CHAPTER XII
THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION
The Honourable Jane Champion stood on the summit of the Great Pyramidand looked around her. The four exhausted Arabs whose exertions,combined with her own activity, had placed her there, dropped in thepicturesque attitudes into which an Arab falls by nature. They hadhoisted the Honourable Jane's eleven stone ten from the bottom to thetop in record time, and now lay around, proud of their achievement andsure of their "backsheesh."
The whole thing had gone as if by clock-work. Two mahogany-coloured,finely proportioned fellows, in scanty white garments, sprang with theease of antelopes to the top of a high step, turning to reach downeagerly and seize Jane's upstretched hands. One remained behind, unseenbut indispensable, to lend timely aid at exactly the right moment. Thencame the apparently impossible task for Jane, of placing the sole ofher foot on the edge of a stone four feet above the one upon which shewas standing. It seemed rather like stepping up on to the drawing-roommantelpiece. But encouraged by cries of "Eiwa! Eiwa!" she did it; wheninstantly a voice behind said, "Tyeb!" two voices above shouted,"Keteer!" the grip on her hands tightened, the Arab behind hoisted, andJane had stepped up, with an ease which surprised herself. As a matterof fact, under those circumstances the impossible thing would have beennot to have stepped up.
Arab number four was water-carrier, and offered water from a gourd atintervals; and once, when Jane had to cry halt for a few minutes'breathing space, Schehati, handsomest of all, and leader of theenterprise, offered to recite English Shakespeare-poetry. This provedto be:
"Jack-an-Jill Went uppy hill, To fetchy paily water; Jack fell down-an Broke his crown-an Jill came tumbling after."
Jane had laughed; and Schehati, encouraged by the success of hisattempt to edify and amuse, used lines of the immortal nursery epic assignals for united action during the remainder of the climb. ThereforeJane mounted one step to the fact that Jack fell down, and scaled thenext to information as to the serious nature of his injuries, and atthe third, Schehati, bending over, confidentially mentioned in her ear,while Ali shoved behind, that "Jill came tumbling after."
The familiar words, heard under such novel circumstances, took on freshmeaning. Jane commenced speculating as to whether the downfall of Jackneed necessarily have caused so complete a loss of self-control andequilibrium on the part of Jill. Would she not have proved her devotionbetter by bringing the mutual pail safely to the bottom of the hill,and there attending to the wounds of her fallen hero? Jane, in hertime, had witnessed the tragic downfall of various delightful jacks,and had herself ministered tenderly to their broken crowns; for in eachcase the Jill had remained on the top of the hill, flirting with thatobjectionable person of the name of Horner, whose cool, calculating wayof setting to work--so unlike poor Jack's headlong method--invariablysecured him the plum; upon which he remarked "What a good boy am I!"and was usually taken at his own smug valuation. But Jane's entiresympathy on these occasions was with the defeated lover, and more thanone Jack was now on his feet again, bravely facing life, because thatkind hand had been held out to him as he lay in his valley ofhumiliation, and that comprehending sympathy had proved balm to hisbroken crown.
"Dickery, dickery, dock!" chanted Schehati solemnly, as he hauledagain; "Moses ran up the clock. The clock struck 'one'--"
THE CLOCK STRUCK "ONE"?--It was nearly three years since that night atShenstone when the clock had struck "one," and Jane had arrived at herdecision,--the decision which precipitated her Jack from his Pisgah offuture promise. And yet--no. He had not fallen before the blow. He hadtaken it erect, and his light step had been even firmer than usual ashe walked down the church and left her, after quietly and deliberatelyaccepting her decision. It was Jane herself, left alone, who fellhopelessly over the pail. She shivered even now when she remembered howits icy waters drenched her heart. Ah, what would have happened ifGarth had come back in answer to her cry during those first moments ofintolerable suffering and loneliness? But Garth was not the sort of manwho, when a door has been shut upon him, waits on the mat outside,hoping to be recalled. When she put him from her, and he realised thatshe meant it he passed completely out of her life. He was at therailway station by the time she reached the house, and from that day tothis they had never met. Garth evidently considered the avoidance ofmeetings to be his responsibility, and he never failed her in this.Once or twice she went on a visit to houses where she knew him to bestaying. He always happened to have left that morning, if she arrivedin time for luncheon; or by an early afternoon train, if she was duefor tea. He never timed it so that there should be tragic passings ofeach other, with set faces, at the railway stations; or a formal wordof greeting as she arrived and he departed,--just enough to awaken allthe slumbering pain and set people wondering. Jane remembered withshame that this was the sort of picturesque tragedy she would haveexpected from Garth Dalmain. But the man who had surprised her by hisdignified acquiescence in her decision, continued to surprise her bythe strength with which he silently accepted it as final and kept outof her way. Jane had not probed the depth of the wound she hadinflicted.
Never once was his departure connected, in the minds of others, withher arrival. There was always some excellent and perfectly naturalreason why he had been obliged to leave, and he was openly talked ofand regretted, and Jane heard all the latest "Dal stories," and foundherself surrounded by the atmosphere of his exotic, beauty-lovingnature. And there was usually a girl--always the loveliest of theparty--confidentially pointed out to Jane, by the rest, as a certainty,if only Dal had had another twenty-four hours of her society. But thegirl herself would appear quite heart-whole, only very full of anevidently delightful friendship, expressing all Dal's ideas on art andcolour, as her own, and confidently happy in an assured sense of herown loveliness and charm and power to please. Never did he leave behindhim traces which the woman who loved him regretted to find. But he wasalways gone--irrevocably gone. Garth Dalmain was not the sort of man towait on the door-mat of a woman's indecision.
Neither did this Jack of hers break his crown. His portrait of PaulineLister, painted six months after the Shenstone visit, had proved thefinest bit of work he had as yet accomplished. He had painted thelovely American, in creamy white satin, standing on a dark oakstaircase, one hand resting on the balustrade, the other, full ofyellow roses, held out towards an unseen friend below. Behind and aboveher shone a stained-glass window, centuries old, the arms, crest, andmottoes of the noble family to whom the place belonged, shining thereonin rose-coloured and golden glass. He had wonderfully caught the charmand vivacity of the girl. She was gaily up-to-date, and franklyAmerican, from the crown of her queenly little head, to the point ofher satin shoe; and the suggestiveness of placing her in surroundingswhich breathed an atmosphere of the best traditions of England'sancient ancestral homes, the fearless wedding of the new world with theold, the putting of this sparkling gem from the new into the beautifulmellow setting of the old and there showing it at its best,--all thiswas the making of the picture. People smiled, and said the painter haddone on canvas what he shortly intended doing in reality; but the tiebetween artist and sitter never grew into anything closer than apleasant friendship, and it was the noble owner of the staircase andwindow who eventually persuaded Miss Lister to remain in surroundingswhich suited her so admirably.
One story about that portrait Jane had heard discussed more than oncein circles where both were known. Pauline Lister had come to the firstsittings wearing her beautiful string of pearls, and Garth had paintedthem wonderfully, spending hours over the delicate perfecting of eachseparate gleaming drop. Suddenly one day he seized his palette-knife,scraped the whole necklace off the canvas with a stroke and, declaredshe must wear her rose-topazes in order to carry out his scheme ofcolour. She was wearing her rose-topazes when Jane saw the picture inthe Academy, and very lovely they looked on the delicate whiteness ofher neck. But people who had seen Garth's painting of the pearlsmaintained that that scrape of the pale
tte-knife had destroyed workwhich would have been the talk of the year. And Pauline Lister, justafter it had happened, was reported to have said, with a shrug of herpretty shoulders: "Schemes of colour are all very well. But he scrapedmy pearls off the canvas because some one who came in hummed a tunewhile looking at the picture. I would be obliged if people who walkaround the studio while I am being painted will in future refrain fromhumming tunes. I don't want him to scoop off my topazes and call for myemeralds. Also I feel like offering a reward for the discovery of thattune. I want to know what it has to do with my scheme of colour,anyway."
When Jane heard the story, she was spending a few days with the Brandsin Wimpole Street. It was told at tea, in Lady Brand's pretty boudoir.The duchess's Concert, at which Garth had heard her sing THE ROSARY,was a thing of the past. Nearly a year had elapsed since their finalparting, and this was the very first thought or word or sign of hisremembrance, which directly or indirectly, had come her way. She couldnot doubt that the tune hummed had been THE ROSARY.
"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, every one, apart."
She seemed to hear Garth's voice on the terrace, as she heard it inthose first startled moments of realising the gift which was being laidat her feet--"I have learned to count pearls, beloved."
Jane's heart was growing cold and frozen in its emptiness. Thisincident of the studio warmed and woke it for the moment, and with thewaking came sharp pain. When the visitors had left, and Lady Brand hadgone to the nursery, she walked over to the piano, sat down, and softlyplayed the accompaniment of "The Rosary." The fine unexpected chords,full of discords working into harmony, seemed to suit her mood and hermemories.
Suddenly a voice behind her said: "Sing it, Jane." She turned quickly.The doctor had come in, and was lying back luxuriously in a largearm-chair at her elbow, his hands clasped behind his head. "Sing it,Jane," he said.
"I can't, Deryck," she answered, still softly sounding the chords. "Ihave not sung for months."
"What has been the matter--for months?"
Jane took her hands off the keys, and swung round impulsively.
"Oh, boy," she said. "I have made a bad mess of my life! And yet I knowI did right. I would do the same again; at least--at least, I hope Iwould."
The doctor sat in silence for a minute, looking at her and ponderingthese short, quick sentences. Also he waited for more, knowing it wouldcome more easily if he waited silently.
It came.
"Boy--I gave up something, which was more than life itself to me, forthe sake of another, and I can't get over it. I know I did right, andyet--I can't get over it."
The doctor leaned forward and took the clenched hands between his.
"Can you tell me about it, Jeanette?"
"I can tell no one, Deryck; not even you."
"If ever you find you must tell some one, Jane, will you promise tocome to me?"
"Gladly."
"Good! Now, my dear girl, here is a prescription for you. Go abroad.And, mind, I do not mean by that, just to Paris and back, orSwitzerland this summer, and the Riviera in the autumn. Go to Americaand see a few big things. See Niagara. And all your life afterwards,when trivialities are trying you, you will love to let your mind goback to the vast green mass of water sweeping over the falls; to thethunderous roar, and the upward rush of spray; to the huge perpetualonwardness of it all. You will like to remember, when you are botheringabout pouring water in and out of teacups, 'Niagara is flowing still.'Stay in a hotel so near the falls that you can hear their great voicenight and day, thundering out themes of power and progress. Spend hourswalking round and viewing it from every point. Go to the Cave of theWinds, across the frail bridges, where the guide will turn and shout toyou: 'Are your rings on tight?' Learn, in passing, the true meaning ofthe Rock of Ages. Receive Niagara into your life and soul as apossession, and thank God for it."
"Then go in for other big things in America. Try spirituality andhumanity; love and life. Seek out Mrs. Ballington Booth, the great'Little Mother' of all American prisoners. I know her well, I am proudto say, and can give you a letter of introduction. Ask her to take youwith her to Sing-Sing, or to Columbus State Prison, and to let you hearher address an audience of two thousand convicts, holding out to themthe gospel of hope and love,--her own inspired and inspiring belief infresh possibilities even for the most despairing."
"Go to New York City and see how, when a man wants a big building andhas only a small plot of ground, he makes the most of that ground byrunning his building up into the sky. Learn to do likewise.--And then,when the great-souled, large-hearted, rapid-minded people of Americahave waked you to enthusiasm with their bigness, go off to Japan andsee a little people nobly doing their best to become great.--Then toPalestine, and spend months in tracing the footsteps of the greatesthuman life ever lived. Take Egypt on your way home, just to remindyourself that there are still, in this very modern world of ours, a fewpassably ancient things,--a well-preserved wooden man, for instance,with eyes of opaque white quartz, a piece of rock crystal in the centrefor a pupil. These glittering eyes looked out upon the world frombeneath their eyelids of bronze, in the time of Abraham. You will findit in the museum at Cairo. Ride a donkey in the Mooskee if you wantreal sport; and if you feel a little slack, climb the Great Pyramid.Ask for an Arab named Schehati, and tell him you want to do it oneminute quicker than any lady has ever done it before."
"Then come home, my dear girl, ring me up and ask for an appointment;or chance it, and let Stoddart slip you into my consulting-room betweenpatients, and report how the prescription has worked. I never gave abetter; and you need not offer me a guinea! I attend old friendsgratis."
Jane laughed, and gripped his hand. "Oh, boy," she said, "I believe youare right. My whole ideas of life have been focussed on myself and myown individual pains and losses. I will do as you say; and God blessyou for saying it.--Here comes Flower. Flower," she said, as thedoctor's wife trailed in, wearing a soft tea-gown, and turning on theelectric lights as she passed, "will this boy of ours ever grow old?Here he is, seriously advising that a stout, middle-aged woman shouldclimb the Great Pyramid as a cure for depression, and do it in recordtime!"
"Darling," said the doctor's wife, seating herself on the arm of hischair, "whom have you been seeing who is stout, or depressed, ormiddle-aged? If you mean Mrs. Parker Bangs, she is not middle-aged,because she is an American, and no American is ever middle-aged. Andshe is only depressed because, even after painting her lovely niece'sportrait, Garth Dalmain has failed to propose to her. And it is no goodadvising her to climb the Great Pyramid, though she is doing Egypt thiswinter, because I heard her say yesterday that she should never thinkof going up the pyramids until the children of Israel, or whoever thenatives are who live around those parts, have the sense to put anelevator right up the centre."
Jane and the doctor laughed, and Flower, settling herself morecomfortably, for the doctor's arm had stolen around her, said: "Jane, Iheard you playing THE ROSARY just now, such a favourite of mine, and itis months since I heard it. Do sing it, dear."
Jane met the doctor's eyes and smiled reassuringly; then turned withoutany hesitation and did as Flower asked. The prescription had alreadydone her good.
At the last words of the song the doctor's wife bent over and laid atender little kiss just above his temple, where the thick dark hair wasstreaked with silver. But the doctor's mind was intent on Jane, andbefore the final chords were struck he knew he had diagnosed her casecorrectly. "But she had better go abroad," he thought. "It will takeher mind off herself altogether, giving her a larger view of things ingeneral, and a better proportioned view of things in particular. Andthe boy won't change; or, if he does, Jane will be proved right, to herown satisfaction. But, if this is HER side, good heavens, what must HISbe! I had wondered what was sapping all his buoyant youthfulness. Tocare for Jane would be an education; but to have made Jane care! Andthen to have lost her! He must have nerves of
steel, to be facing lifeat all. What is this cross they are both learning to kiss, and holdingup between them? Perhaps Niagara will sweep it away, and she will cablehim from there."
Then the doctor took the dear little hand resting on his shoulder andkissed it softly, while Jane's back was still turned. For the doctorhad had past experience of the cross, and now the pearls were veryprecious.
So Jane took the prescription, and two years went by in the taking; andhere she was, on the top of the Great Pyramid, and, moreover, she haddone it in record time, and laughed as she thought of how she shouldreport the fact to Deryck.
Her Arabs lay around, very hot and shiny, and content. Large backsheeshwas assured, and they looked up at her with pleased possessive eyes, asan achievement of their own; hardly realising how large a part herfinely developed athletic powers and elastic limbs had played in thespeed of the ascent.
And Jane stood there, sound in wind and limb, and with the exhilaratingsense, always helpful to the mind, of a bodily feat accomplished.
She was looking her best in her Norfolk coat and skirt of brown tweedwith hints of green and orange in it, plenty of useful pockets pipedwith leather, leather buttons, and a broad band of leather round thebottom of the skirt. A connoisseur would have named at once the one andonly firm from which that costume could have come, and the hatter whosupplied the soft green Tyrolian hat--for Jane scorned pithhelmets--which matched it so admirably. But Schehati was no connoisseurof clothing, though a pretty shrewd judge of ways and manners, and hesummed up Jane thus: "Nice gentleman-lady! Give good backsheesh, andnot sit down halfway and say: `No top'! But real lady-gentleman! Givebacksheesh with kind face, and not send poor Arab to Assouan."
Jane was deeply tanned by the Eastern sun. Burning a splendid brown,and enjoying the process, she had no need of veils or parasols; and herstrong eyes faced the golden light of the desert without the aid ofsmoked glasses. She had once heard Garth remark that a sight which madehim feel really ill, was the back view of a woman in a motor-veil, andJane had laughingly agreed, for to her veils of any kind had alwaysseemed superfluous. The heavy coils of her brown hair never blew aboutinto fascinating little curls and wisps, but remained where, with a fewwell-directed hairpins, she each morning solidly placed them.
Jane had never looked better than she did on this March day, standingon the summit of the Great Pyramid. Strong, brown, and well-knit, areliable mind in a capable body, the undeniable plainness of her faceredeemed by its kindly expression of interest and enjoyment; her wide,pleasant smile revealing her fine white teeth, witnesses to her perfectsoundness and health, within and without.
"Nice gentleman-lady," murmured Schehati again: and had Jane overheardthe remark it would not have offended her; for, though she held amasculine woman only one degree less in abhorrence than an effeminateman, she would have taken Schehati's compound noun as a tribute to thefact that she was well-groomed and independent, knowing her own mind,and, when she started out to go to a place, reaching it in the shortestpossible time, without fidget, fuss, or flurry. These three feminineattributes were held in scorn by Jane, who knew herself so deeplywomanly that she could afford in minor ways to be frankly unfeminine.
The doctor's prescription had worked admirably. That look of falling topieces and ageing prematurely--a general dilapidation of mind andbody--which it had grieved and startled him to see in Jane as she satbefore him on the music-stool, was gone completely. She looked a calm,pleasant thirty; ready to go happily on, year by year, towards anequally agreeable and delightful forty; and not afraid of fifty, whenthat time should come. Her clear eyes looked frankly out upon theworld, and her sane mind formed sound opinions and pronounced fairjudgments, tempered by the kindliness of an unusually large andgenerous heart.
Just now she was considering the view and finding it very good. Itsstrong contrasts held her.
On one side lay the fertile Delta, with its groves of waving palm,orange, and olive trees, growing in rich profusion on the banks of theNile, a broad band of gleaming silver. On the other, the Desert, withits far-distant horizon, stretching away in undulations of golden sand;not a tree, not a leaf, not a blade of grass, but boundless liberty, anocean of solid golden glory. For the sun was setting, and the skyflamed into colour.
"A parting of the ways," said Jane; "a place of choice. How difficultto know which to choose--liberty or fruitfulness. One would have toconsult the Sphinx--wise old guardian of the ages, silent keeper ofTime's secrets, gazing on into the future as It has always gazed, whilefuture became present, and present glided into past.--Come, Schehati,let us descend. Oh, yes, I will certainly sit upon the stone on whichthe King sat when he was Prince of Wales. Thank you for mentioning it.It will supply a delightful topic of conversation next time I amhonoured by a few minutes of his gracious Majesty's attention, and willsave me from floundering into trite remarks about the weather.--And nowtake me to the Sphinx, Schehati. There is a question I would ask of It,just as the sun dips below the horizon."
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