Part 13

When she reached her bedroom she felt very miserable indeed. She possessed the coveted eighteenpence and was thoroughly ashamed of having it. It had been obtained too easily and she felt that she was deceiving Mr. Wycherly. Without knowing why, she was certain he would not wholly approve of the purchase of the "Magnolia Bloom powder," and he had never asked her why she wanted the eighteen-pence. He trusted her.

Jane-Anne felt mean.

Against her will, the verses she loved returned to her mind:

"The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent."

Hitherto she had happily considered those lines quite applicable to her general conduct. Even the disastrous morning at Mrs. Cox's had not left behind it the uncomfortable sensations she was now enduring.

She had not been six years in Mrs. Dew's charge without acquiring something of that good woman's sturdy independence.

She had asked for money.

She had taken it; and for a purpose she was certain the donor would disapprove.

He would call it "meretricious," that curious word Master Montagu had used. She had heard Mr. Wycherly use it too.

"A mind at peace with all below, A heart where love is innocent!"

Should she go back and tell Mr. Wycherly why she wanted the money and let him decide? Then once more might she "walk in beauty like the night" with her hair all round her and a light heart.

But he would be certain to advise her not to buy the "Magnolia Bloom." He wouldn't forbid it. That was not his way. But he would make it impossible for her to go and buy it--and she wanted it so dreadfully.

Perhaps when he saw how lovely she looked with a face that was no longer brown but purest white "with the soft sheen of a butterfly's wing" he would be glad she was so much improved.

Jane-Anne knelt down and said her prayers and added at the end the following petition:

"And please, dear Lord, let him admire me very much when I'm all over 'Magnolia Bloom.'"

Mrs. Dew came to take away the candle, but the room was quite light, for a big yellow moon was shining straight in.

Now was the moment when Jane-Anne usually arose and walked in beauty, repeating the poem the while.

Instead, she lay quite still. She felt she had no right to that poem; Lord Byron had not written it for her.

Why did she feel so certain that he, too, would have disapproved of the "Magnolia Bloom"?

Jane-Anne cried herself to sleep.

* * * * *

Next day she went to the largest hairdresser's in Oxford, and presented herself timidly at a counter laden with all sorts of pots and boxes and bottles.

She asked for the "Magnolia Bloom" in a weak and trembling voice, and was relieved to find they had it.

"Which shade will you have?" asked the young lady behind the counter.

"Oh, the very whitest, please!" exclaimed Jane-Anne.

"D'you want a puff, miss?" asked the attendant.

Jane-Anne had never thought of a puff. She shook her head sadly. Judging by the price of the other things, no puff could be obtained for three-halfpence, which was all the money she had.

She hurried from the shop.

How expensive it was to be beautiful!

She knew what a puff was, for she had been permitted to assist at and to admire the bathing of Mrs. Methuen's baby, and she had seen the nurse powder him. She was nothing if not resourceful. She went to the nearest jeweller and bought a pennyworth of cotton wool, and armed with what _The Peeress_ called these "aids to beauty," she returned to Holywell in a flutter of excitement.

Anxious as she was to try the beautifying effect of the "Magnolia Bloom," she felt some diffidence in presenting herself before her aunt thus embellished, so she waited until she had taken in Mr. Wycherly's tea and had her own.

It was Mr. Wycherly's pleasant custom to keep her for half an hour or so when she went in to take away his tea. They talked about Greece, and she had learned to read some of the simple words. She learned the alphabet in two evenings, and astonished Mr. Wycherly by her quickness and receptivity.

She stood in front of her looking-glass that evening and, with hands that trembled with excitement, applied the "Magnolia Bloom" to her little brown face.

It never occurred to Jane-Anne that the way to use powder was to put it on and take it off again. That would have appeared to her a wasteful work of supererogation. She liberally bedaubed her face with the "snow-white" powder and anxiously regarded the result.

Her eyes looked very dark and large, and her eyebrows, what she had left of them, very black. It had rather an ageing effect on the whole, for so liberal had she been with the powder that her hair all round the temples was iron grey.

She was not quite sure whether she liked the effect or not. Even to her own prejudiced eyes it was a trifle _bizarre_ and pronounced.

Where was the soft sheen of the butterfly's wing promised to "Amabelle"?

"Perhaps it looks different to other people," she reflected.

She crept to the foot of the stairs and listened.

Yes, her aunt was safely in the kitchen. She darted through the housekeeper's room and upstairs to Mr. Wycherly's door, and went in.

He looked up from the letter he was writing with his usual kindly smile of welcome, then suddenly he laughed.

"My dear Jane-Anne," he exclaimed, "have you been baking?"

Jane-Anne stood still in the middle of the room and hung her head.

"It's Magnolia Bloom," she mumbled.

"It's what?" Mr. Wycherly demanded.

"Magnolia Bloom," she repeated, her cheeks very hot indeed beneath the powder.

"Is that some new kind of flour?" asked Mr. Wycherly, "and if so why in the world do you not wash your face?"

"It's not flour, sir, it's powder--face powder--to make one white and pretty? Don't you like it?"

Mr. Wycherly sat back in his chair gazing in speechless wonder at Jane-Anne. That a girl who admired Lord Byron's poetry, who could learn the Greek alphabet in two evenings, who showed a real appreciation of what was noble and uplifting in the history of her country, could make such an absolute guy of herself in all good faith was to him quite incomprehensible. Boys did not do these things. He was fairly nonplussed.

"Where did you get this--ahem--bloom?" he asked quietly.

"I bought it, sir, with that eighteenpence."

"Have you much more of it?"

"Oh, yes, sir, a whole box."

"Please bring it, and you shall similarly adorn me and see how I look."

Jane-Anne was puzzled. He certainly had not admired her, but then, again, he had not condemned, and he wanted some himself. Swiftly and softly as a panther (lest she should meet her aunt) she fetched the powder and the screw of cotton wool from her room.

"Now," said Mr. Wycherly, "do me."

Jane-Anne made a dreadful mess. All over his coat, his chair (even the writing-table did not escape), fell the "Magnolia Bloom."

"What a very disagreeable smell the stuff has got," said Mr. Wycherly, and sneezed. He hated common scents.

At this psychological moment, when they were both smothered in powder and clouds of it were in the air, Mrs. Dew opened the study door, announcing:

"Mr. Gloag, sir."

Jane-Anne started violently and upset the box, and the visitor announced came into the room.

He was tall and young, with a keen, clean-shaven face, merry dark eyes, and dark curly hair worn a thought longer than is usual with young men.

He stopped short on the threshold, for really the pair before him presented a most extraordinary appearance.

Mr. Wycherly leapt to his feet, exclaiming:

"Curly, my dear fellow, I am delighted to see you." He had quite forgotten the "Magnolia Bloom" in his pleasure at beholding an old friend.

"Am I interrupting a rehearsal, or what?" the young man asked, as he shook hands warmly.

Mr. Wycherly sneezed again. "Oh, this abominable powder; I had forgotten it for the moment. Now, Curly, you are an actor; you are familiar with make-up in every shape and form. Will you kindly tell this young lady whether you consider us improved by this whitewash?"

The situation jumped to the eye. The young man laughed.

"You are both of you rather new to the use of powder, I should say; no one ever leaves it on, you know."

"Then what on earth is the use of it?" demanded Mr. Wycherly.

"It has, perhaps, a softening effect, but it is never used in such quantities."

"Go and wash, Jane-Anne," said Mr. Wycherly, "and I must do the same, then ask Mrs. Dew--no, come yourself with a dustpan and brush and clear up as well as you can. Curly will go downstairs."

In absolute silence Jane-Anne did as she was bid. It took a long time to clean Mr. Wycherly's study. There seemed a great deal of "Magnolia Bloom" for eighteenpence when she had finished. She emptied the dustpan into the dustbin, then she went and fetched _The Peeress_. Mrs. Dew had gone out to get something extra for dinner, as the gentleman was going to stay, so Jane-Anne had the kitchen to herself. She tore _The Peeress_ across and across and thrust it down into the hottest part of the fire, putting more coal on the top of it lest her aunt should see it and wonder.

"There," said Jane-Anne, poking viciously. "You're a horrid, meretricious, lying old thing, that you are."

*CHAPTER XVI*

*THE PURSUIT CONTINUED*

"For beauty draws us by a single hair." POPE.

Jane-Anne waited at dinner that night, and the stranger with the dark, vivacious eyes looked at her curiously more than once. When she had set the port in front of Mr. Wycherly and left the room finally, this guest, whom he called "Curly," leant forward, saying:

"So that is the new ward?"

"If you like to call her so."

"She is not an ordinary girl."

"I fear not."

"Why fear?"

"Because she will be very hard to place safely."

"My own impression is," Curly said slowly, "that she will need no placing at all, she will arrange matters for herself."

"You mean she will marry while quite young."

"Not at all. I should say she is quite unlikely to marry very young, but she will find a niche for herself, and she won't follow any beaten track either."

"When she came first of all," said Mr. Wycherly, "it was understood that she was to be trained for a servant; the doctor vetoed that--said she would never be strong enough. Then a charming lady here suggested having her trained as some very superior sort of nurse--children's nurse, but I question whether her genius lies in that direction. Personally, I can think of nothing very suitable for Jane-Anne except to delight me and get strong; but of course one must be practical. She is extraordinarily receptive. She takes pleasure in every kind of beauty, and she is quite singularly susceptible to beautiful verse. You should hear her recite Byron's 'Isles of Greece.'"

"Why shouldn't I hear her? Get her in and ask her to do it, then, perhaps, I can throw some light on this dark question."

"I can't say that I think she would be shy," Mr. Wycherly said dubiously, "for shyness and Jane-Anne seem quite foreign to one another; but--whether it would be good for her----"

"I'd like to hear her awfully," said Curly persuasively. "A housekeeper's niece, not thirteen, and steeped in Byron sounds such a delightful anachronism. Moreover, a little girl brought up by you. Please let me."

There was something very wheedling about Curly as he rose and went to the bell.

Mr. Wycherly nodded, and he rang.

Mrs. Dew thought it was for coffee, and that they were in a great hurry. However, she made it quickly and sent Jane-Anne in with it.

"This gentleman," said Mr. Wycherly, as she set down the coffee in front of him, "is fond of poetry, and I wonder if you would repeat to him your favourite verses about Marathon?"

Jane-Anne looked quickly from one to the other. She stepped back a little from the table and held up one slender brown hand as if adjuring them to listen.

Curly leant his elbow on the table and his head on his hand, and sat still as a statue, his brilliant eyes fixed on Jane-Anne.

She had a musical voice and a singularly clear enunciation. She no longer mispronounced any words, for Mr. Wycherly had heard her say the poem many times and took care of that. There was, withal, a curious little foreign distinctness in the way she separated one word from another that was undoubtedly a reminiscence of her father. She was never monotonous and she never ranted; best of all, she was utterly unconscious of herself and absolutely wholehearted in her lament for her country, and there was real passion in her young voice as she declaimed:

"A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-- Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!"

No one spoke for a minute, then very gravely and courteously Curly said, "Thank you."

Jane-Anne turned to go, and Mr. Wycherly rose and opened the door for her. She looked up at him as she went out, with timid questioning eyes.

"It was beautiful, my child, quite beautiful," he said.

Jane-Anne went back to the kitchen to wash dishes, perfectly happy.

Curly waited till Mr. Wycherly sat down again.

"And so you wonder what that child will be?" he asked.

"I do, indeed," sighed Mr. Wycherly.

"And she, with those great eyes set so wide apart?"

"That," said Mr. Wycherly, "is the Greek type."

"Every great actress," Curly said sententiously, "has her eyes set wide apart. There has never been a ferrety-faced actress worth anything."

"But what has that got to do with Jane-Anne," Mr. Wycherly said in a puzzled voice.

Curly laughed. "I shan't tell you," he said. "Only I know what she will be, and you needn't worry or try to stop it, for you can't."

"I hope she will be nothing of the kind," Mr. Wycherly said hotly. "Poor little nymph, so sensitive, so loving-hearted, so wise, and at times, so amazingly silly."

"They are like that," said Curly.

* * * * *

Next morning, Mr. Wycherly told Jane-Anne that the friend who had dined with him the night before was an actor, and that the company he was in was performing "As you Like It" that afternoon in a ducal garden not very far from Oxford; and finally that he was going to take her to see it.

That day was one long _festa_ for Jane-Anne. First of all came the drive, sitting side by side with Mr. Wycherly in a hired victoria. She wore her best summer frock and hat, beautiful white garments chosen by Mrs. Methuen, that filled her soul with rapture every time she put them on; white cotton gloves that Mrs. Dew had washed that morning, thin black stockings, and the light shoes Mr. Wycherly had insisted upon after he had seen her dance under the apple-tree.

Mrs. Dew watched them drive away with great pride.

"I will say this," she said to her friend, Miss Morecraft, that afternoon, "that when Jane-Anne's dressed you couldn't tell her from one of the gentry. She's got something about her, my sister had it, and her father--not as I ever cared for him--had it, too. I think if my sister could have seen her this afternoon she'd be set up, that I do. He's a fine-looking old gentleman, too; handsome he is, and no mistake."

A good many people regarded the quaint pair with pleasure. They were so manifestly proud and fond of each other, and the child was so radiantly happy. The crowds of well-dressed people delighted her. The garden was beautiful, the weather perfect, and with thrills of the wildest excitement she recognised Curly as Orlando.

When it was over, her first criticism was characteristic. "I'd have made a better boy than that if I'd been Rosalind; she wasn't a bit like a boy really, was she? If ever I pretended to be a boy I'd try to behave like Master Edmund, then I don't believe anyone would rekkernise me."

"I don't think Shakespeare meant Rosalind to be a finished actress. She is a supremely lovable girl. I don't think we would care so much for her if we didn't realise the girl all the way through," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully.

"Perhaps that pretty lady was right then," said Jane-Anne; "but somehow I _think_ Rosalind would have tried to behave more like a boy."

"When you play Rosalind you shall give us a new reading of the part," Mr. Wycherly remarked carelessly.

Jane-Anne cuddled closely against him. "When I'm grown up," she said, "I shall ask that Mr. Curly to take me about acting, too. How did he begin?"

"That," Mr. Wycherly answered dreamily, "is a long story, and rather sad. No one wanted him to be anything of the kind----"

"But he _had_ to!" exclaimed Jane-Anne. "He just had to, something drove him----"

"I suppose so; even yet I think it a pity."

"I don't," Jane-Anne said decidedly. "I'd rather go about being people than anything--one could never be dull."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Mr. Wycherly.

For several nights now, both Bruey and "She walks in beauty like the night" were forgotten. Jane-Anne arose, after her aunt had taken away the candle, to impersonate Rosalind. She rolled her thick plait round her head and pinned it up with hairpins stolen from her aunt's store. She achieved doublet and hose by means of two towels, several safety pins, and her long stockings. And the moon looked in at the window and was doubtless well amused.

The moon waxed and waned and the end of July was at hand.

Mr. Wycherly was plainly stirred out of his usual scholarly calm. His boys were coming home. Jane-Anne shared his excitement, and even Mrs. Dew felt it necessary to make a large cake and "to get in" quantities of stores of every description.

Jane-Anne was strung up to the highest pitch of expectation. Although she had seen comparatively little of the "young gentlemen" when she first came to Holywell, she had heard about them so much and so constantly from the master, that she felt she, too, owned them. There was, moreover, the delightful sense of an "understanding" with Montagu. He had asked her to look after his guardian and she had done her best. Moreover, quick and sympathetic always, she early realised that not even the Greek Myths were so entrancing a subject to Mr. Wycherly as these two boys of his, and during their walks together she invariably led the conversation in their direction, and found it an easy and fascinating path.

At last the great day came. The boys were to meet in London and come down together to Oxford by a train getting in just before tea.

At the last moment Mr. Wycherly bade Jane-Anne come with him to the station.

She was pale with excitement and could hardly speak.

When at last the train came in and the boys, brown and jolly and full of rejoicing at getting home, jumped on to the platform, and the first exciting greetings had passed, Jane-Anne suddenly flung her arms round Edmund's neck and burst into tears upon his shoulder.

Edmund looked across the weeping damsel at his guardian in comical dismay. "I say," he exclaimed. "If she does this when she meets me, whatever will she do when we go away?"

"I beg your pardon, Master Edmund," sobbed Jane-Anne, hastily withdrawing her arms, "but we have wanted it so, and now it's come."

"Well, that's nothing to cry for," Montagu said, patting her back consolingly. "Cheer up."

Jane-Anne dried her eyes, and the four went home in a cab laden with luggage.

The next few days drove Mrs. Dew almost to desperation. It was impossible to make Jane-Anne "keep herself to herself," as that good woman considered decorous and desirable.

Wherever the young gentlemen were, there was Jane-Anne, and it wasn't altogether her own fault. They sought her out. She fielded at impromptu cricket matches, and discussed high subjects with Montagu. She proudly displayed her knowledge of the Greek alphabet, and assisted to stick in stamps in a long-neglected album. She even confided to the boys her misfortune with the "Magnolia Bloom," nor was she wholly crushed by their scorn for her silliness. _Apropos_ of this, one day, she said:

"I wouldn't mind so much being brown if only I had curly hair."

"The Greeks always had curly hair," Montagu announced authoritatively. "I can't think why you've been left out, 'ribbed and rippled like the wet sea-sand,'" he quoted.

"I wonder," Edmund remarked, with a gravity that would have warned a wiser person, "that you never wash it in beer, then it would curl like anything."

"_Would_ it?" exclaimed Jane-Anne, in great excitement. "Is that why yours is so curly?"

Edmund winked at Montagu, who grinned appreciatively. "Of course it is," he cried; "all our chaps wash their heads in beer every Saturday, that's why we've all got such ripping hair. Look at it." And Edmund thrust his head under Jane-Anne's nose.

She ran her hand gently over the short, fair hair that was indeed "ribbed and rippled like the wet sea-sand," then she sniffed delicately, remarking: "I wonder it doesn't smell of it."

"Oh, the smell soon goes off," Edmund answered airily.

"Why don't you do it?" she asked Montagu. "Your hair's as straight as mine."

"He's too slack," Edmund remarked.

"Oh, I can't be bothered," Montagu said carelessly; "I don't want curly hair. If I did I should wash it in beer."

At that moment Mr. Wycherly called the boys to go out with him, and they rushed off leaving Jane-Anne to digest this seemingly simple specific for curly hair.

Reflection unfollowed by action was impossible to Jane-Anne.

The beds were made. Her share of the dusting was done. The boys and Mr. Wycherly would be out until luncheon, and her aunt was busy in the kitchen where she strongly objected to have Jane-Anne, as she described it, "clutterin' round."

There was a large cask of beer in the cellar, and the key was in the door. The cellar was to the front of the house under the dining-room, and was consequently some distance from the kitchen.

Jane-Anne rushed upstairs, seized her large bedroom jug, emptied it, and descended with it to the cellar.

The cask was near the steps, and, with the door at the top left open, she could see quite well. She turned the tap and the good brown ale foamed gaily into the jug.

Just as, by its weight, she judged it to be about half full, she heard a sound as though her aunt were coming.

She seized her jug and rushed up the steps, forgetting to shut the door at the top, and hid in the parlour. No, she was wrong, Mrs. Dew was still busy in the kitchen.

As quietly as she could, she crept back to her room, and, once there, bolted the door.

Her heart was thumping in her ears, and she panted with excitement.

She had a good large basin in her room and a foot-bath. She chose the foot-bath and what was in the jug filled it half full of the strong brown ale of Oxford.

What a smell it had!

Jane-Anne knelt down, unplaited her hair and shook it forward over her face. She held her nose tightly with one hand and with the other plunged her heavy mane into the foaming beer. The smell was overpowering. She was obliged to let go of her nose for she was choking, and as she did so the beer, forced higher in the foot-bath by the mass of hair, splashed her in the face.

Gasping and choking, she persevered; she laved her head with beer, she rubbed it in with both hands, rejoicing that it made a beautiful lather, and she spat out vigorously what had been forced into her open mouth while she held her nose.

It was a horrible experience, but the blood of the Spartans ran in Jane-Anne's veins, and she endured till every hair and a large proportion of her upper garments was thoroughly saturated with beer.

At last she felt the treatment had had full justice, and she drew out what appeared to be yards of sticky, sodden pulp that had once been human hair.

"Of course it won't curl till it's dry," she said to herself, and proceeded to sprinkle more beer about her bedroom in her efforts to free her hair from that nourishing beverage.

But it wouldn't dry.

Her bedroom already smelt like ten public-houses rolled into one, and brown stains were everywhere.

Not a ripple nor a rib appeared on her matted and bedraggled head.