JANE LOOKS INTO LOVE'S MIRROR
Behind the yellow screen, Jane found a great confusion of canvases, and
unmistakable evidence of the blind hands which had groped about in a
vain search, and then made fruitless endeavours to sort and rearrange.
Very tenderly, Jane picked up each canvas from the fallen heap; turning
it the right way up, and standing it with its face to the wall.
Beautiful work, was there; some of it finished; some, incomplete. One
or two faces she knew, looked out at her in their pictured loveliness.
But the canvases she sought were not there.
She straightened herself, and looked around. In a further corner,
partly concealed by a Cairo screen, stood another pile. Jane went to
them.
Almost immediately she found the two she wanted; larger than the rest,
and distinguishable at a glance by the soft black gown of the central
figure.
Without giving them more than a passing look, she carried them over to
the western window, and placed them in a good light. Then she drew up
the chair in which she had been sitting; took the little brass bear in
her left hand, as a talisman to help her through what lay before her;
turned the second picture with its face to the easel; and sat down to
the quiet contemplation of the first.
The noble figure of a woman, nobly painted, was the first impression
which leapt from eye to brain. Yes, nobility came first, in stately
pose, in uplifted brow, in breadth of dignity. Then--as you marked the
grandly massive figure, too well-proportioned to be cumbersome, but
large and full, and amply developed; the length of limb; the firmly
planted feet; the large capable hands,--you realised the second
impression conveyed by the picture, to be strength;--strength to do;
strength to be; strength to continue. Then you looked into the face.
And there you were confronted with a great surprise. The third thought
expressed by the picture was Love--love, of the highest, holiest, most
ideal, kind; yet, withal, of the most tenderly human order; and you
found it in that face.
It was a large face, well proportioned to the figure. It had no
pretensions whatever to ordinary beauty. The features were good; there
was not an ugly line about them; and yet, each one just missed the
beautiful; and the general effect was of a good-looking plainness;
unadorned, unconcealed, and unashamed. But the longer you looked, the
more desirable grew the face; the less you noticed its negations; the
more you admired its honesty, its purity, its immense strength of
purpose; its noble simplicity. You took in all these outward details;
you looked away for a moment, to consider them; you looked back to
verify them; and then the miracle happened. Into the face had stolen
the "light that never was on sea or land." It shone from the quiet grey
eyes,--as, over the head of the man who knelt before her, they looked
out of the picture--with an expression of the sublime surrender of a
woman's whole soul to an emotion which, though it sways and masters
her, yet gives her the power to be more truly herself than ever before.
The startled joy in them; the marvel at a mystery not yet understood;
the passionate tenderness; and yet the almost divine compassion for the
unrestrained violence of feeling, which had flung the man to his knees,
and driven him to the haven of her breast; the yearning to soothe, and
give, and content;--all these were blended into a look of such
exquisite sweetness, that it brought tears to the eyes of the beholder.
The woman was seated on a broad marble parapet. She looked straight
before her. Her knees came well forward, and the long curve of the
train of her black gown filled the foreground on the right. On the
left, slightly to one side of her, knelt a man, a tall slight figure in
evening dress, his arms thrown forward around her waist; his face
completely hidden in the soft lace at her bosom; only the back of his
sleek dark head, visible. And yet the whole figure denoted a passion of
tense emotion. She had gathered him to her with what you knew must have
been an exquisite gesture, combining the utter self-surrender of the
woman, with the tender throb of maternal solicitude; and now her hands
were clasped behind his head, holding him closely to her. Not a word
was being spoken. The hidden face was obviously silent; and her firm
lips above his dark head were folded in a line of calm self-control;
though about them hovered the dawning of a smile of bliss ineffable.
A crimson rambler rose climbing some woodwork faintly indicated on the
left, and hanging in a glowing mass from the top left-hand corner,
supplied the only vivid colour in the picture.
But, from taking in these minor details, the eye returned to that calm
tender face, alight with love; to those strong capable hands, now
learning for the first time to put forth the protective passion of a
woman's tenderness; and the mind whispered the only possible name for
that picture: The Wife.
Jane gazed at it long, in silence. Had Garth's little bear been
anything less solid than Early Victorian brass; it must have bent and
broken under the strong pressure of those clenched hands.
She could not doubt, for a moment, that she looked upon herself; but,
oh, merciful heavens! how unlike the reflected self of her own mirror!
Once or twice as she looked, her mind refused to work, and she simply
gazed blankly at the minor details of the picture. But then again, the
expression of the grey eyes drew her, recalling so vividly every
feeling she had experienced when that dear head had come so
unexpectedly to its resting-place upon her bosom. "It is true," she
whispered; and again: "Yes; it is true. I cannot deny it. It is as I
felt; it must be as I looked."
And then, suddenly; she fell upon her knees before the picture. "Oh, my
God! Is that as I looked? And the next thing that happened was my boy
lifting his shining eyes and gazing at me in the moonlight. Is THIS
what he saw? Did I look SO? And did the woman who looked so; and who,
looking so, pressed his head down again upon her breast, refuse next
day to marry him, on the grounds of his youth, and her superiority?...
Oh, Garth, Garth! ... O God, help him to understand! ... help him
to forgive me!"
In the work-room just below, Maggie the housemaid was singing as she
sewed. The sound floated through the open window, each syllable
distinct in the clear Scotch voice, and reached Jane where she knelt.
Her mind, stunned to blankness by its pain, took eager hold upon the
words of Maggie's hymn. And they were these.
"O Love, that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be."
"O Light, that followest all my way,
I yield my flick'ring torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be."
Jane took the second picture, and placed it in front of the first.
The same woman, seated as before; but the man was not there; and in her
arms, its tiny dark head pillowed against the fulness of her breast,
lay a little child. The woman did not look over that small head, but
bent above it, and gazed into the baby face.
The crimson rambler had grown right across the picture, and formed a
glowing arch above mother and child. A majesty of tenderness was in the
large figure of the mother. The face, as regarded contour and features,
was no less plain; but again it was transfigured, by the mother-love
thereon depicted. You knew "The Wife" had more than fulfilled her
abundant promise. The wife was there in fullest realisation; and, added
to wifehood, the wonder of motherhood. All mysteries were explained;
all joys experienced; and the smile on her calm lips, bespoke ineffable
content.
A rambler rose had burst above them, and fallen in a shower of crimson
petals upon mother and child. The baby-fingers clasped tightly the soft
lace at her bosom. A petal had fallen upon the tiny wrist. She had
lifted her hand to remove it; and, catching the baby-eyes, so dark and
shining, paused for a moment, and smiled.
Jane, watching them, fell to desperate weeping. The "mere boy" had
understood her potential possibilities of motherhood far better than
she understood them herself. Having had one glimpse of her as "The
Wife," his mind had leaped on, and seen her as "The Mother." And again
she was forced to say: "It is true--yes; it is true."
And then she recalled the old line of cruel reasoning:
"It was not the sort of face one would have wanted to see always in
front of one at table." Was this the sort of face--this, as Garth had
painted it, after a supposed year of marriage? Would any man weary of
it, or wish to turn away his eyes?
Jane took one more long look. Then she dropped the little bear, and
buried her face in her hands; while a hot blush crept up to the very
roots of her hair, and tingled to her finger-tips.
Below, the fresh young voice was singing again.
"O Joy, that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be."
After a while Jane whispered: "Oh, my darling, forgive me. I was
altogether wrong. I will confess; and, God helping me, I will explain;
and, oh, my darling, you will forgive me?"
Once more she lifted her head and looked at the picture. A few stray
petals of the crimson rambler lay upon the ground; reminding her of
those crushed roses, which, falling from her breast, lay scattered on
the terrace at Shenstone, emblem of the joyous hopes and glory of love
which her decision of that night had laid in the dust of disillusion.
But crowning this picture, in rich clusters of abundant bloom, grew the
rambler rose. And through the open window came the final verse of
Maggie's hymn.
"O Cross, that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be."
Jane went to the western window, and stood, with her arms stretched
above her, looking out upon the radiance of the sunset. The sky blazed
into gold and crimson at the horizon; gradually as the eye lifted,
paling to primrose, flecked with rosy clouds; and, overhead, deep
blue--fathomless, boundless, blue.
Jane gazed at the golden battlements above the purple hills, and
repeated, half aloud: "And the city was of pure gold;--and had no need
of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God
did lighten it. And there shall be no more death; neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are
passed away."
Ah, how much had passed away since she stood at that western window,
not an hour before. All life seemed readjusted; its outlook altered;
its perspective changed. Truly Garth had "gone behind his blindness."
Jane raised her eyes to the blue; and a smile of unspeakable
anticipation parted her lips. "Life, that shall endless be," she
murmured. Then, turning, found the little bear, and restored him to his
place upon the mantelpiece; put back the chair; closed the western
window; and, picking up the two canvases, left the studio, and made her
way carefully downstairs.