CHAPTER XXIX
JANE LOOKS INTO LOVE'S MIRROR
Behind the yellow screen, Jane found a great confusion of canvases, andunmistakable evidence of the blind hands which had groped about in avain search, and then made fruitless endeavours to sort and rearrange.Very tenderly, Jane picked up each canvas from the fallen heap; turningit the right way up, and standing it with its face to the wall.Beautiful work, was there; some of it finished; some, incomplete. Oneor two faces she knew, looked out at her in their pictured loveliness.But the canvases she sought were not there.
She straightened herself, and looked around. In a further corner,partly concealed by a Cairo screen, stood another pile. Jane went tothem.
Almost immediately she found the two she wanted; larger than the rest,and distinguishable at a glance by the soft black gown of the centralfigure.
Without giving them more than a passing look, she carried them over tothe western window, and placed them in a good light. Then she drew upthe chair in which she had been sitting; took the little brass bear inher left hand, as a talisman to help her through what lay before her;turned the second picture with its face to the easel; and sat down tothe quiet contemplation of the first.
The noble figure of a woman, nobly painted, was the first impressionwhich leapt from eye to brain. Yes, nobility came first, in statelypose, in uplifted brow, in breadth of dignity. Then--as you marked thegrandly massive figure, too well-proportioned to be cumbersome, butlarge and full, and amply developed; the length of limb; the firmlyplanted feet; the large capable hands,--you realised the secondimpression conveyed by the picture, to be strength;--strength to do;strength to be; strength to continue. Then you looked into the face.And there you were confronted with a great surprise. The third thoughtexpressed by the picture was Love--love, of the highest, holiest, mostideal, kind; yet, withal, of the most tenderly human order; and youfound it in that face.
It was a large face, well proportioned to the figure. It had nopretensions whatever to ordinary beauty. The features were good; therewas not an ugly line about them; and yet, each one just missed thebeautiful; and the general effect was of a good-looking plainness;unadorned, unconcealed, and unashamed. But the longer you looked, themore desirable grew the face; the less you noticed its negations; themore you admired its honesty, its purity, its immense strength ofpurpose; its noble simplicity. You took in all these outward details;you looked away for a moment, to consider them; you looked back toverify them; and then the miracle happened. Into the face had stolenthe "light that never was on sea or land." It shone from the quiet greyeyes,--as, over the head of the man who knelt before her, they lookedout of the picture--with an expression of the sublime surrender of awoman's whole soul to an emotion which, though it sways and mastersher, yet gives her the power to be more truly herself than ever before.The startled joy in them; the marvel at a mystery not yet understood;the passionate tenderness; and yet the almost divine compassion for theunrestrained violence of feeling, which had flung the man to his knees,and driven him to the haven of her breast; the yearning to soothe, andgive, and content;--all these were blended into a look of suchexquisite sweetness, that it brought tears to the eyes of the beholder.
The woman was seated on a broad marble parapet. She looked straightbefore her. Her knees came well forward, and the long curve of thetrain of her black gown filled the foreground on the right. On theleft, slightly to one side of her, knelt a man, a tall slight figure inevening dress, his arms thrown forward around her waist; his facecompletely hidden in the soft lace at her bosom; only the back of hissleek dark head, visible. And yet the whole figure denoted a passion oftense emotion. She had gathered him to her with what you knew must havebeen an exquisite gesture, combining the utter self-surrender of thewoman, with the tender throb of maternal solicitude; and now her handswere clasped behind his head, holding him closely to her. Not a wordwas being spoken. The hidden face was obviously silent; and her firmlips above his dark head were folded in a line of calm self-control;though about them hovered the dawning of a smile of bliss ineffable.
A crimson rambler rose climbing some woodwork faintly indicated on theleft, and hanging in a glowing mass from the top left-hand corner,supplied the only vivid colour in the picture.
But, from taking in these minor details, the eye returned to that calmtender face, alight with love; to those strong capable hands, nowlearning for the first time to put forth the protective passion of awoman's tenderness; and the mind whispered the only possible name forthat picture: The Wife.
Jane gazed at it long, in silence. Had Garth's little bear beenanything less solid than Early Victorian brass; it must have bent andbroken under the strong pressure of those clenched hands.
She could not doubt, for a moment, that she looked upon herself; but,oh, merciful heavens! how unlike the reflected self of her own mirror!Once or twice as she looked, her mind refused to work, and she simplygazed blankly at the minor details of the picture. But then again, theexpression of the grey eyes drew her, recalling so vividly everyfeeling she had experienced when that dear head had come sounexpectedly to its resting-place upon her bosom. "It is true," shewhispered; and again: "Yes; it is true. I cannot deny it. It is as Ifelt; it must be as I looked."
And then, suddenly; she fell upon her knees before the picture. "Oh, myGod! Is that as I looked? And the next thing that happened was my boylifting his shining eyes and gazing at me in the moonlight. Is THISwhat he saw? Did I look SO? And did the woman who looked so; and who,looking so, pressed his head down again upon her breast, refuse nextday to marry him, on the grounds of his youth, and her superiority?...Oh, Garth, Garth! ... O God, help him to understand! ... help himto forgive me!"
In the work-room just below, Maggie the housemaid was singing as shesewed. The sound floated through the open window, each syllabledistinct in the clear Scotch voice, and reached Jane where she knelt.Her mind, stunned to blankness by its pain, took eager hold upon thewords of Maggie's hymn. And they were these.
"O Love, that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, That in Thine ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be."
"O Light, that followest all my way, I yield my flick'ring torch to Thee; My heart restores its borrowed ray, That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day May brighter, fairer be."
Jane took the second picture, and placed it in front of the first.
The same woman, seated as before; but the man was not there; and in herarms, its tiny dark head pillowed against the fulness of her breast,lay a little child. The woman did not look over that small head, butbent above it, and gazed into the baby face.
The crimson rambler had grown right across the picture, and formed aglowing arch above mother and child. A majesty of tenderness was in thelarge figure of the mother. The face, as regarded contour and features,was no less plain; but again it was transfigured, by the mother-lovethereon depicted. You knew "The Wife" had more than fulfilled herabundant promise. The wife was there in fullest realisation; and, addedto wifehood, the wonder of motherhood. All mysteries were explained;all joys experienced; and the smile on her calm lips, bespoke ineffablecontent.
A rambler rose had burst above them, and fallen in a shower of crimsonpetals upon mother and child. The baby-fingers clasped tightly the softlace at her bosom. A petal had fallen upon the tiny wrist. She hadlifted her hand to remove it; and, catching the baby-eyes, so dark andshining, paused for a moment, and smiled.
Jane, watching them, fell to desperate weeping. The "mere boy" hadunderstood her potential possibilities of motherhood far better thanshe understood them herself. Having had one glimpse of her as "TheWife," his mind had leaped on, and seen her as "The Mother." And againshe was forced to say: "It is true--yes; it is true."
And then she recalled the old line of cruel reasoning:
"It was not the sort of face one would have wanted to see always infront of one at table." Was this the sort of face--this, as Garth hadpainted it, aft
er a supposed year of marriage? Would any man weary ofit, or wish to turn away his eyes?
Jane took one more long look. Then she dropped the little bear, andburied her face in her hands; while a hot blush crept up to the veryroots of her hair, and tingled to her finger-tips.
Below, the fresh young voice was singing again.
"O Joy, that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, And feel the promise is not vain That morn shall tearless be."
After a while Jane whispered: "Oh, my darling, forgive me. I wasaltogether wrong. I will confess; and, God helping me, I will explain;and, oh, my darling, you will forgive me?"
Once more she lifted her head and looked at the picture. A few straypetals of the crimson rambler lay upon the ground; reminding her ofthose crushed roses, which, falling from her breast, lay scattered onthe terrace at Shenstone, emblem of the joyous hopes and glory of lovewhich her decision of that night had laid in the dust of disillusion.But crowning this picture, in rich clusters of abundant bloom, grew therambler rose. And through the open window came the final verse ofMaggie's hymn.
"O Cross, that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life's glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be."
Jane went to the western window, and stood, with her arms stretchedabove her, looking out upon the radiance of the sunset. The sky blazedinto gold and crimson at the horizon; gradually as the eye lifted,paling to primrose, flecked with rosy clouds; and, overhead, deepblue--fathomless, boundless, blue.
Jane gazed at the golden battlements above the purple hills, andrepeated, half aloud: "And the city was of pure gold;--and had no needof the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of Goddid lighten it. And there shall be no more death; neither sorrow, norcrying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things arepassed away."
Ah, how much had passed away since she stood at that western window,not an hour before. All life seemed readjusted; its outlook altered;its perspective changed. Truly Garth had "gone behind his blindness."
Jane raised her eyes to the blue; and a smile of unspeakableanticipation parted her lips. "Life, that shall endless be," shemurmured. Then, turning, found the little bear, and restored him to hisplace upon the mantelpiece; put back the chair; closed the westernwindow; and, picking up the two canvases, left the studio, and made herway carefully downstairs.
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