_LOOKING AT PICTURES_
"A quiet and weary woman,
With all her illusions flown."
--A. A. PROCTOR.
About this time, when there was nothing to do but to stand and wait,
Elsie occupied herself chiefly with books.
One little bit of literary work (which will live, I suppose, as long as
literature endures) particularly engaged her attention in these days. It
was "Dream-Children" in the "Essays of Elia."
She had so accustomed herself to the imaginary companionship of Jamie
that she found it almost impossible to live without him. At nights she
had fallen into a habit of glancing towards that corner of her large
bedroom in which his little bed was to stand. There was the golden head
burying its fluffy curls in the pillow; there was the dimpled hand lying
outside the quilt.
And now the dream was fast fading away into a still fainter dream. Jamie
had vanished; it was most likely, she thought, that he was dead; anyhow,
it was only a miracle which could ever restore him to those who mourned
for him. He had joined that troop of phantom children who come to us in
our lonely hours, saying, "We are nothing, less than nothing, and
dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious
shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence and a name."
Meanwhile she lived very much as other people live, and grew prettier
every day, gaining beauty in the sad and dreamy peace of her daily life.
Calm will work wonders for a woman who has been fretted and worried for
years, and this is the reason why some are far more beautiful in their
autumn than in their summer or their spring.
The shade of melancholy, which always hung over Elsie now, added a new
charm to her face. In her girlhood she had been too eager, too vivid;
she had lacked the subtle sweetness of repose. People who met her
nowadays invariably noticed her tranquillity: some envied, and all
admired it.
She made acquaintances, and went out sometimes, and wherever she went
she left an impression. If she was a trifle too indifferent to please
everybody, she seldom made an enemy. Women instinctively understood that
she did not want to be their rival. Men felt that the gentle
unconsciousness, which nullified their pretty speeches, was really the
result of preoccupation. She was always gracious, always kind; but no
one could ever get very near to her heart.
She went often to sit with Mrs. Beaton in the little parlour behind the
shop. Here there was real work to be done--the quiet work of cheering an
old woman who had never known a daughter's love. Sometimes the blessing
withheld in youth is granted in old age. Mrs. Beaton had received much
from Meta, but Meta had been worn with the warfare of a hard life. Elsie
had more leisure to give her a daughter's tenderness.
Andrew Beaton had strained every nerve, but had found no trace of the
missing boy. He had been to Lee, and had seen Dennett, the green-grocer,
and his wife, and had satisfied himself that they were seldom sober
enough to attend to anything. Poor Mrs. Penn's habit of intemperance had
been strengthened by her connection with these people. Andrew gave up
the Dennetts and Mrs. Penn as a hopeless set.
Spring days grew warmer and brighter; shop-windows were gay with all the
colours of the rainbow; women moved about in pretty, delicate dresses,
looking like animated flowers.
Miss Saxon reminded Elsie that young women ought not to go out habited
in black gowns when the white and purple clover blossoms stood thick in
the meadows, and the hawthorn shook its fragrant snows over the hedges.
So Elsie dressed herself in violet and lilac, and Miss Saxon secretly
exulted in seeing the admiring glances which were cast upon her when she
went out into the sunshine.
One day Miss Kilner went to the Royal Academy Exhibition with a very old
friend.
This old friend was Mr. Lennard, rector of the Sussex village where she
was born. He was seventy years of age--hale, rosy, and strong; a
suitable escort for the beautiful young woman who wore a bonnet made of
heliotrope, and had dark-brown eyes that shone like stars.
She enjoyed the pictures with all her heart, especially those views of
cornfields steeped in yellow sunlight, and glimpses of shady woodland
which reminded her of her early home. Mr. Lennard, too, enjoyed the
pictures, but they did not absorb his whole attention. Now and then he
caught sight of familiar faces in the crowd, and then there were hearty
greetings and rapid questions and answers.
Sometimes it was the face of an old college friend which caught his eye,
and he would almost shout for joy to see it smiling and alive, when he
had thought it hidden under the daisies. Sometimes it was a rosy matron
whom he had last seen as a bashful bride. And these meetings were so
frequent that Elsie had got quite used to his starts and exclamations
before they had gone half through the rooms.
When he said, "Bless me, it's--no, it isn't--yes, it is--of course it
is!" she was gazing intently at one of those pictures which will always
have an attraction for women of her temperament. Long afterwards she
could have described the painting accurately, and would never forget it
as long as she lived.
Two nuns, one old and the other young, were waiting for admittance
outside the door of a convent. They had been out into the world to nurse
the sick, and had returned (each laden with her basket) in the glory of
a summer morning. The elder woman, weary with her labours, waited with
half-closed eyes for the door to open. The younger, pale, but full of
irrepressible vitality, stood looking at the rich, warm human life which
she had renounced for ever. A young wife, with an infant on her arm, had
brought her husband his midday meal, and he had flung down his scythe to
kiss her under the trees. Those two faces, browned with the sun, flushed
with the bloom of the flower, seemed the natural product of the
beautiful earth. You could almost hear the myriad sounds of summer;
waters trickling through the moss and roots of the wood, the hum of
bees, the birds' joyous songs. The very sunlight seemed to dance for
gladness among the leaf-shadows as it played over the grey garb of the
Sisters. But you knew that in another moment the door would open and
close again, shutting out all these common human joys--kisses and smiles
and signs of that everyday bliss which makes a paradise of simple lives.
Now Elsie, in her loneliness, had had her dreams of the convent. But a
picture of this kind was a better warning than any sermon which a
hot-headed Protestant ever preached. There are natures which can put
forth blossoms, pale and sweet, in the air of the cloister, and there
are others which can flower only in the atmosphere of the world.
The pity is that the women meant for the world too often fly to the
cloister, and the women who would have made admirable nuns--
"Devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,"
persist in taking upon themselves those duties of wifehood and maternity
for which they were never fitted at all.
Elsie had a rich heart, but its outpourings seemed to be thrown back
upon herself, and she had sometimes longed to hide her disappointment in
seclusion. But the picture spoke to her, as pictures can do. True art
can often succeed where divinity fails; the painter preaches more
effectually than the parson.
She gazed at the nuns, quite unconscious that she herself made a
picture, and that some one was gazing intently at her. Then, slowly
realising that Mr. Lennard had found another acquaintance, she turned,
and met the earnest look of a pair of deep-blue eyes.
They were uncommon eyes, singularly blue, singularly true. Their owner
was a tall man, much bronzed, and not regularly handsome; but he had
that knightliness of look and bearing which always wins notice and
attracts liking. Although he wore the prosaic garb of the period, there
was something about him that suggested Camelot, and Arthur's court;
something that recalled Lancelot, and Galahad, and Percivale; something,
in short, which appealed to the romantic side of Elsie's nature. So
these two young persons looked at each other, but it did not occur to
Mr. Lennard that they might possibly like to get acquainted.
Moreover, it was near the luncheon hour, and the rector had promised to
take Elsie to a house in Park Lane. He shook hands heartily with the
knightly stranger, reminded Elsie of their engagement, and began to make
his way through the crowd to the door.
In the whirl and roar of Piccadilly he tried to say something about that
unexpected meeting, but part of his sentence was lost.
"----since he was a lad. Even now I can scarcely recall his name. My
memory begins to play strange tricks. Donald--no--Ronald. Ronald--what?
I can't get further than Ronald; my head is a trifle confused to-day.
Coming up from the country, you know. That's our 'bus, isn't it? All
right."
They went to Park Lane, but not another word was said about Ronald, and
on the following day Mr. Lennard returned to Sussex.
The summer advanced; Elsie accepted invitations now and then; but it
soon became evident to Miss Saxon that she did not care very much for
society.
She took a deep interest in all that concerned the welfare of children.
She went to public meetings and heard grand things spoken on their
behalf; she learnt what true, large-hearted men, with power, and
education, and opportunity, were doing for little ones in the world, and
all the while the thought of Jamie lay deep down in her heart. He was
never forgotten.
Nor did the Beatons forget him, but every effort to trace him had
failed.
They often talked of him with Elsie as they sat, all three, in the
little room behind the shop. Some subtle influence always seemed to draw
Miss Kilner's steps to Wardour Street, and her presence was welcome
there.