Chapter 8

_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.