CONFIDENCES
The shadows silently lengthened on the lawn.
The home-coming rooks circled and cawed around the tall elm trees.
The sun-dial pointed to six o'clock.
Myra Ingleby rose and stood with the slanting rays of the sun full in
her eyes, her arms stretched over her head. The artist noted every
graceful line of her willowy figure.
"Ah, bah!" she yawned. "It is so perfect out here, and I must go in to
my maid. Jane, be advised in time. Do not ever begin facial massage.
You become a slave to it, and it takes up hours of your day. Look at
me."
They were both looking already. Myra was worth looking at.
"For ordinary dressing purposes, I need not have gone in until seven;
and now I must lose this last, perfect hour."
"What happens?" asked Jane. "I know nothing of the process."
"I can't go into details," replied Lady Ingleby, "but you know how
sweet I have looked all day? Well, if I did not go to my maid now, I
should look less sweet by the end of dinner, and at the close of the
evening I should appear ten years older."
"You would always look sweet," said Jane, with frank sincerity; "and
why mind looking the age you are?"
"My dear, 'a man is as old as he feels; a woman is as old as she
looks,'" quoted Myra.
"I FEEL just seven," said Garth.
"And you LOOK seventeen," laughed Myra.
"And I AM twenty-seven," retorted Garth; "so the duchess should not
call me 'a ridiculous child.' And, dear lady, if curtailing this
mysterious process is going to make you one whit less lovely to-night,
I do beseech you to hasten to your maid, or you will spoil my whole
evening. I shall burst into tears at dinner, and the duchess hates
scenes, as you very well know!"
Lady Ingleby flapped him with her garden hat as she passed.
"Be quiet, you ridiculous child!" she said. "You had no business to
listen to what I was saying to Jane. You shall paint me this autumn.
And after that I will give up facial massage, and go abroad, and come
back quite old."
She flung this last threat over her shoulder as she trailed away across
the lawn.
"How lovely she is!" commented Garth, gazing after her. "How much of
that was true, do you suppose, Miss Champion?"
"I have not the slightest idea," replied Jane. "I am completely
ignorant on the subject of facial massage."
"Not much, I should think," continued Garth, "or she would not have
told us."
"Ah, you are wrong there," replied Jane, quickly. "Myra is
extraordinarily honest, and always inclined to be frank about herself
and her foibles. She had a curious upbringing. She is one of a large
family, and was always considered the black sheep, not so much by her
brothers and sisters, as by her mother. Nothing she was, or said, or
did, was ever right. When Lord Ingleby met her, and I suppose saw her
incipient possibilities, she was a tall, gawky girl, with lovely eyes,
a sweet, sensitive mouth, and a what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-next
expression on her face. He was twenty years her senior, but fell most
determinedly in love with her and, though her mother pressed upon him
all her other daughters in turn, he would have Myra or nobody. When he
proposed to her it was impossible at first to make her understand what
he meant. His meaning dawned on her at length, and he was not kept
waiting long for her answer. I have often heard him tease her about it.
She looked at him with an adorable smile, her eyes brimming over with
tears, and said: 'Why, of course. I'll marry you GRATEFULLY, and I
think it is perfectly sweet of you to like me. But what a blow for
mamma!' They were married with as little delay as possible, and he took
her off to Paris, Italy, and Egypt, had six months abroad, and brought
her back--this! I was staying with them once, and her mother was also
there. We were sitting in the morning room,--no men, just half a dozen
women,--and her mother began finding fault about something, and said:
'Has not Lord Ingleby often told you of it?' Myra looked up in her
sweet, lazy way and answered: 'Dear mamma, I know it must seem strange
to you, but, do you know, my husband thinks everything I do perfect.'
'Your husband is a fool!' snapped her mother. 'From YOUR point of view,
dear mamma,' said Myra, sweetly."
"Old curmudgeon!" remarked Garth. "Why are people of that sort allowed
to be called 'mothers'? We, who have had tender, perfect mothers, would
like to make it law that the other kind should always be called
'she-parents,' or 'female progenitors,' or any other descriptive title,
but not profane the sacred name of mother!"
Jane was silent. She knew the beautiful story of Garth's boyhood with
his widowed mother. She knew his passionate adoration of her sainted
memory. She liked him best when she got a glimpse beneath the surface,
and did not wish to check his mood by reminding him that she herself
had never even lisped that name.
Garth rose from his chair and stretched his slim figure in the slanting
sun-rays, much as Myra had done. Jane looked at him. As is often the
case with plain people, great physical beauty appealed to her strongly.
She only allowed to that appeal its right proportion in her estimation
of her friends. Garth Dalmain by no means came first among her
particular chums. He was older than most of them, and yet in some ways
younger than any, and his remarkable youthfulness of manner and
exuberance of spirits sometimes made him appear foolish to Jane, whose
sense of humour was of a more sedate kind. But of the absolute
perfection of his outward appearance, there was no question; and Jane
looked at him now, much as his own mother might have looked, with
honest admiration in her kind eyes.
Garth, notwithstanding the pale violet shirt and dark violet tie, was
quite unconscious of his own appearance; and, dazzled by the golden
sunlight, was also unconscious of Jane's look.
"Oh, I say, Miss Champion!" he cried, boyishly. "Isn't it nice that
they have all gone in? I have been wanting a good jaw with you. Really,
when we all get together we do drivel sometimes, to keep the ball
rolling. It is like patting up air-balls; and very often they burst,
and one realises that an empty, shrivelled little skin is all that is
left after most conversations. Did you ever buy air-balls at Brighton?
Do you remember the wild excitement of seeing the man coming along the
parade, with a huge bunch of them--blue, green, red, white, and yellow,
all shining in the sun? And one used to wonder how he ever contrived to
pick them all up--I don't know how!--and what would happen if he put
them all down. I always knew exactly which one I wanted, and it was
generally on a very inside string and took a long time to disentangle.
And how maddening it was if the grown-ups grew tired of waiting, and
walked on with the penny. Only I would rather have had none, than not
have the one on which I had fixed my heart. Wouldn't you?"
"I never bought air-balls at Brighton," replied Jane, without
enthusiasm. Garth was feeling seven again, and Jane was feeling bored.
For once he seemed conscious of this. He took his coat from the back of
the chair where he had hung it, and put it on.
"Come along, Miss Champion," he said; "I am so tired of doing nothing.
Let us go down to the river and find a boat or two. Dinner is not until
eight o'clock, and I am certain you can dress, even for the ROLE of
Velma, in half an hour. I have known you do it in ten minutes, at a
pinch. There is ample time for me to row you within sight of the
minster, and we can talk as we go. Ah, fancy! the grey old minster with
this sunset behind it, and a field of cowslips in the foreground!"
But Jane did not rise.
"My dear Dal," she said, "you would not feel much enthusiasm for the
minster or the sunset, after you had pulled my twelve stone odd up the
river. You would drop exhausted among the cowslips. Surely you might
know by now that I am not the sort of person to be told off to sit in
the stern of a tiny skiff and steer. If I am in a boat, I like to row;
and if I row, I prefer rowing stroke. But I do not want to row now,
because I have been playing golf the whole afternoon. And you know
perfectly well it would be no pleasure to you to have to gaze at me all
the way up and all the way down the river; knowing all the time, that I
was mentally criticising your stroke and marking the careless way you
feathered."
Garth sat down, lay back in his chair, with his arms behind his sleek
dark head, and looked at her with his soft shining eyes, just as he had
looked at the duchess.
"How cross you are, old chap," he said, gently. "What is the matter?"
Jane laughed and held out her hand. "Oh, you dear boy! I think you have
the sweetest temper in the world. I won't be cross any more. The truth
is, I hate the duchess's concerts, and I don't like being the duchess's
'surprise-packet.'"
"I see," said Garth, sympathetically. "But, that being so, why did you
offer?"
"Ah, I had to," said Jane. "Poor old dear! She so rarely asks me
anything, and her eyes besought. Don't you know how one longs to have
something to do for some one who belongs to one? I would black her
boots if she wished it. But it is so hard to stay here, week after
week, and be kept at arm's length. This one thing she asked of me, and
her proud old eyes pleaded. Could I refuse?"
Garth was all sympathy. "No, dear," he said thoughtfully; "of course
you couldn't. And don't bother over that silly joke about the 'surprise
packet.' You see, you won't be that. I have no doubt you sing vastly
better than most of them, but they will not realise it. It takes a
Velma to make such people as these sit up. They will think THE ROSARY a
pretty song, and give you a mild clap, and there the thing will end. So
don't worry."
Jane sat and considered this. Then: "Dal," she said, "I do hate singing
before that sort of audience. It is like giving them your soul to look
at, and you don't want them to see it. It seems indecent. To my mind,
music is the most REVEALING thing in the world. I shiver when I think
of that song, and yet I daren't do less than my best. When the moment
comes, I shall live in the song, and forget the audience. Let me tell
you a lesson I once had from Madame Blanche. I was singing Bemberg's
CHANT HINDOU, the passionate prayer of an Indian woman to Brahma. I
began: 'BRAHMA! DIEU DES CROYANTS,' and sang it as I might have sung
'DO, RE, MI.' Brahma was nothing to me. 'Stop!' cried Madame Blanche in
her most imperious manner. 'Ah, vous Anglais! What are you doing?
BRAHMA, c'est un Dieu! He may not be YOUR God. He may not be MY God.
But he is somebody's God. He is the God of the song. Ecoutez!' And she
lifted her head and sang: 'Brahma! Dieu des croyants! Maitre des cites
saintes!' with her beautiful brow illumined, and a passion of religious
fervour which thrilled one's soul. It was a lesson I never forgot. I
can honestly say I have never sung a song tamely, since."
"Fine!" said Garth Dalmain. "I like enthusiasm in every branch of art.
I never care to paint a portrait, unless I adore the woman I am
painting."
Jane smiled. The conversation was turning exactly the way she had hoped
eventually to lead it.
"Dal, dear," she said, "you adore so many in turn, that we old friends,
who have your real interest at heart, fear you will never adore to any
definite purpose."
Garth laughed. "Oh bother!" he said. "Are you like all the rest? Do you
also think adoration and admiration must necessarily mean marriage. I
should have expected you to take a saner and more masculine view."
"My dear boy," said Jane, "your friends have decided that you need a
wife. You are alone in the world. You have a lovely home. You are in a
fair way to be spoiled by all the silly women who run after you. Of
course we are perfectly aware that your wife must have every
incomparable beauty under the sun united in her own exquisite person.
But each new divinity you see and paint apparently fulfils, for the
time being, this wondrous ideal; and, perhaps, if you wedded one,
instead of painting her, she might continue permanently to fulfil it."
Garth considered this in silence, his level brows knitted. At last he
said: "Beauty is so much a thing of the surface. I see it, and admire
it. I desire it, and paint it. When I have painted it, I have made it
my own, and somehow I find I have done with it. All the time I am
painting a woman, I am seeking for her soul. I want to express it on my
canvas; and do you know, Miss Champion, I find that a lovely woman does
not always have a lovely soul."
Jane was silent. The last things she wished to discuss were other
women's souls.
"There is just one who seems to me perfect," continued Garth. "I am to
paint her this autumn. I believe I shall find her soul as exquisite as
her body."
"And she is--?" inquired Jane.
"Lady Brand."
"Flower!" exclaimed Jane. "Are YOU so taken with Flower?"
"Ah, she is lovely," said Garth, with reverent enthusiasm. "It
positively is not right for any one to be so absolutely flawlessly
lovely. It makes me ache. Do you know that feeling, Miss Champion, of
perfect loveliness making you ache?"
"No, I don't," said Jane, shortly. "And I do not think other people's
wives ought to have that effect upon you."
"My dear old chap," exclaimed Garth, astonished; "it has nothing to do
with wives or no wives. A wood of bluebells in morning sunshine would
have precisely the same effect. I ache to paint her. When I have
painted her and really done justice to that matchless loveliness as I
see it, I shall feel all right. At present I have only painted her from
memory; but she is to sit to me in October."
"From memory?" questioned Jane.
"Yes, I paint a great deal from memory. Give me one look of a certain
kind at a face, let me see it at a moment which lets one penetrate
beneath the surface, and I can paint that face from memory weeks after.
Lots of my best studies have been done that way. Ah, the delight of it!
Beauty--the worship of beauty is to me a religion."
"Rather a godless form of religion," suggested Jane.
"Ah no," said Garth reverently. "All true beauty comes from God, and
leads back to God. 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.' I once met an old
freak who said all sickness came from the devil. I never could believe
that, for my mother was an invalid during the last years of her life,
and I can testify that her sickness was a blessing to many, and borne
to the glory of God. But I am, convinced all true beauty is God-given,
and that is why the worship of beauty is to me a religion. Nothing bad
was ever truly beautiful; nothing good is ever really ugly."
Jane smiled as she watched him, lying back in the golden sunlight, the
very personification of manly beauty. The absolute lack of
self-consciousness, either for himself or for her, which allowed him to
talk thus to the plainest woman of his acquaintance, held a vein of
humour which diverted Jane. It appealed to her more than buying
coloured air-balls, or screaming because the duchess wore a mushroom
hat.
"Then are plain people to be denied their share of goodness, Dal?" she
asked.
"Plainness is not ugliness," replied Garth Dalmain simply. "I learned
that when quite a small boy. My mother took me to hear a famous
preacher. As he sat on the platform during the preliminaries he seemed
to me quite the ugliest man I had ever seen. He reminded me of a
grotesque gorilla, and I dreaded the moment when he should rise up and
face us and give out a text. It seemed to me there ought to be bars
between, and that we should want to throw nuts and oranges. But when he
rose to speak, his face was transfigured. Goodness and inspiration
shone from it, making it as the face of an angel. I never again thought
him ugly. The beauty of his soul shone through, transfiguring his body.
Child though I was, I could differentiate even then between ugliness
and plainness. When he sat down at the close of his magnificent sermon,
I no longer thought him a complicated form of chimpanzee. I remembered
the divine halo of his smile. Of course his actual plainness of feature
remained. It was not the sort of face one could have wanted to live
with, or to have day after day opposite to one at table. But then one
was not called to that sort of discipline, which would have been
martyrdom to me. And he has always stood to my mind since as a proof of
the truth that goodness is never ugly; and that divine love and
aspiration shining through the plainest features may redeem them
temporarily into beauty; and, permanently, into a thing one loves to
remember."
"I see," said Jane. "It must have often helped you to a right view to
have realised that so long ago. But now let us return to the important
question of the face which you ARE to have daily opposite you at table.
It cannot be Lady Brand's, nor can it be Myra's; but, you know, Dal, a
very lovely one is being suggested for the position."
"No names, please," said Garth, quickly. "I object to girls' names
being mentioned in this sort of conversation."
"Very well, dear boy. I understand and respect your objection. You have
made her famous already by your impressionist portrait of her, and I
hear you are to do a more elaborate picture 'in the fall.' Now, Dal,
you know you admire her immensely. She is lovely, she is charming, she
hails from the land whose women, when they possess charm, unite with it
a freshness and a piquancy which place them beyond compare. In some
ways you are so unique yourself that you ought to have a wife with a
certain amount of originality. Now, I hardly know how far the opinion
of your friends would influence you in such a matter, but you may like
to hear how fully they approve your very open allegiance to--shall we
say--the beautiful 'Stars and Stripes'?"
Garth Dalmain took out his cigarette case, carefully selected a
cigarette, and sat with it between his fingers in absorbed
contemplation.
"Smoke," said Jane.
"Thanks," said Garth. He struck a match and very deliberately lighted
his cigarette. As he flung away the vesta the breeze caught it and it
fell on the lawn, flaming brightly. Garth sprang up and extinguished
it, then drew his chair more exactly opposite to Jane's and lay back,
smoking meditatively, and watching the little rings he blew, mount into
the cedar branches, expand, fade, and vanish.
Jane was watching him. The varied and characteristic ways in which her
friends lighted and smoked their cigarettes always interested Jane.
There were at least a dozen young men of whom she could have given the
names upon hearing a description of their method. Also, she had learned
from Deryck Brand the value of silences in an important conversation,
and the art of not weakening a statement by a postscript.
At last Garth spoke.
"I wonder why the smoke is that lovely pale blue as it curls up from
the cigarette, and a greyish-white if one blows it out."
Jane knew it was because it had become impregnated with moisture, but
she did not say so, having no desire to contribute her quota of pats to
this air-ball, or to encourage the superficial workings of his mind
just then. She quietly awaited the response to her appeal to his deeper
nature which she felt certain would be forthcoming. Presently it came.
"It is awfully good of you, Miss Champion, to take the trouble to think
all this and to say it to me. May I prove my gratitude by explaining
for once where my difficulty lies? I have scarcely defined it to
myself, and yet I believe I can express it to you." Another long
silence. Garth smoked and pondered.
Jane waited. It was a very comprehending, very companionable silence.
Garth found himself parodying the last lines of an old
sixteenth-century song:
"Then ever pray that heaven may send
Such weeds, such chairs, and such a friend."
Either the cigarette, or the chair, or Jane, or perhaps all three
combined were producing in him a sublime sense of calm, and rest, and
well-being; an uplifting of spirit which made all good things seem
better; all difficult things, easy; and all ideals, possible. The
silence, like the sunset, was golden; but at last he broke it.
"Two women--the only two women who have ever really been in my
life--form for me a standard below which I cannot fall,--one, my
mother, a sacred and ideal memory; the other, old Margery Graem, my
childhood's friend and nurse, now my housekeeper and general tender and
mender. Her faithful heart and constant remembrance help to keep me
true to the ideal of that sweet presence which faded from beside me
when I stood on the threshold of manhood. Margery lives at Castle
Gleneesh. When I return home, the sight which first meets my eyes as
the hall door opens is old Margery in her black satin apron, lawn
kerchief, and lavender ribbons. I always feel seven then, and I always
hug her. You, Miss Champion, don't like me when I feel seven; but
Margery does. Now, this is what I want you to realise. When I bring a
bride to Gleneesh and present her to Margery, the kind old eyes will
try to see nothing but good; the faithful old heart will yearn to love
and serve. And yet I shall know she knows the standard, just as I know
it; I shall know she remembers the ideal of gentle, tender, Christian
womanhood, just as I remember it; and I must not, I dare not, fall
short. Believe me, Miss Champion, more than once, when physical
attraction has been strong, and I have been tempted in the worship of
the outward loveliness to disregard or forget the essentials,--the
things which are unseen but eternal,--then, all unconscious of
exercising any such influence, old Margery's clear eyes look into mine,
old Margery's mittened hand seems to rest upon my coat sleeve, and the
voice which has guided me from infancy, says, in gentle astonishment:
`Is this your choice, Master Garthie, to fill my dear lady's place?' No
doubt, Miss Champion, it will seem almost absurd to you when you think
of our set and our sentiments, and the way we racket round that I
should sit here on the duchess's lawn and confess that I have been held
back from proposing marriage to the women I have most admired, because
of what would have been my old nurse's opinion of them! But you must
remember her opinion is formed by a memory, and that memory is the
memory of my dead mother. Moreover, Margery voices my best self, and
expresses my own judgment when it is not blinded by passion or warped
by my worship of the beautiful. Not that Margery would disapprove of
loveliness; in fact, she would approve of nothing else for me, I know
very well. But her penetration rapidly goes beneath the surface.
According to one of Paul's sublime paradoxes, she looks at the things
that are not seen. It seems queer that I can tell you all this, Miss
Champion, and really it is the first time I have actually formulated it
in my own mind. But I think it so extremely friendly of you to have
troubled to give me good advice in the matter."
Garth Dalmain ceased speaking, and the silence which followed suddenly
assumed alarming proportions, seeming to Jane like a high fence which
she was vainly trying to scale. She found herself mentally rushing
hither and thither, seeking a gate or any possible means of egress. And
still she was confronted by the difficulty of replying adequately to
the totally unexpected. And what added to her dumbness was the fact
that she was infinitely touched by Garth's confession; and when Jane
was deeply moved speech always became difficult. That this young
man--adored by all the girls for his good looks and delightful manners;
pursued for his extreme eligibility by mothers and chaperons; famous
already in the world of art; flattered, courted, sought after in
society--should calmly admit that the only woman really left IN his
life was his old nurse, and that her opinion and expectations held him
back from a worldly, or unwise marriage, touched Jane deeply, even
while in her heart she smiled at what their set would say could they
realise the situation. It revealed Garth in a new light; and suddenly
Jane understood him, as she had not understood him before.
And yet the only reply she could bring herself to frame was: "I wish I
knew old Margery."
Garth's brown eyes flashed with pleasure.
"Ah, I wish you did," he said. "And I should like you to see Castle
Gleneesh. You would enjoy the view from the terrace, sheer into the
gorge, and away across the purple hills. And I think you would like the
pine woods and the moor. I say, Miss Champion, why should not _I_ get
up a 'best party' in September, and implore the duchess to come and
chaperon it? And then you could come, and any one else you would like
asked. And--and, perhaps--we might ask--the beautiful 'Stars and
Stripes,' and her aunt, Mrs. Parker Bangs of Chicago; and then we
should see what Margery thought of her!"
"Delightful!" said Jane. "I would come with pleasure. And really, Dal,
I think that girl has a sweet nature. Could you do better? The exterior
is perfect, and surely the soul is there. Yes, ask us all, and see what
happens."
"I will," cried Garth, delighted. "And what will Margery think of Mrs.
Parker Bangs?"
"Never mind," said Jane decidedly. "When you marry the niece, the aunt
goes back to Chicago."
"And I wish her people were not millionaires."
"That can't be helped," said Jane. "Americans are so charming, that we
really must not mind their money."
"I wish Miss Lister and her aunt were here," remarked Garth. "But they
are to be at Lady Ingleby's, where I am due next Tuesday. Do you come
on there, Miss Champion?"
"I do," replied Jane. "I go to the Brands for a few days on Tuesday,
but I have promised Myra to turn up at Shenstone for the week-end. I
like staying there. They are such a harmonious couple."
"Yes," said Garth, "but no one could help being a harmonious couple,
who had married Lady Ingleby."
"What grammar!" laughed Jane. "But I know what you mean, and I am glad
you think so highly of Myra. She is a dear! Only do make haste and
paint her and get her off your mind, so as to be free for Pauline
Lister."
The sun-dial pointed to seven o'clock. The rooks had circled round the
elms and dropped contentedly into their nests.
"Let us go in," said Jane, rising. "I am glad we have had this talk,"
she added, as he walked beside her across the lawn.
"Yes," said Garth. "Air-balls weren't in it! It was a football this
time--good solid leather. And we each kicked one goal,--a tie, you
know. For your advice went home to me, and I think my reply showed you
the true lie of things; eh, Miss Champion?"
He was feeling seven again; but Jane saw him now through old Margery's
glasses, and it did not annoy her.
"Yes," she said, smiling at him with her kind, true eyes; "we will
consider it a tie, and surely it will prove a tie to our friendship.
Thank you, Dal, for all you have told me."
Arrived in her room, Jane found she had half an hour to spare before
dressing. She took out her diary. Her conversation with Garth Dalmain
seemed worth recording, particularly his story of the preacher whose
beauty of soul redeemed the ugliness of his body. She wrote it down
verbatim.
Then she rang for her maid, and dressed for dinner, and the concert
which should follow.