet," she broke off. "I wish to comfort you, who are
looking hopelessly forward, and all I can do is to show you an old
woman's sorrow."
"But wait," she went on, sitting down, "let us be practical; you
needn't go back to-night, I'll tell some one to fetch your things. And
will you let me try and help you? I don't know whether I can; but may
I try? Won't you stay a bit here with me? You would then have time to
think over your plans; it would do no harm, at any rate. Or, if you
would prefer living alone, would you let me help you? Sometimes it's
easier to be indebted to strangers. Don't answer now, you know my
offer is sincere, coming at this time; you can think it over."
She left her place and met the servant at the door, to give her the
order for the fetching of Janet's things. She came back and stood with
her hands behind her, facing Janet, who looked up to her from her
stool, adoring her as if she were a goddess.
"There's only one thing to do in life, to try and help those whom we
can help; but it's very difficult to help you young people," she said,
drying her eyes; "you generally want something we cannot give you."
"You comforted me more than I can say. I never dreamed of the
possibility of such comfort as you're giving me."
Still standing facing Janet, she suddenly began: "I knew a girl a long
time ago; she was the most exquisite creature I've ever seen. She was
lovely as only a Jewess can be lovely: by her side English beauties
looked ridiculous, as if their features had been thrown together by
mistake a few days ago; this girl's beauty was eternal, I don't know
how else to describe her superiority. There was a harmony about her
figure--not as we have pretty figures--but every movement seemed to be
the expression of a magnificent nature. She had that strange look in
her face which some Jews have, a something half humorous half pitiful
about the eyebrows; it was so remarkable in a young girl, as if an
endless experience of the world had been born in her--not that she was
tired or _blasé_; she wasn't at all one of those young people who have
seen the vanity of everything, she was full of enthusiasm,
fascinatingly fresh; she was so capable and sensitive that nothing
could be foreign or incomprehensible to her. I never saw anyone so
unerring; I would have wagered the world that she could never be wrong
in feeling. I never saw her misunderstand any one, except on purpose."
Janet was rapt in attention, loving to hear this beauty's praises in
the mouth of Lady Beamish. She kept her gaze fixed on the face, which
now was turned towards her, now towards the fire.
"At the time I remember some man was writing in the paper about the
inferiority of women, and as a proof he said quite truly that there
were no women artists except actresses. He happened to mention one or
two well-known living artists whom I knew personally; they weren't to
be compared with this girl, and they would have been the first to say
so themselves. She had no need to write her novels and symphonies; she
lived them. One would have said a person most wonderfully fitted for
life. Oh, I could go on praising her for ever; except once, I never
fell so completely in love as I did with her. To see her dance and
romp--I hadn't realised before how a great nature can show itself in
everything a person does. It is a joy to think of her.
"One day she came to me, it was twenty years ago, I was a little over
forty, she was just nineteen. She had fallen in love with a boy of her
own age, and was in terrible difficulties with herself. I suppose it
would have been more fitting if I'd given her advice; but I was so
full of pity at the sight of this exquisite nature in torments that I
could only try and comfort her and tell her above all things she
mustn't be oppressed by any sense of her own wickedness; we all had
difficulties of the same kind, and we couldn't expect to do more than
just get along somehow as well as we could. I was angry with Fate that
such a harmonious being had been made to jar with so heavy a strain.
She had been free, and now she was to be confounded and brought to
doubt. I don't think I can express it in words; but I feel as if I
really understood why she killed herself a few days later. She had
come among us, a wonder, ignoring the littlenesses of life, or else
making them worthy by the spirit in which she treated them, and the
first strain of this dragging ordinary affliction bewildered her.
Whether a little more experience would have saved her, or whether it
was a superior flash of insight which prompted her to end her life--at
any rate it wasn't merely unreturned love which oppressed her."
"And what was the man like?"
"He was quite a boy, and never knew she was in love with him; in fact
I can't tell how far she did love him. The older I grow the more
certain I feel that this actual love wasn't deep; but it was the
sudden revelation of a whole mystery, a new set of difficulties, which
confounded an understanding so far-reaching and superior. I remember
her room distinctly; she was unlike most women in this respect, she
had no desire to furnish her own room and be surrounded by pretty
things of her own choice. She left the room just as it was when the
family took the furnished house, with its very common ugly furniture,
vile pictures on the walls, and things under glasses. She carried so
much beauty with her, she didn't think her room worth troubling about.
I always imagine that her room has never been entered or changed since
her death: nothing stirs there, except in the summer a band of small
flies dance their mazy quadrille at the centre of the ceiling. I
remember how she used to lie on the sofa and wonder at them with her
half-laughing, half-pathetic eyes."
"And what did her people think!"
"Her family adored her: they were nice people, very ordinary----"
There was a knock at the door and Henry appeared, red-checked and
smelling of the cold street. Janet rose from her stool to shake hands
with him: his entrance was an unpleasant interruption; she thought
that his mother too must feel something of the sort, although he was
the one thing in the world she loved most.
"How was your play, Harry?"
"Oh, simply wonderful."
"Was the house pretty full?"
"Not very, though people were fairly enthusiastic; but there was a
fool of a girl sitting in front of us, I could have kicked her, she
would go all laughing."
"Perhaps she thought you were foolish for not laughing!"
"But such a sloppy-looking person had no right to laugh."
"Opinions differ about personal appearance."
"Well, at any rate she had a dirty dress on; the swan's-down round her
cloak was perfectly black."
"Ah, now your attack becomes more telling!"
Lady Beamish had not changed her position. When Henry left, Janet
feared she might want to stop their confidential talk; but she showed
no signs of wishing to go to bed.
"I wish boys would remain boys, and not grow older; they never grow
into such nice men, they don't fulfil their promise."
She sat down once more, and went on to tell Janet another story, a
love story. When Janet, happy as she had not been for months, kissed
her and said good-night, she told her how glad she was that no one
else had been with her that evening.
Janet went to bed, feeling that the world was possible once more. Her
mind was relieved of a great weight, she was wonderfully
light-hearted, now that she rested weakly upon another's generosity,
and was released from her egotistical hopelessness. She no longer had
a great trouble which engrossed her thoughts, her mind was free to
travel over the comforting circumstances of that evening: the intimate
room, Lady Beamish's face with the tears gathering in her eyes, the
confession she had made of her own loneliness, her offer of help which
had made the world human again, her story and Henry's interruption,
and the funny little argument between the mother and the son whom she
adored; and after that, Lady Beamish had still stayed talking, and had
dropped into telling of love as willingly as any school-girl, only
everything came with such sweet force from the woman with all that
experience of life. Every point in the evening with Lady Beamish had
gone to give her a deep-felt happiness; hopes sprang up in her mind,
and she soon fell asleep filled with wonder and pity, thinking of the
lovely Jewess whom Lady Beamish had known and admired so long ago,
when Janet herself was only five or six years old.
The older woman lay awake many hours thinking over her own life, and
the sorrows of this poor girl.
* * * * *
Janet did not take Lady Beamish's offer, but went to Bristol, upheld
by the idea that her friend respected her all the more for keeping to
her plans. The first night at Bristol, in the room which was to be
hers, she took out the old letter of invitation for that evening, and
before she went to bed she kissed the signature "Clara Beamish"--the
christian name seemed to bring them close together.
When she had overcome the strangeness of her surroundings, life was
once more what it had always been; there was no particular struggle,
no particular hopefulness. She was cheerful for no reason on Monday,
less cheerful for no reason on Wednesday. The correspondence with Lady
Beamish, which she had hoped would keep up their friendship, dropped
almost immediately; the two letters she received from her were stiff,
far off. Janet heard of her now and then, generally as performing some
social duty. They met too a few times, but almost as strangers.
But Janet always remembered that she had gained the commendation of
the wonderful woman, and that she approved of her; and she never
forgot that evening, and the picture of Clara Beamish, exquisitely
sympathetic, adorable. It stood out as a bright spot in life, nothing
could change its value and reality.
III--Sancta Maria
By V.
The fire had grown black and smoky, and the room felt cold. It was
about four o'clock on a dark day in November. Black snow-fraught
clouds had covered the sky since the dawn. They seemed to be saving up
their wrath for the storm to come. A woman sat close to the fire with
a child in her arms. From time to time she shuddered involuntarily. It
was miserably cold. In the corner of the room a man lay huddled up in
a confusion of rags and covers. He moaned from time to time. Suddenly
the fire leaped into a yellow flame, which lit up the room and
revealed all its nakedness and filth. The floor was bare, and there
were lumps of mud here and there on the boards, left by the tramp of
heavy boots. There was a strip of paper that had come unfastened from
the wall, and hung over in a large curve. It was black and foul, but
here and there could be seen faintly a pattern of pink roses twined in
and out of a trellis. There was no furniture in the room but the chair
on which the woman sat. By the sick man's side was a white earthenware
bowl, full of a mixture that gave out a strong pungent smell which
pervaded the room. On the floor by the fireside was a black straw hat
with a green feather and a rubbed velvet bow in it. The woman's face
was white, and the small eyes were full of an intense despair. As the
flame shot up feebly and flickered about she looked for something to
keep alive the little bit of coal. She glanced at the heap in the
corner which had become quiet, then, turning round, caught sight of
the hat on the floor. She looked at it steadily for a minute between
the flickers of the flame, then stooped down and picked it up.
Carefully detaching the trimming from the hat, she laid it on the
chair. Then she tore the bits of straw and lay them across each other
over the little piece of coal. The fire blazed brightly for a few
minutes after the straw had caught. It covered the room with a fierce
light and the woman looked afraid that the sick man might be
disturbed. But he was quiet as before. Almost mechanically she pulled
a little piece of the burning straw from the fire and, shading it with
her hand, stole softly to the other end of the room after depositing
the child on the chair.
She looked for some minutes at the figure stretched before her. He lay
with his face to the wall. He was a long thin man, and it seemed to
her as she looked that his length was almost abnormal. Holding the
light that was fast burning to the end away from her, she stooped down
and laid her finger lightly on his forehead. The surface of his skin
was cold as ice. She knew that he was dead. But she did not cry out.
The eyes were filled with a look of bitter disappointment, and she
dropped the bit of burning straw, and then, moving suddenly from her
stooping posture, crushed out the little smouldering heap with her
heel. She looked about the room for something; then repeating a prayer
to herself hurriedly, hastened to the child who had woke up and was
crying and kicking the bars of the wooden chair. There was something
in the contrast between the stillness of the figure in the corner and
the noise made by the child that made the woman shiver. She took up
the child in her arms, comforted him, and sat down before the fire.
She was thinking deeply. So poor! Scarcely enough to keep herself and
the child till the end of the week, and then the figure in the corner!
For some time she puzzled and puzzled. The burning straw had settled
into a little glowing heap. She rose and went to a little box on the
mantel-piece, and, opening it, counted the few coins in it. Then she
seemed to reckon for a few moments, and a look of determination came
into her face. She put the child down again and went to the other end
of the room. She stood a moment over the prostrate figure, and then
stooped down and took off an old rag of a shawl and a little child's
coat which lay over the dead man's feet. She paused a moment. Again
she stooped down and stripped the figure of all its coverings, until
nothing was left but the dull white nightshirt that the man wore. She
put the bundle which she had collected in a little heap on the other
side of the room. Then she came back, and with an almost superhuman
effort reared the figure into an upright position against the wall.
She looked round for a moment, gathered up the little bundle, and
stole softly from the room. A few hours later she came back. There was
a gas lamp outside the window, and by the light of it she saw the
child sitting at the feet of the figure, staring up at it stupidly.
* * * * *
Four days passed by, and still the figure stood against the wall. The
woman had grown very white and haggard. She had only bought food
enough for the child, and had scarce touched a morsel herself. It was
Saturday. She was expecting a few pence for some matches which she had
sold during the week. She was not allowed to take her money
immediately, but had to hand it over to the owner of the matches, who
had told her that if she had sold a certain quantity by the end of the
week she should be paid a small percentage.
So she went out on this Saturday and managed to get rid of the
requisite number, and carrying the money as usual to the owner,
received a few pence commission. There was an eager look in her pale
face as she hurried home and hastened to the box on the mantel-shelf.
She emptied its contents into her hand, quickly counted up the total
of her fortune, and then crept out again.
It was snowing heavily, but she did not mind. The soft flakes fell on
her weary face, and she liked their warm touch. She hurried along
until she came to a tiny grocer's shop. The red spot on her checks
deepened as she asked the shopkeeper for twelve candles--"Tall ones,
please," she said in a whisper. She pushed the money on to the counter
and ran away home with her parcel. Then she went up to the figure
against the wall, and gently placed it on the ground, away from the
wall. She opened the parcel and carefully stood up the twelve candles
in a little avenue, six each side of the dead man. With a feverous
excitement in her eyes she pulled a match from her pocket and lit
them. They burned steadily and brightly, casting a yellow light over
the cold naked room, and over the blackened face of the dead man. The
child that was rolling on the floor at the other end of the room
uttered a coo of joy at the bright lights, and stretched out his tiny
hands towards them. And the face of the mother was filled with a
divine pleasure.
The articles of her faith had been fulfilled.
Three Pictures
By P. Wilson Steer
I. Portrait of Himself
II. A Lady
III. A Gentleman
[Illustration: Portrait of Himself]
[Illustrations: A Lady, and A Gentleman]
In a Gallery
Portrait of a Lady (Unknown)
By Katharine de Mattos
Veiled eyes, yet quick to meet one glance
Not his, not yours, but _mine_,
Lips that are fain to stir and breathe
Dead joys (not love nor wine):
'Tis not in _you_ the secret lurks
That makes men pause and pass!
Did unseen magic flow from you
Long since to madden hearts,
And those who loathed remain to pray
And work their dolorous parts--
To seek your riddle, dread or sweet,
And find it in the grave?
Till some one painted you one day,
Perchance to ease his soul,
And set you here to weave your spells
While time and silence roll;
And you were hungry for the hour
When one should understand?
Your jewelled fingers writhe and gleam
From out your sombre vest;
Am I the first of those who gaze,
Who may their meaning guess,
Yet dare not whisper lest the words
Pale even painted cheeks?
The Yellow Book
A Criticism of Volume I
By Philip Gilbert Hamerton, LL.D.
I--The Literature
The Editor and Publishers of THE YELLOW BOOK, who seem to know the
value of originality in all things, have conceived the entirely novel
idea of publishing in the current number of their quarterly, a review
in two parts of the number immediately preceding it, one part to deal
with the literature, and another to criticise the illustrations.
I notice that on the cover of THE YELLOW BOOK the literary
contributions are described simply as "Letterpress." This seems rather
unfortunate, because "letterpress" is usually understood to mean an
inferior kind of writing, which is merely an accompaniment to
something else, such as engravings, or even maps. Now, in THE YELLOW
BOOK the principle seems to be that one kind of contribution should
_not_ be made subordinate to another; the drawings and the writings
are, in fact, independent. Certainly the writings are composed without
the slightest pre-occupation concerning the work of the graphic
artists, and the draughtsmen do not illustrate the inventions of the
scribes. This independence of the two arts is favourable to excellence
in both, besides making the business of the Editor much easier, and
giving him more liberty of choice.