The Rosary, Florence Louisa Barclay [books for 20 year olds TXT] 📗

you would drop your false set on the marble wash-stand, or devise some other equally false excuse for our immediate departure for town to-morrow.--And now, dear, don't stay to argue; because I have said exactly all there is to say on the subject, and a little more. And try to toddle to bed without telling me of which cute character in Dickens I remind you, because I am cuter than any of them, and if I stay in this tight frock another second I can't answer for the consequences.--Oui, Josephine, entrez!--Good-night, dear aunt. Happy dreams!"

But after her maid had left her, Pauline switched off the electric light and, drawing back the curtain, stood for a long while at her window, looking out at the peaceful English scene bathed in moonlight. At last she murmured softly, leaning her beautiful head against the window frame:

"I stated your case well, but you didn't quite deserve it, Dal. You ought to have let me know about Jane, weeks ago. Anyway, it will stop the talk about you and me. And as for you, dear, you will go on sighing for the moon; and when you find the moon is unattainable, you will not dream of seeking solace in more earthly lights--not even poppa's best sperm," she added, with a wistful little smile, for Pauline's fun sparkled in solitude as freely as in company, and as often at her own expense as at that of other people, and her brave American spirit would not admit, even to herself, a serious hurt.

Meanwhile Jane had turned to the left and passed slowly to her room. Garth had not taken her half-proffered hand, and she knew perfectly well why. He would never again be content to clasp her hand in friendship. If she cut him off from the touch which meant absolute possession, she cut herself off from the contact of simple comradeship. Garth, to-night, was like a royal tiger who had tasted blood. It seemed a queer simile, as she thought of him in his conventional evening clothes, correct in every line, well-groomed, smart almost to a fault. But out on the terrace with him she had realised, for the first time, the primal elements which go to the making of a man--a forceful determined, ruling man--creation's king. They echo of primeval forests. The roar of the lion is in them, the fierceness of the tiger; the instinct of dominant possession, which says: "Mine to have and hold, to fight for and enjoy; and I slay all comers!" She had felt it, and her own brave soul had understood it and responded to it, unafraid; and been ready to mate with it, if only--ah! if only--

But things could never be again as they had been before. If she meant to starve her tiger, steel bars must be between them for evermore. None of those sentimental suggestions of attempts to be a sort of unsatisfactory cross between sister and friend would do for the man whose head she had unconsciously held against her breast. Jane knew this. He had kept himself magnificently in hand after she put him from her, but she knew he was only giving her breathing space. He still considered her his own, and his very certainty of the near future had given him that gentle patience in the present. But even now, while her answer pended, he would not take her hand in friendship. Jane closed her door and locked it. She must face this problem of the future, with all else locked out excepting herself and him. Ah! if she could but lock herself out and think only of him and of his love, as beautiful, perfect gifts laid at her feet, that she might draw them up into her empty arms and clasp them there for evermore. Just for a little while she would do this. One hour of realisation was her right. Afterwards she must bring HERSELF into the problem,--her possibilities; her limitations; herself, in her relation to him in the future; in the effect marriage with her would be likely to have upon him. What it might mean to her did not consciously enter into her calculations. Jane was self-conscious, with the intense self-consciousness of all reserved natures, but she was not selfish.

At first, then, she left her room in darkness, and, groping her way to the curtains, drew them back, threw up the sash, and, drawing a chair to the window, sat down, leaning her elbows on the sill and her chin in her hands, and looked down upon the terrace, still bathed in moonlight. Her window was almost opposite the place where she and Garth had talked. She could see the stone lion and the vase full of scarlet geraniums. She could locate the exact spot where she was sitting when he--Memory awoke, vibrant.

Then Jane allowed herself the most wonderful mental experience of her life. She was a woman of purpose and decision. She had said she had a right to that hour, and she took it to the full. In soul she met her tiger and mated with him, unafraid. He had not asked whether she loved him or not, and she did not need to ask herself. She surrendered her proud liberty, and tenderly, humbly, wistfully, yet with all the strength of her strong nature, promised to love, honour, and obey him. She met the adoration of his splendid eyes without a tremor. She had locked her body out. She was alone with her soul; and her soul was all-beautiful--perfect for him.

The loneliness of years slipped from her. Life became rich and purposeful. He needed her always, and she was always there and always able to meet his need. "Are you content, my beloved?" she asked over and over; and Garth's joyous voice, with the ring of perpetual youth in it, always answered: "Perfectly content." And Jane smiled into the night, and in the depths of her calm eyes dawned a knowledge hitherto unknown, and in her tender smile trembled, with unspeakable sweetness, an understanding of the secret of a woman's truest bliss. "He is mine and I am his. And because he is mine, my beloved is safe; and because I am his, he is content."

Thus she gave herself completely; gathering him into the shelter of her love; and her generous heart expanded to the greatness of the gift. Then the mother in her awoke and realised how much of the maternal flows into the love of a true woman when she understands how largely the child-nature predominates in the man in love, and how the very strength of his need of her reduces to unaccustomed weakness the strong nature to which she has become essential.

Jane pressed her hands upon her breast. "Garth," she whispered, "Garth, I UNDERSTAND. My own poor boy, it was so hard to you to be sent away just then. But you had had all--all you wanted, in those few wonderful moments, and nothing can rob you of that fact. And you have made me SO yours that, whatever the future brings for you and me, no other face will ever be hidden here. It is yours, and I am yours--to-night, and henceforward, forever."

Jane leaned her forehead on the window-sill. The moonlight fell on the heavy coils of her brown hair. The scent of the magnolia blooms rose in fragrance around her. The song of a nightingale purled and thrilled in an adjacent wood. The lonely years of the past, the perplexing moments of the present, the uncertain vistas of the future, all rolled away. She sailed with Garth upon a golden ocean far removed from the shores of time. For love is eternal; and the birth of love frees the spirit from all limitations of the flesh.

* * * * *


A clock in the distant village struck midnight. The twelve strokes floated up to Jane's window across the moonlit park. Time was once more. Her freed spirit resumed the burden of the body.

A new day had begun, the day upon which she had promised her answer to Garth. The next time that clock struck twelve she would be standing with him in the church, and her answer must be ready.

She turned from the window without closing it, drew the curtains closely across, switched on the electric light over the writing-table, took off her evening gown, hung up bodice and skirt in the wardrobe, resolutely locking the door upon them. Then she slipped on a sage-green wrapper, which she had lately purchased at a bazaar because every one else fled from it, and the old lady whose handiwork it was seemed so disappointed, and, drawing a chair near the writing-table, took out her diary, unlocked the heavy clasp, and began to read. She turned the pages slowly, pausing here and there, until she came to those she sought. Over them she pondered long, her head in her hands. They contained a very full account of her conversation with Garth on the afternoon of the day of the concert at Overdene; and the lines upon which she specially dwelt were these: "His face was transfigured.... Goodness and inspiration shone from it, making it as the face of an angel.... I never thought him ugly again. Child though I was, I could differentiate even then between ugliness and plainness. I have associated his face ever since with the wondrous beauty of his soul. When he sat down, at the close of his address, I no longer thought him a complicated form of chimpanzee. I remembered the divine halo of his smile. Of course it was not the sort of face one COULD have wanted to live with, or to have day after day opposite one at table, but then one was not called to that sort of discipline, which would have been martyrdom to me. And he has always stood to my mind since as a proof of the truth that goodness is never ugly, and that divine love and aspiration, shining through the plainest features, may redeem them, temporarily, into beauty; and permanently, into a thing one loves to remember."

At first Jane read the entire passage. Then her mind focussed itself upon one sentence: "Of course it was not the sort of face one COULD have wanted to live with, or to have day after day opposite one at table, ... which would have been martyrdom to me."

At length Jane arose, turned on all the lights over the dressing-table, particularly two bright ones on either side of the mirror, and, sitting down before it, faced herself honestly.

* * * * *


When the village clock struck one, Garth Dalmain stood at his window taking a final look at the night which had meant so much to him. He remembered, with an amused smile, how, to help himself to calmness, he had sat on the terrace and thought of his socks, and then had counted the windows between his and Jane's. There were five of them. He knew her window by the magnolia tree and the seat beneath it where he had chanced to sit, not knowing she was above him. He leaned far out and looked towards it now. The curtains were drawn, but there appeared still to be a light behind them. Even as he watched, it went out.

He looked down at the terrace. He could see the stone lion and the vase of scarlet geraniums. He could locate the