CHAPTER XXIX
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.
