The Marshalls were always at home to their friends on Friday afternoons,
and there were already several guests in the beautiful, quaint old
drawing-room when the quartette entered. Mrs Marshall, her white hair
looking lovely under her soft lace cap, came forward to meet her
visitors. Her kind eyes looked with appreciation and welcome at one and
all. Blushing and shamefaced Prissie received a pleasant word of
greeting, which seemed in some wonderful way to steady her nerves.
Hammond and Maggie were received as special and very dear friends, and
Helen Marshall, the old lady's pretty grand-daughter, rushed forward to
embrace her particular friend, Constance Field.
Maggie felt sore; she scarcely knew why. Her voice was bright, her eyes
shining, her cheeks radiant in their rich and lovely bloom. But there
was a quality in her voice which Hammond recognised--a certain ring
which meant defiance, and which prophesied to those who knew her well
that one of her bad half-hours was not very far off.
Maggie seated herself near a girl who was a comparative stranger and
began to talk. Hammond drew near, and made a third in the conversation.
Maggie talked in the brilliant, somewhat reckless fashion which she
occasionally adopted. Hammond listened, now and then uttered a short
sentence, now and then was silent, with disapproval in his eyes.
Maggie read their expression like a book.
"He shall be angry with me," she said to herself. Her words became a
little wilder. The sentiments she uttered were the reverse of those
Hammond held.
Soon a few old friends came up. They were jolly, merry, good-humoured
girls, who were all prepared to look up to Maggie Oliphant, and to
worship her beauty and cleverness if she would allow them. Maggie
welcomed the girls with effusion, let them metaphorically sit at her
feet, and proceeded to disenchant them as hard as she could.
Some garbled accounts of the auction at St Benet's had reached them,
and they were anxious to get a full report from Miss Oliphant. Did she
not think it a scandalous sort of thing to have occurred?
"Not at all," answered Maggie in her sweetest tones; "it was capital
fun, I assure you."
"Were you really there?" asked Miss Duncan, the eldest of the girls.
"We heard it, of course, but could scarcely believe it possible."
"Of course I was there," replied Maggie. "Whenever there is anything
really amusing going on, I am always in the thick of it."
"Well!" Emily Duncan looked at her sister Susan. Susan raised her
brows. Hammond took a photograph from a table which stood near, and
pretended to examine it.
"Shall I tell you about the auction?" asked Maggie.
"Oh, please, if you would be so kind. I suppose, as you were present,
such a thing could not really lower the standard of the college?" These
words came from Susan Duncan, who looked at Hammond as she spoke. She
was his cousin, and very fond of him.
"Please tell us about the auction," he said, looking full at Maggie.
"I will," she replied, answering his gaze with a flash of repressed
irritation. "The auction was splendid fun! One of our girls was in
debt, and she had to sell her things. Oh, it was capital! I wish you
could have seen her acting as her own auctioneer. Some of us were
greedy, and wanted her best things. I was one of those. She sold a
sealskin jacket, an expensive one, quite new. There is a legend in the
college that eighty guineas were expended on it. Well, I bid for the
sealskin, and it was knocked down to me for ten. It is a little too big
for me, of course, but when it is cut to my figure, it will make a
superb winter garment."
Maggie was clothed now in velvet and sable; nothing could be richer than
her attire; nothing more mocking than her words.
"You were fortunate," said Susan Duncan. "You got your sealskin a great
bargain. Didn't she, Geoffrey?"
"I don't think so," replied Hammond.
"Why not? Oh, do tell us why not," cried the sisters, eagerly.
He bowed to them, laughed as lightly as Maggie would have done, and
said, in a careless tone: "My reasons are complex, and too many to
mention. I will only say now that what is objectionable to possess can
never be a bargain to obtain. In my opinion, sealskin jackets are
detestable."
With these words he strode across the room, and seated himself with a
sigh of relief by Priscilla's side.
"What are you doing all by yourself?" he said, cheerfully. "Is no one
attending to you? Are you always to be left like a poor little forsaken
mouse in the background?"
"I am not at all lonely," said Prissie.
"I thought you hated to be alone."
"I did, the other day, in that drawing-room; but not in this. People
are all kind in this."
"You are right. Our hostess is most genial and sympathetic."
"And the guests are nice, too," said Prissie; "at least, they look
nice."
"Ay, but you must not be taken in by appearances. Some of them only
look nice."
"Do you mean?" began Prissie in her abrupt, anxious voice.
Hammond took alarm. He remembered her peculiar outspokenness.
"I don't mean anything," he said, hastily. "By the way, are you fond of
pictures?"
"I have scarcely ever seen any."
"That does not matter. I know by your face that you can appreciate some
pictures."
"But, really, I know nothing of art."
"Never mind. If the painter who paints knows _you_--"
"The painter knows me? I have never seen an artist in my life."
"Nevertheless, there are some artists in the world who have conceived of
characters like yours. There are some good pictures in this house--
shall I show you one or two?"
Prissie sprang to her feet.
"You are most kind," she said, effusively. "I really don't know how to
thank you."
"You need not thank me at all; or, at any rate, not in such a loud
voice, nor so impressively. Our neighbours will think I have bestowed
half a kingdom upon you."
Prissie blushed, and looked down.
"Don't be shocked with me," said Hammond; "I can read your grateful
heart. Come this way." They passed Maggie Oliphant and her two or
three remaining satellites. Prissie looked at her with longing, and
tripped awkwardly against her chair. Hammond walked past Maggie as if
she did not exist to him. Maggie nodded affectionately to Priscilla,
and followed the back of Hammond's head and shoulders with a
supercilious, amused smile.
Hammond opened the outer drawing-room door. "Where are we going?" asked
Priscilla. "Are not the pictures here?"
"Some are here, but the best are in the picture gallery--here to the
left, and down these steps. Now, I'm going to introduce to you a new
world."
He pushed aside a heavy curtain, and Prissie found herself in a rather
small room, lighted from the roof. It contained in all about six or
eight pictures, each the work of a master.
Hammond walked straight across the gallery to a picture which occupied a
wall by itself at the further end. It represented a summer scene of
deep repose. There was water in the foreground; in the back, tall
forest trees in the fresh, rich foliage of June. Overhead was a sunset
sky, its saffron and rosy tints reflected in the water below. The
master who painted the picture was Corot.
Hammond motioned Priscilla to sit down opposite to it.
"There is summer," he said; "peace, absolute repose. You have not to go
to it; it comes to you."
He did not say any more, but walked away to look at another picture in a
different part of the gallery.
Prissie clasped her hands; all the agitation and eagerness went out of
her face. She leant back in her chair. Her attitude partook of the
quality of the picture, and became restful. Hammond did not disturb her
for several moments.
"I am going to show you something different now," he said, coming up to
her almost with reluctance. "There is one sort of rest; I will now show
you a higher. Here, stand so. The light falls well from this angle.
Now, what do you see?"
"I don't understand it," said Prissie, after a long, deep gaze.
"Never mind, you see something. Tell me what you see."
Priscilla looked again at the picture.
"I see a woman," she said at last, in a slow, pained kind of voice. "I
can't see her face very well, but I know by the way she lies back in
that chair, that she is old, and dreadfully tired. Oh, yes, I know well
that she is tired--see her hand stretched out there--her hand and her
arm--how thin they are--how worn--and--"
"Hard worked," interrupted Hammond. "Anyone can see by the attitude of
that hand, by the starting veins and the wrinkles, that the woman has
gone through a life of labour. Well, she does not occupy the whole of
the picture. You see before you a tired-out worker. Don't be so
unhappy about her. Look up a little higher in the picture. Observe for
yourself that her toils are ended."
"Who is that other figure?" said Priscilla. "A woman too, but young and
strong. How glad she looks, and how kind. She is carrying a little
child in her arms. Who is she? What does she mean?"
"That woman, so grand and strong, represents Death, but not under the
old metaphor. She comes with renewed life--the child is the type of
that--she comes as a deliverer. See, she is touching that poor worn-out
creature, who is so tired that she can scarcely hold her head up again.
Death, with a new aspect, and a new grand strength in her face, is
saying to this woman, `Come with me now to your rest. It is all over,'
Death says: `all the trouble and perplexity and strife. Come away with
me and rest.' The name of that picture is `The Deliverer.' It is the
work of a painter who can preach a sermon, write a book, deliver an
oration, and sing a song, all through the medium of his brush. I won't
trouble you with his name just now. You will hear plenty of him and his
wonderful, great pictures by-and-by, if you love art as I do."
"Thank you," said Prissie, simply. Some tears stole down her cheeks.
She did not know she was crying; she did not attempt to wipe them away.