by Maud Diver
CHAPTER XXVI.
"Climb high, love high, what matter! Still . . . Feet, feelings, must descend the hill." --Browning.
On a certain afternoon of early March, Quita Lenox stood at her easel,in the small room she had fitted up as a studio, palette in one hand,long-handled brush in the other, two broken lines of irritation betweenher brows.
The verandah door stood wide; and through it the breath of spring camein to her, velvet soft, compact of a hundred nameless scents, mingledwith the paramount scent of roses. For March is India's rose month:and in the midst of so much that is unlovely, the roses of Dera IshmaelKhan are things to marvel at, and thank Heaven for. Quita's ramblingcompound was packed with them, from the plebeian Cabbage, to the lordlyMarechal Neil. Three golden buds of the latter drooped over the whiteribbon bow at her waist: and a bowl of dark red ones stood on theuntidy table behind her.
But even the subtle-sweet influence of the day failed to sooth thecreases out of her forehead. For the panel picture on her easel wouldnot 'behave'; her scattered ideas refused to range themselves: and thefount of inspiration seemed dried up within her: trifles insignificantenough to the 'lay' mind: but for the artist, whether of pencil, orbrush, or chisel, they spell despair. All the morning she had wrestledwith the picture half defiantly, as it were against the stream. Suchwork is seldom satisfactory; and since lunch she had been engaged inblotting it all out ruthlessly, bit by bit.
The refractory creation of her spirit was a small panel in oils: asubject picture, more or less symbolical, such as she did not oftenattempt:--a broken hillside, of Himalayan character: bare blocks ofgranite, dripping with recent rain, their dark corners and intersticesalight with shy wild flowers and ferns: a stone-set path zigzaggingamong them, and half-way up the path, the figures of a man and woman:the man ahead, upon a jutting ledge of rock, half turning withdown-stretched hand to draw the woman up after him, his vigorous formbacked by a sky of driving cloud. Of the woman's face, as she liftedit to his, nothing could be seen save the outline of cheek and brow.Her bowed shoulders and the lines of her figure expressed effort,tinged with weariness. Below her, the topmost half of a deodar sprangupward, a suggestion of wind in its drooping bows: and through torngrey cloud, a sun-ray, striking across the two figures, waked copperygleams in the woman's dark hair, and points of brightness on drenchedrock and fern.
All these things were as yet conveyed rather than expressed: thefigures, in particular, being still little more than studies suggestingboth the strain and exhilaration of ascent. On a strip of cardboardpropped above the canvas, four lines were scribbled in pencil.
"Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn till night, my friend."
Quita read and pondered the words for the hundredth time: but the hintof melancholy in them only increased her vague feeling of annoyance,and the lines deepened between her brows.
It was her first serious attempt at a picture after four months ofidleness, and 'amateur scribblings'--so she designated them in herletters to Michael; and for the time being brain and hand seemed tohave lost their cunning. She needed the stimulant of criticism, ofdiscussion, to oil the wheels and set the machine going afresh. Ifonly Michael were here, how they would have argued and squabbled, totheir souls' content, over values, and proportions and effects of lightand shade; and what a fine day's work would have sprung from it all!
"I really think I must get him down here for a week or two," shethought. "Just to give me a fillip in the right direction."
Fired by the notion, she made one or two ineffectual dabs at thewoman's draperies: then, flinging down brush and palette, sank into adeep, cushioned chair sacred to her husband, as a small table bearingash-tray, pipes, and a pile of corrected proofs, bore witness. Sheglanced through them lazily, with softened eyes: then, as if drawn by amagnet, her gaze returned to the picture.
"Horrid depressing thing!" the reflected. "And yet . . how attractive!The general character of it is rather like Eldred himself. I suppose Icould produce nothing that wasn't at this stage! They are both up-hillsubjects, certainly; worth tackling; and not to be mastered in a day."
But for all that she was little used to wrestling with her art. Thetouch of genius in her was of the spontaneous, rather than of thepainstaking order; and a remembered word of Michael's rose up todisconcert her. "Succumb to your womanhood and there is an end of yourArt." Irritating man! What business had he to make random shots sonear to the truth. Yet it was not the whole truth; and hers was thechance to prove it.
Certainly for the past six months and more, she had succumbedunreservedly to her womanhood; had endured without a pang the temporaryeclipse of her art. What need to strive after the presentation, theexpression of life, when she had penetrated to the core of it: wasliving it buoyantly, fervently, with every faculty of heart and spirit?By nature a being of extremes, she was apt to fling all her energies inone direction at a time: and in these last months of so-called idlenessshe had been mastering the rudiments of the finest and most complex ofall arts,--the art of living in closest human relationship with 'acreature of equal, if of unlike frailties'; an art that must bemastered afresh, year by year: because life, as we know it, is rootedin change; and if a husband and wife are not imperceptibly growingtowards one another, they are almost infallibly growing in the otherdirection. But for the artist woman self-surrender is no naturalinstinct: it is a talent to be consciously acquired, if she everacquire it at all: and although Quita had, in some sort, been throughthe fire, she was still a novice in those 'profound and painlesslessons of love,' that can only be taught in the incomparable school ofmarriage.
Meanwhile, she was learning her husband,--in his own phrase,--like anew language; and enjoying the process, despite its undeniabledifficulty. For the man was by temperament inarticulate, and asolitary: propensities aggravated by six years of bitterness, andstifled passion. Let his love be never so deep and true, the spell ofisolation, the spirit that drives men into the wilderness, was asstrong in him as the need to share thought and feeling with the heartnearest her own was in his wife. At no time could he have been classedamong the frankly unthinking men who slip into marriage as composedlyas they slip into a new suit of clothes: and at five-and-thirty, thecomplete readjustment of life and habit demanded by this exquisite yetexacting bond could not be arrived at without some degree of consciousstrain and compromise.
The past few weeks had revealed to both, more or less clearly, the 'seaof contrarieties' through which they were called upon to steer withoutcapsizing; had brought them to that critical turning-point when thefirst rapture of passion in possession subsides imperceptibly, into anemotion deeper and more stable; when the insignificant outer worldresumes its normal proportions; and individuality reasserts itself,often with disconcerting results!
Hence Quita's revived zeal to finish a picture begun and flung asidemonths ago; and Eldred's unusually prompt response to a request from anEditor friend in England for a set of articles on Tibet, whose holy ofholies had not then been unveiled and described for the benefit ofman's insatiable curiosity.
He was in his study now, finishing the first of them in time for thehomeward mail: unconsciously enjoying a return to the familiaroccupation. The writing of it had engrossed more of his mind andleisure during the last week than Quita chose to consider quiteadmissible in those early days. Her own absorption in her picture wasquite another matter, be it understood! And, in truth, she wouldgladly have had him in the studio, ensconced in his own chair, andavailable for argument or love-making according to her mood. Hithertoshe had resisted temptations to invade his study when she knew him tobe at work. But this afternoon a vague spirit of unrest had gottenhold of her, making the thought of his diligence, and complacentdetachment from her, peculiarly exasperating; and before longexasperation drove her to the door of his sanctum.
It stood ajar: and pushing it open, she went softly in. His back wa
stowards her, and his concentration so complete that he was not aware ofher till she stood at his elbow. Then he started and looked up with asmothered exclamation of doubtful character.
"Hullo, my lady, I thought this was against regulations! What's up?"
She perched lightly on the arm of his chair.
"Nothing's up. I'm rather 'down,' that's all; or I wouldn't haveinfringed your territorial rights! _Do_ leave off being a model ofindustry, and come into the studio."
"But, my dear girl, . . why?"
"Because I want you. Isn't that reason enough? There'll be plenty oftime to finish grinding out dry-as-dust facts about Tibet after tea."
"I'm afraid not. I told Desmond I'd get down to the tent-peggingearly. Is it really anything important, lass?" he added, controllinghis impatience with an effort.
"Oh dear, no, not the least in the world!" She was on her feet now:head erect: dignity incarnate. "Unless it is important to do what yourwife asks you with good grace. But I believe little illusions of thatkind are warranted not to outlast four months of marriage."
He brought his hand sharply down on the table.
"Quita, you are talking childish nonsense. Why the dickens can't youleave me in peace till I'm through? I shan't be much longer now: andyou can lecture me on the whole duty of husbands all the evening, ifyou've a mind to."
"Indeed I've not. Duty never gets a word in edgeways, while Love ismaster of the house. If it ever comes to 'duty' between you and me, Ishall pack my kit and go, I promise you. It's the reality or nothingfor me.--But don't hurry your work on my account, _mon ami_," sheadded, on her way to the door. "I shall probably drive over toHonor's, and leave you in peace till dinner-time. In fact, you have mypermission to dine at mess for a change, if it would amuse you."
And as he turned quickly with remonstrance on his lips, the door closedbehind her. With a sigh that ended in a smile, he took up his penagain: wishing her back the moment she was out of reach. For beneathhis surface equanimity, the man in him was still thrilling under theemotion and astonishment of absolute possession; under the hallowingsense of permanence that at once calmed and exalted the fever heat ofpassion.
But Quita returned to her studio feeling more out of tune than ever.It was her own foolish fault, of course, for interrupting him: a formof knowledge that has never yet made for consolation. And while shestood alone before her picture, wondering whether she really wouldorder the trap and go over to the Desmonds, footsteps in the verandahheralded Honor's appearance in the doorway:--a glowing Honor, lookingremarkably young and fresh in a long, loose alpaca coat, and a shadyLeghorn in which roses nodded: the peach-bloom of health back in hercheeks, the old buoyant stateliness in her step and carriage.
Quita flew to her with a little cry.
"Honor, you dear woman! How engaging of you to turn up, just when Iwas wanting you, and feeling too lazy to go and find you."
The kiss that passed between them was a real one; not the perfunctorypeck of greeting that usurps its name. For, as flowers most exquisitespring from strangely unpromising soil, so had those two weeks ofisolation and heart-hunger on the unloveliest hill-top of NorthernIndia generated an enduring friendship between these two women, sounlike in outward seeming: a deeper thing than the facile feminineinterchange of Christian names and kisses.
"Come your ways in, you patent radiator of happiness!" And Quita wouldhave thrust her friend into Eldred's chair: but Honor, catching sightof the picture, went eagerly up to it.
"My dear, how remarkable! When did you begin it?"
"Ages ago, in Dalhousie; and now I want to finish it. But the lamp ofinspiration won't burn. I'm afraid the wick's gone mouldy from disuse."
But Honor was reading the lines above the canvas.
"Ah, I see! Christina Rossetti," she said. "Quita, you must finishthis. It's going to be very good. I love that little poem."
"Yes, you would. I've always rebelled against it. But last year wheneverything seemed such a struggle, the lines haunted me so, that Itried to get rid of them by turning them into a picture; and that's theresult. Rather like Eldred and me! He's always dragging me up on tohigher ground: yet he's so divinely unconscious of it all the time."
"Dear fellow!" Honor said softly. "But _he_ hasn't done all thelifting. You've made a new man of him, Quita."
"Have I?" Sudden seriousness shadowed her eyes. "It was the least Icould do, . . considering all things. Only . . I wish he wasn't quiteso inward; so in love with his own company."
"You'll change that, in time."
"Do you think so? I wonder."
She bent in speaking to look through three or four small canvases thatstood with their faces to the wall.
"I want to show you the pair to my Up-Hill picture. It's anotherRossetti, _Amor Mundi_; and the contrast pleases me. I've taken theopening lines:
"'Oh where are you going, with your love-locks flowing, On the west wind blowing, along this valley track?' 'The down-hill path is easy; come with me, an' it please ye; We shall escape the up-hill, by never turning back.' So they two went together, in glowing August weather, The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right . .'
There now, can't you see them going down and down . . . ?"
With a quick turn of the wrist she brought the picture into view, andset it on the table in a good light.
"Can't you feel the soft wind against their faces, . . the ease, theswiftness, and the thrill of it all; the thrill of yielding to earthand the beauty of earth, of giving up for a while one's futilestrugglings to reach the moon?"
Honor stood silent, gazing at the picture with rapt interest. To thisdeep-hearted passionate woman, whose sympathies stretched upward anddownward along the whole gamut of human feeling, its appeal was farstronger than Quita--in whom passion was mainly an imaginativequality--was likely to realise. For the small picture was heavy withheat and colour, and the glamour of high mid-summer; the sky's blueintensity glowing between masses of white thunderous cloud; thehillsides clothed in their August splendour of purple, and pink, andgreen: and down the white track that sloped to the valley a man and awoman, hand in hand, the woman leading, appeared to be coming straightout of the picture. Her flying hair, and the sweep of her draperies,showed the speed of their going; and the ecstasy of it shone in thefaces of both.
"It's a powerful little poem," Quita exclaimed. "As they go on theymeet with grisly portents, the track gets steeper, and they are afraid.But by that time it is 'too steep for hill-mounting, and too late forcost-counting; the down-hill path is easy, but there's no turningback.'"
Honor gave a little shiver.
"It's a wonderful bit of work," she said. "But is it always the manwho leads up, and the woman who leads down, Quita?"
"No. By no manner of means! I happened to see it so in those twoinstances. Probably the sainted Christina saw it the other wayround.--But come and sit in Eldred's chair now, and let's get back torealities."
"Realities? Why, my dear, your pictures touch the height and depth ofthe biggest realities. I never knew you did that sort of thing."
"I don't as a rule. But those poems possessed me."
"Well, I can only say, go on and do more."
"I will . . if I can." And gently pushing Honor into the chair, shesettled herself on the carpet, and flung an arm over her friend's knee."It's high time I started work again. I've been idling far too long."
Honor smiled. "Don't be in a hurry to put an end to it, dear. It'sone of the divinest and most profitable kinds of idling you will everknow. You are building up your future in these first months together."
Quita's sigh was a little anxious, though not sad.
"Are we? Well, I hope we've got the foundations right," she said,looking thoughtfully up into the other's face. Something in its veiledbrilliance caught her attention, and bent her flexible mind in anotherdirection. "Do you know, Honor," she went on, "you've blossomed outamazingly just lately. Your eyes ar
e shining like two stars, as if youhad some heavenly secret hidden behind them."
"It's an open secret, and a very human one!" Honor answered, smiling."You are well on the way to discovering it for yourself."
With a low sound, Quita captured the hand lying near her own.
"Oh, you utter woman!" she murmured. "Is it still so beautiful . . .after three years?"
Honor's colour deepened. "It's more beautiful. Much more beautiful.Because now . . there are two of them."
There was a moment of silence, while Quita fidgeted with the greatsquare sapphire on her friend's wedding-finger.
"You'll think me dreadful," she said at last. "But I'm not quite surethat I see the logic of that. For the present, at all events, I onlywant Eldred, and these . . my spirit children," she indicated herpictures with a little nervous laugh. "You must make allowances forthe artist woman, Honor. She so seldom feels and does the things sheought to feel and do!"
"That's just why she is apt to be so refreshing!--But believe me,Quita, the most perfect marriage is not quite perfect till it becomes'the trio perfect,' three persons and one love. That's not fantasticidealism but simple fact. Besides," she hesitated and caressed a straytendril of Quita's hair, "doesn't it seem to you a bigger thing, on thewhole, to make men and women to the best of one's power, than to makebooks or pictures, even fine ones?"
"Yes, in some ways . . it does. And for that very reason I doubtwhether I am fitted to make them. It's a gift, an art, like everythingelse. Not the creating of them, of course. That's a privilege, or afatality, as the case may be! But the moulding of them, after they arecreated. You can't deny that they complicate things: and even at thisstage, I find marriage a far more complicated affair than I imagined itto be. Didn't you?"
Honor's smile was sufficient evidence to the contrary. But she wasold-fashioned enough to have a difficulty in talking about the hiddenpoem of her life.
"Perhaps we were exceptions, Theo and I," she said at last. "We knewone another . . intimately, before starting; and to live with him,and . . in him, seemed to come as natural as breathing. But then, mydear, I'm simply a wife and a mother: not a woman of genius, like you."
"Aren't you, indeed? Don't pulverise me with sarcasms, please! In myopinion this exquisite passion of yours for being 'simply a wife and amother' is in itself a kind of genius: perhaps the highest there is.You see and feel the essential beauty of both relations so vividly thatyou make one see and feel it also; just as certain other kinds of womenmake one half-ashamed of being a woman at all! Yours is thetemperament that gives, Honor, . . gives royally; and is always sure ofreturn because it looks for none. While as for me, my presentcomplications are the natural outcome,--multiplied by six years,--of mylong-ago blindness and folly, that sprang from my capacity for taking,without a thought of giving in return. You see, Eldred and I have bothan ample time to crystallise in different directions: and the years welet slip may be trusted to exact their debt to the uttermostfarthing.--Ah, there he is!"
The words were a mere throb of the heart. She was on her feet when theman entered: and Honor, watching her face, thought she had never seenit so nearly beautiful. She herself rose also, with a prompt excusefor departure.
"I haven't even _seen_ Theo since breakfast," she said as they shookhands. "Tent-pegging days are hopeless: and I promised to go downearly. Don't trouble to come out with me, please."
But Lenox insisted: and on his return found Quita back at her canvas,to all appearance working diligently at a difficult bit of detail inone corner. She greeted him with lifted brows.
"Finished your article already?"
"No."
"Then what on earth are you doing, loafing about in here? I'm busy. Iwant to get this bit done before I go out."
"Do you though?" but instead of retreating, he came closer,deliberately confiscated palette and brushes, and drew her into hisarms.
"Shall I send Desmond a 'chit,' to say 'I have married a wife, andtherefore I cannot come'?"
"Yes,--do. He'll forgive you."
"And shall we go for a long ride across country, when I'm through withmy work: and look in at the tent-pegging later?"
For answer she leaned against him with a sigh of content.
