CHAPTER V
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.
