Part 6

Marietta placed it in his hair. He looked at her gravely, and then held up his face to be kissed.

The Christmas Rose nearly swooned with joy, for she thought that Angel was the Infant Jesus; and as she was set in the place of honour amongst that golden glory, her heart throbbed with gratitude.

Edward Thornhill had been accustomed to the society of pretty women all his life; but in the presence of this convent girl he was absolutely nervous. Her beauty fascinated him. He longed to take his brush, to portray that face on canvas.

Marietta was shy to a fault, and it was a long time before he could get anything excepting monosyllables from her in conversation.

Christmas dinner was served in another part of the studio. It was not a very grand one. The absence of a woman's hand in the household arrangements had been keenly felt by the artist since his wife's death. But there was a piece of roast beef and a plum-pudding, with dates, apples, and oranges to follow. The two Italians had eaten nothing but a little bread for two days, so to them it was a feast for the Gods.

Later the tree was stripped of its ornaments. Angel pressed nearly all the presents on Rica. He was a kind-hearted little fellow, and very unselfish.

"And so you are going to be a nun, my child?" said the artist, when by sympathetic questioning he had elicited Marietta's story.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think you will be happy?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a slight hesitation in her manner. And yet, when she had entered the studio only two hours ago, she had resolved to ask Edward Thornhill to lend her enough money to pay her fare back to the convent, so that she could begin her novitiate at once.

"Your mind is quite made up, nothing could change it?"

"I think not."

How quickly her listener detected the little tremor in her voice, which told him much more than the uncertainty implied in her words.

"And yet I believe you might be happy here. I can help you both; you shall not want for work. Your brother tells me that you have never been a model, but perhaps you would be kind enough to favour me by sitting for my Academy picture. The subject is to be the Annunciation."

She did not answer, and he continued talking,--

"You must remember that the city is not always as gloomy as it looks to-night. We have picture galleries, parks and squares, and the country is beautiful at all seasons. Do you not think you could be content to stay a little?"

"Perhaps a little."

"I will get you some needlework to do, and Rica shall find in me as good a master as the one he has just lost.

"You are very kind," she said, looking up at him with tearful eyes.

"The nuns won't be angry with you for staying a little while with your brother; they will consent to receive you later, will they not?"

"Yes, sir."

"And will you sit for my picture?"

"Yes, as soon as you wish."

Before Marietta left she kissed the Christmas Rose, and whispered, "Dear Infant Jesus, guard the flower which has saved us."

And it murmured:--

"I am happy. My Master is pleased that I have followed in His footsteps, and His reward is beyond all price."

But Marietta did not hear.

Before Angel went to rest he placed the Christmas Rose in a goblet of water, and it lifted up its innocent face and breathed a sweet, faint perfume. The hours flew by, and towards midnight a curious pink hue stole over its white petals, the fragrance died away, the luxuriant stem withered up, and it breathed its last as Christ's birthday passed away.

The star of Bethlehem was alone in the heavens when Night visited the garden to greet the beauteous flower of the morning, but it had vanished. In its place was a tear which sparkled like a diamond, the tear it had shed when yearning to help suffering humanity.

III.

Four months afterwards Marietta received a letter from the superior of her convent. She sat reading it in a clean and comfortably furnished room. Though to all appearances perfectly happy, her face wore an expression of sadness, and tears fell on the missive in her hand.

At length she rose, placed the letter in the pocket of her gown, and after packing up a costume she had just finished making for Edward Thornhill, made her way to his studio.

He praised her work. He had never found anybody so clever at carrying out suggestions as Marietta; but to-day his commendation brought no pleasure into her face, and the artist was quick to notice her changed manner.

"You are sad, Marietta?"

"No," she answered hastily, turning to leave the studio.

"Why no, when you mean yes?" he asked, following her.

She did not reply, but the tears gathered in her eyes and fell upon her dress.

"Tell me what grieves you. I helped you once, and may be able to do so again."

She took the Reverend Mother's letter from her pocket and placed it in his hand. It contained a few lines, saying that they would expect their child back in a fortnight's time.

"Then you are going to leave us after all?"

"It is better so."

"But it makes you sad the thought of going?"

"Yes," she said, with downcast face.

"The sisters would not wish you to take the veil if you or they doubted your vocation for such a surrender?"

"I don't understand."

"Your heart must be in this sacrament, your whole heart, you must have no longings after the world. Is it not so?"

"Oh yes," she said, her voice trembling, tears in her eyes.

"Have you any longings that might be a shadow on your nun's life, my child? Have you? Nay, don't be afraid to speak."

"Oh, don't ask me," she said, repressing her sobs.

"You do not think your life here involves a sin? You have enabled me to paint a heavenly image that might, so far as the pure spirit of it goes, decorate the fairest church. I do not say the work, Marietta, but the intention, the inspiration."

She found this question too subtle for her comprehension, but there was something in the artist's tone and manner that thrilled her, something that was like the influence of the _Magnificat_ in the great choir of the cathedral. She turned her wondering eyes towards him, and he took her hands in his.

"You have been happy here?" he asked, his voice trembling.

"Yes, very."

"Then why leave me? Put up with the gloom and fog for my sake, Marietta. Be the artist's little wife as well as his model."

The sun came streaming into the studio as he bent over her fair hands and kissed them.

"It is not all gloom and fog," she replied. "To-day the London sun is as bright and warm as it was in Italy when I was a child."

It was not alone the London sun, it was the sunshine of the heart; and it lasted all through the remainder of Marietta's life.

THE WINDFLOWER

"One.will.crown.thee.king Far.in.the.spiritual.city" Lord Tennyson

I.

Lady Mercy sat writing of love in the early hours of morning. She had been christened Mercy, but the people called her the "Windflower." She was born in a high March wind, which had once more wooed her sisters into life. They lay like a fall of snow in the adjacent forests.

As the girl grew the title of the "Windflower" suited more and more her long fair hair and clear grey eyes.

She had never known any home beyond this beautiful palace. Here, in the heart of a pastoral country, the birds sang and the flowers bloomed all through the year. It was a haven of peace, of glorious morning dawns and wind-swept evening skies.

Her mother, the widowed Countess, wished to keep her among the flowers and meadows, and she had reached her seventeenth summer without ever having been in a city. She had, indeed, many learned teachers, and had heard and read of the great world which lay beyond the hills surrounding her home, but had no longing in her heart to go there. She found hosts of friends in nature--the flowers, birds, dogs, horses, golden fish in the fountain, and the sun; but most of all the wind. It seemed as though the poetic title, given to her by the good people of the village, had already exercised an influence upon her life. She loved the wind, whether he came from the icefields of the north or the sun-plains of the equator, whether his breath were redolent of western seas or of spices and Arabian perfumes.

To feel his kisses on her face, to have him whirl her round in his strength, to bend before his mighty wings as did her sisters, the Windflowers, this was her delight. Her play hours were passed in dreamland peopled with her own mystical creations. What should she know of love? She was, indeed, an utter stranger to it, and yet she wrote of love, and called her hero "Terah."

But the time had come when the Countess thought her daughter ought to begin to realise that the great world was not an ideal one like that of her dreams.

"Mercy," she said, "why do you always write of 'Terah' as you call him? He seems to be the hero of all your stories, and he is quite impossible. You must not imagine that people in the great world are as lovely in their lives as your flowers are. 'Terah' is an ideal."

"An ideal?"

"Yes, there is no such man."

"In what way is he not true?" asked the girl, her eyes full of wonder.

"Describe him again, and I will explain."

"His name speaks for him; it means that he was a breather of good like the wind, only he was always gentle. Then he drove away sorrow. He was a comforter; his face was most beautiful; he was all mercy, all love; and he had thought of others so much that self was quite dead in him. Is that impossible in that wide world yonder?"

The Countess sighed as she answered, "Do not make him so handsome, Mercy, and then perhaps he will be a more probable character, the man enriched by Providence with perfect beauty such as your hero cannot help being self-imbued. It is the old story of Narcissus, every glass greets him with the picture he likes best to see; even the eyes of the woman he loves are dimmed by the reflection of his image."

Months passed, and a great change was noticed in Lady Mercy. She grew paler and paler; she wrote no more stories; and all her studies were stopped. She rose very early, and walked miles in the woods and by the river, as if seeking for something. The "Windflower" seemed to have been bruised by a rough tempest.

A renowned doctor came from the metropolis and pressed her to say what ailed her.

"I am looking for 'Terah.' Mother said he was an ideal, merely the creature of my brain, and since then I have lost him," she moaned. "Ask her to take me to the great city that I may seek him, for I think he has gone there to prove that he is true."

And so the "Windflower" was uprooted from among her kith and kin. She journeyed to the distant town, past the river and over the hills.

And all was changed. She was thrust into the world of fashion. Dressed in costly silks with long flowing trains, her hair was not allowed to hang loosely over her shoulders any more. She was "out," so it was dressed high on her head by a French _coiffeur_. She was forbidden to walk unattended in the great city. Even in the parks she was always accompanied by a chaperon. It was not correct to be seen alone, and comfort and freedom had to be sacrificed.

II.

Society made much of the ethereal-looking girl. Society took to her title of the "Windflower"; it was so romantic, so "old world." She went for rides in the Row, drove in the Park, visited the opera and theatres, was present at evening receptions, and at ladies' "tea and scandal" parties--weak tea and strong scandal. Here she learned to fear her own sex.

She was presented at Court in a low dress on a foggy afternoon; she went everywhere in a sort of dream seeking her ideal, but she found no trace of "Terah," the breather of good; and as time passed she grew sick at heart, seeing on all hands the lust of self. Men battled for their idol everywhere, women bartered away their souls to crown self with a diadem of gold.

Presently she was permitted to go about unattended, a freedom that inspired her with new hopes. She went down to the busy part of the city and stood in the surging crowd that battled for life. The "Windflower" was alone in a world of anxious men whose all-consuming passion was self. Time was precious. All was hurry. Everybody had business on hand; even at luncheon they seemed to be racing. Not a minute was to be lost; hesitate but for an instant, and they were pushed aside, the great race of self against self, pursuing its course without them. A few attained the goal, but many were stricken down by the way. Those who reached it bowed their heads to the ground and worshipped at the glittering shrine where Gold and Self were throned kings of the human heart.

Her quest seemed to be failing entirely. Among the poor, who learned to love her, she now and then found a trace of her lost "Terah," but it was only a straggling ray of light in a nightmare of darkness and sin.

One night she was present at a great ball given in her honour by an intimate friend of the Countess.

The room was filled with sweet perfumes, the mantel-pieces heaped with lilies of the valley and white lilacs. All the wealth of spring flowers lay fainting in the hot atmosphere. Not a drop of water to cool them, not a breath of air to ease their pain. The band shrieked out its cheap melodies, the dancers danced beneath the glare of electric lights. The fashionable throng enjoyed itself. But one out of its number felt as weary as the flowers. Dressed in clinging folds of soft satin, her hair was arranged low in her neck, and in her hand she held a few loose roses. She looked like a garden lily which had strayed from its home, and grieved to find that it had exchanged the evening air and the silence of the night for the glare of electric globes, the heat of a crowded room, and the hubbub of countless voices.

"And so you do not like society?" said her partner, a young fellow whom she had often met before, and whom she greatly interested.

"From what I know of it I do not. I think, too, that people who live in cities are cruel. Look at the poor lilacs and lilies massed together to faint and die. In my home we never think of letting flowers remain without water. We look upon them as living things. Every blossom has a life of its own; it knows pain and thirst. When I see them, torn from hedge and meadow by careless hands and thrown on to the roads to die in the dust, I know that for each flower an angel weeps."

"Do not talk of things that make you sad. I want you to be happy to-night. You are enjoying yourself, are you not?" the young fellow inquired wistfully. Dangerous question to ask the grave idealist, but he had taken a great fancy to her, he sympathised with many of her feelings. "If you cannot say that you are enjoying yourself, please leave my question unanswered," he added hastily.

Lady Mercy looked up in surprise, then partly comprehending his words, she said,--

"I like to talk with you; but I have had to converse with so many others who have nothing to say that I am weary--men who asked me whether I had seen this or that play, if I had been on the great wheel, did I approve of bicycling for women? Had I tried golfing? And then, having finished their stock of small talk, they taxed their poor ingenuity to pay me compliments."

"I am not surprised," was the grave reply.

"Oh! I wish you had not said that. Why should a man seek to flatter a woman; in short, to insult her?"

"I would not offend you for the world!" he cried. "Indeed I am sorry."

"And I am grieved to have spoken bitterly. Pardon me, I do not know how to talk even to you, and everything is so strange," she said, flushing deeply.

"Tell me of what you like most yourself; that will interest me beyond all other subjects."

"I cannot speak of that," she answered, a gentle light playing on her face. "I can only think about it. The remembrance of it is rooted in my heart; it is a part of me."

"Mercy," he cried, his face flushing and his eyes becoming strangely brilliant, "the Countess has told me of your dream, of your search for some one who has never existed. Ah! give it up. Do you not know that the bitterest chapter in the book of life is that which is headed 'Broken Ideals'? The pages are written in blood, they are blistered with tears. The reader must decipher that chapter alone, the shattered remains of what was once his divinity, his sunshine feeding on his heart, and poisoning even his memory."

"But humanity should not let its ideals be broken. It should fight for them, lock them safe in the inmost chamber of its mind. It should never suffer a profane hand to destroy that which is dearer than itself," she answered, with a fixed, far-away look in her eyes.

"Ah, my dear Mercy, believe me, should you appear to find he whom you seek, you will but dream, and then awake to learn that your young, fresh life has been wasted, and that your Ideal is false. Then age will be passed in useless longing and vain regrets."

"I shall find him. I did know him once, and he left me, but he will come back again." Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked so spiritual, so beautiful, that her companion could contain himself no longer.

"Mercy, I love you!" he whispered.

The breathless words brought her back from dreamland, with its mists and its dim beauties--back to a London ballroom, back to fading humanity and faded flowers. The utter weariness and cheapness of it all struck her painfully, the passionate cry of love associated itself in her mind with the rustle and frippery of fashion.

"My life is his of whom we have spoken," she said gently in response to his beseeching glance, as her hostess, a bright, fashionable woman, hurried up and whispered effusively: "Wait here a moment, dear. I have at last found some one whom I am sure will please you. He is very rich and handsome, quite a king in the world of fashion, and yet a Christian gentleman--and oh, so wise! We call him our Ideal."

She came back accompanied by a tall, fine man. Everybody thought him beautiful--"pure Greek, you know"; but Lady Mercy started back in terror, recovering herself the next minute. To her he was hideous--his mouth misshapen, his eyes a dull red. Was it because her own soul was so pure that she saw people's minds, not their faces, and when a mind was evil its chief vice shone through its fleshly covering like a beacon?

"Delighted to meet you, Lady Mercy; will you dance?"

"No, thank you."

"We will sit it out, then, and talk. By the way, our mutual friend, Lady R----, tells me that you are much distressed over the condition of the unemployed in our great city?"

"Yes, I want mother to devise a scheme for helping them. I have seen so much suffering since I have been here."

"Money thrown away, I assure you; they are a rascally set. If a man is willing to work there is work to be had."

"I disagree, sir; work is most difficult to obtain. A character is needed. Many of these poor, suffering creatures have no recommendation that might entitle them to recognition at the hands of Christ's followers. And most of them are not in a condition to work. They have neither clothes, nor health, nor hope. Could you build with your feet through your boots? Could you lift heavy weights with no strength in your body and no hope in your soul?"

"You forget I am not one of the unemployed," he said, smiling.

"No? What do you do then?"

"Well, I do not exactly do anything."

"Then you are unemployed."

"I have no regular work; but I try to follow in Christ's steps. I am a Christian like yourself. I believe that He was God, and worship Him as such."

"Sir, I fear His would have been a poor, useless martyrdom if you were indeed a Christian. Go home and read His life; see what He says about the poor whom you despise. There, forgive me, I did not mean to say so much. But I think you are in the wrong. Good-night."

"What an awful girl you introduced me to, Lady R----! She was positively insulting; a regular windbag, not a flower."

"Didn't it make any impression? Poor Popsie," she replied, patting him with her fan, "I hoped she would interest you; she is in search of the Ideal. What a pity she did not recognise you! Never mind, I will introduce you to Baby Joy, the music-hall singer who married Lord Clare. You know? Come along."

III.

Years passed. Lady Mercy's first youth was over; her eyes had lost the light of hope--a wild, sorrowful expression filled them. She had never gone back to the country; she could not return to the happy home of her childish ideals, the joyless, broken-hearted creature she was now.

She drove out one day in September. Gaily dressed women were shopping. Flower stalls of roses, carnations, marguerites, gave a foreign look to the city. A wild west wind, fragrant with the breath of autumn, rushed through the streets.

Suddenly there was some confusion in the road. A policeman battled among a host of prancing horses and grand carriages. A victoria containing two gorgeously dressed ladies had run over a mongrel dog. One of its owners, a ragged girl, sobbed on the pavement, as her half-starved brother elbowed his way to the officer's side.

"Our paw Jack; 'is leg's broke."

"You should not let him run about in crowded streets," said one of the smart occupants of the victoria.

"End yer shouldn't let yer cussed 'osses droive over the paw beast," replied the boy, taking it in his arms and trying to soothe its cries.

"I was going to give you money, boy, but I shall not for your impertinence."

Lady Mercy stood on the pavement comforting the little girl.

"Never moind, Puddles," said her brother, coming up with the dog in his arms. "Our Prince will cure 'im."

"Prince is doying, brother, you know thet."

"Who is Prince, my boy?" asked Lady Mercy.

"'E's our only friend. 'E's father and mother to all hus poor."

"Is he beautiful?" she asked eagerly.

"What, in the faice? Rather not."

"Ah! then it cannot be he," said Lady Mercy sadly. "Why do you call him Prince?"

"Becos 'e is Prince--the Prince of Pity. 'E's ill now; but 'e says 'e can't doi till something 'appens."

"What?"

"Oi der know. Somethink."

"Where does he live?"

"Hover there," said the boy, with a vague wave of his hand.

"I will take you there if you will let me. Will you get into the carriage?"

"What, in there?"

"Yes."

"Rather. Come on, Puddles."

Lady Mercy helped the two forlorn creatures into her carriage, and placed the dog tenderly on the front seat.

"Will you tell the coachman where to go?"

"Yaas, droive ter Greenleaf Court."

The Prince of Pity lay dying of want in one of the poorest quarters of the great city. His face was gaunt and weather-beaten, his eyes glazed and dull. A young child sat on the floor nursing a half-starved cat--both waifs of the street rescued from utter misery by the good Samaritan.

Sorrow was always with the poor of Greenleaf Court; but now their affliction was more bitter than ever. Their dear master, who had devoted his life to them, and had given away all his worldly goods until he was as poor and destitute as they, the man who told them of sweet flowers and green meadows and silver streams, he who made peace in their quarrels, divided his scanty earnings among them, taught the children, he, their only stay in a world of suffering and want, was leaving them for ever.

The Prince of Pity lay drowsing away to "poppied death."

The wind wailed and sobbed round the house, and burst in at the door as Lady Mercy entered.

She saw the man. His clothes were worn and old, but she beheld only his face; that face which even the poor who almost worshipped him thought ugly, was beautiful to her; it told of love and charity. She knew his life had been lived for others.

"Ah, you have come at last!" he cried. "Welcome. I so feared I should die without any one to continue my work, and I asked the Wind that sprung up in the early hours to waft me some one hither."