Chapter Twenty
The Beauty
A soirée was held at a new and fashionable Art Gallery, the shining lights alike of Fame and Fashion were streaming in at the doors, and spreading themselves through the rooms, when Sylvester Riddell sprang out of a hansom cab, and mounted the steps, glancing about him at the various celebrities as he passed, exchanging greetings with his friends, and watching secretly for one face.
“Iris” had just made its appearance before the public. Sylvester, at present, was suffering from a fit of depression as to its merits, and was disposed to think that it would be an utter failure. His father’s criticisms rang in his ears, and were echoed by his own understanding, and he had felt himself so unable to decide as to the hero’s final fate, that he had left the poem unfinished, calling it “Iris, as far as Manifested” and had taken leave of Amelot, still straining after the mystic vision.
Some of his friends told him that this indefiniteness was far more artistic than a commonplace conclusion, but he knew that his father would never grant that imagination could result in vagueness. He did not think himself that it could, but for him the story of Iris was still incomplete, and he could not decide on its outcome. Lucian was off to the Rocky Mountains; and the interest of Sylvester’s life had consisted in picking up reports as to the success of the new beauty.
He was engaged as art critic to a very select and enlightened journal, hence his presence to-night, and he made his way at once to the portrait of the “Hon. Amethyst Haredale, by – ,” and so encountered several of his acquaintance, all looking and criticising, for the picture was much talked of, and was painted by a rising artist. It represented Amethyst in a simple white dress, showing the long soft curves of her neck and arms, her ideal perfection of form and feature. The head was slightly turned over the shoulder, and the eyes looked out at the spectators, with the mystical far-away look which Sylvester had caught in their depths, even in the first freshness of her happy girlhood. It was somewhat faintly coloured, less blooming than the original.
“Miss Haredale is more of a flesh and blood beauty than that,” said one of the young men; “I don’t see that she looks visionary at all, but as if she enjoyed herself immensely.”
“That is altogether too etherealised,” said another, “and misses the young lady of fashion!”
“It’s a lovely picture,” said a third, “like a statue with a soul – Galatea, possibly.”
“Yes, – I say, just look,” – said the first. “It’s ideal beauty – look at the sweep of her throat and shoulder.” And he continued to call attention to the “points” of the picture, with perfectly legitimate and artistic enthusiasm, but to the distraction of Sylvester, who, on being appealed to as “a lucky fellow who knew her at home in the country,” replied sharply and untruly, that the picture did not strike him as a good likeness of Miss Haredale at all.
“No?” said another voice, as Mr Oliver Carisbrooke came up, and joined the group. “I saw her once last year – though I had not the pleasure of an introduction. I should have thought it like her then. But she is altered. Ah, Mr Sylvester Riddell, let me claim our slight acquaintance. Like every one else, I am admiring your poem.”
Sylvester ought to have been gratified, and was obliged to be civil; but his nerves were all on edge, and something in Mr Carisbrooke’s tone jarred on him.
He glanced round at the brilliant throng, noticed the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition apparently comparing notes as to each other’s portraits, saw the artist, who had painted Miss Haredale, stop and speak to a new novelist, whose book was on every one’s table; and then, down the room, behind her mother, came Amethyst herself, flashing as suddenly on his vision as when first he had seen her in the drawing-room at Cleverley, with the jewels on her neck, and the happy light in her eyes.
She looked happy and eager now, the fatal amethysts were once more clasped round her throat and shining in her hair; her dress was of some faint indescribable tint that harmonised with the jewels, it hung in soft, simple folds. She carried some quaint rare orchids in her hand. Her dress was noticeable, as well as her person, and it seemed to Sylvester that she came like a queen with her court, for she was with a large party, who all made for the portrait, near which Sylvester stood.
It was neither Lady Haredale’s way to resent the past, nor to slight an unprofitable acquaintance; and, though Sylvester stepped aside, feeling acutely that she had a right to refuse to know him, she paused and said quite sweetly, —
“Why, it’s young Mr Riddell! How do you do? And how is our dear old Rector, and your aunt? Amethyst – Una – Mr Sylvester Riddell is here!”
What could be sweeter? Sylvester’s friends were envious, as Amethyst turned away from the tall foreigner to whom she had been speaking, and gave her hand to Sylvester, courteously, but without the slightest effusion. She was perfectly at her ease, but he felt that she did not mean to be cordial, while he coloured and looked embarrassed, as he answered, and Lady Haredale asked him to dinner for the next day. “So lucky that we are dining at home.” He accepted of course, and Lady Haredale went on talking to him; whether from mere purposeless geniality, or from a “wish to tease” – as the nursery poem has it – the other men in attendance, he could not tell. The young lady remained passive. She stood still, and gave words when they were demanded of her, “as if they had been flowers from her bouquet,” thought the poetical Sylvester. When Sir Richard Grattan asked her to come and look at a landscape which he thought of buying, and to give her opinion on it, she went at once, and studied the picture, appraising its merits, and appearing genuinely to forget herself in admiring it. That was like the old Amethyst, but the action was noted, and conclusions drawn by every bystander. The odds were certainly with Sir Richard Grattan. Sylvester managed to stand about within sight, and more or less within hearing.
“The advantage of modern pictures,” said Sir Richard Grattan, “is that one knows their real value. ‘Old Masters’ are a mere swindle. I don’t believe even the experts can tell if they’re genuine.”
“I like modern landscapes – they are so real,” said Amethyst.
“There is a picture by Titian, as you call him, in my house in Rome,” said Prince Pontresina in delicate careful English, “which was painted for my ancestor by the master himself, and we possess his receipt for the money that was paid to him.”
“Oh, that is interesting! I should like to see Titian’s handwriting,” said Amethyst with enthusiasm.
“If I have ever the privilege of showing that precious heirloom to Miss Haredale, the moment for which it has been preserved for ages will have come. I can then destroy it,” said the prince.
“Then, since you like this picture, I shall add it to the landscapes by modern artists with which I am filling the dining-room at Merrifield House,” said Sir Richard. “I have secured the refusal of it. You think it good, Miss Haredale.”
Amethyst stood between the two men, and glanced from one to the other, from the pale, finely-finished prince, like one of his own old pictures, to the florid, substantial baronet, who seemed to carry his prosperity written on his face.
Was she really weighing their merits in the balance? Or was she amusing herself with their pretensions, like any little suburban belle with a pair of rival partners, playing a common game with exceptionally splendid playthings?
It did not occur to the miserable Sylvester that she was actuated by another motive, that she was showing the man who had once misjudged and injured her, how little harm he had been able to do; that the person she was chiefly conscious of was himself. He only felt that he had lost Iris, in seeing Amethyst.
She plunged into a discussion on the respective merits of ancient and modern art, in which Sylvester perceived that she talked with skill, and pulled both her admirers out of their depths. Suddenly she paused, looked across the room, with attention suddenly caught, turned to Sir Richard Grattan, and said —
“I should like to find my sister now. Will you take me to her?”
Una, dressed in pale yellow, with some large delicate daffodils on her shoulder, rather like a pale daffodil herself in her fragile slenderness, was not without admirers, but she had little attention to spare for them. To her, at any rate, the sight of Sylvester recalled the most miserable hours of her life; and, with a self-absorption and want of appreciation only possible to early youth, the thought of the conservatory at Loseby, of the pond in the wood at Cleverley, blotted out alike the brilliant people and the beautiful pictures now before her eyes. In her excuse, it may be said that she was very tired, her head and back were aching. Standing was a painful effort, so she sat down on a bench, near the rest of her party, and lost herself in wondering, whether the wretched impulse that had once driven her to plunge into the cold muddy pool from which Sylvester had rescued her, had been the unpardonable sin that she often felt it to be. How hateful were the memories of that childish delusion and folly! Her life, since then, had indeed become new.
She turned her head idly to look for Amethyst, and suddenly her heart stopped beating, and then began to throb with suffocating violence. Two figures detached themselves from the crowd, and came towards her mother. One was an insignificant little lady, sumptuously dressed, the other, a tall man with stiff moustaches and bold outlooking eyes.
“Why, it’s Tony!” exclaimed Lady Haredale, “and Mrs Fowler too! Why, it’s ages since we met! What a pleasure! How are you? when did you come to town?”
“Only last week; we have been abroad. My wife was intending to call,” said Major Fowler.
“So glad to see you! Why, the little girls will be charmed! Here’s one of your old playmates. You know, Mrs Fowler, he was always the children’s friend – Una.”
Una rose and came forward, holding out her hand.
“How d’ye do?” she said, coolly.
Major Fowler fairly started. His mental vision of Una was so different from the reality.
“Really,” he said, “I should never have known her.”
“No, I’ve grown so much,” said Una, with the languid drawl that was sufficiently familiar. “Ah, here’s Amethyst.”
Amethyst, feeling as if her namesake jewels burnt into her neck and arms, gave a cold, gracious greeting.
“You’ll dine with us to-morrow, quite without ceremony?” said Lady Haredale. “We are in Eaton Square, you know, taking the girls out. I like it as much as they do.”
Mrs Fowler accepted the invitation, Miss Haredale and the rest of the party came up and were introduced, and then they all walked round together, looking at the people and the pictures. Sylvester, quite unable to keep at a distance, was glad to join Mr Carisbrooke and follow in their wake.
Amethyst kept Una by her side, and Major Fowler walked with them. Sylvester caught echoes of his voice in familiar tones, which called up before him the white-robed girl in the sunny garden at Loseby, the mystery and the misery of that fatal afternoon, when the clouds had gathered round his fair ideal, and when his hateful share in her fate had been forced on him.
He was noticed himself. His tall angular figure, marked features, and fine, restless eyes were striking, and suited the author of ‘Iris,’ in the opinion of the literary set which was prepared to admire it, and he had his own little success on his hands, and had to reply to remarks and congratulations, which just then seemed a mere interruption to his eager watch. He caught the remarks too of the passing crowd, the wonder if Sir Richard Grattan was the accepted one, the questions as to who Major Fowler might be. He had not been seen before with the beauty. Then a laugh, and Charles Haredale was pointed out “as a reformed character,” with his heiress, and Sylvester, startled, glanced at his companion. Was he really throwing his nice little niece into the arms of such a man as he must know young Haredale to be?
Mr Oliver Carisbrooke walked calmly on, without apparently hearing the remark. He had large, and peculiarly bright eyes, which now followed Sylvester’s, and were fixed on Amethyst’s graceful head. Then he turned and looked at his companion.
“She will not be satisfied. She shines in these rainbow tints, but they will not be enough for her,” he said, rather sentimentally.
Sylvester was startled, held for a moment by the curious gaze fixed on him, but he resented it.
“If you are speaking of Miss Haredale,” he said, “I do not see what a young lady can desire more. This sort of success is, I suppose, what women desire.”
“Ah,” said Mr Carisbrooke dryly, “ah, Mr Riddell, you keep your soul for your poem, not for real life. You write of passion, you don’t believe in it.”
He moved away before Sylvester could reply, and made his way into the group round Amethyst. Sylvester had no excuse for following him, and presently saw that he had engaged her attention, and was talking to her with earnestness. She turned her head, and Sylvester perceived that she was attentive, interested, and presently a bystander remarked —
“Miss Haredale is looking like her picture.”
Chapter Twenty One
At the End of the Rainbow
“Amethyst, Amethyst, I must talk to you. I can’t bear it by myself. Oh, that man, I hate and I loathe him, and my own self! But I can’t get him out of my eyes or my mind, his face blots everything else out. Oh, don’t make me come down to-night!”
This despairing outcry met Amethyst’s ears, as, late in the afternoon of the day after the soirée at the Art Gallery, she came into the little up-stairs sitting-room appropriated to her sisters and herself. Una was lying on a couch by the window. She raised herself, stretching out her hands, as if for help in dire distress, and Amethyst, putting down the flowers she was carrying, came and knelt down by her side.
“Now, Una, there’s a dear child, don’t begin to cry about it. Of course we both hate the sight of him. But he was sure to turn up some time, and you mustn’t put yourself into an agony about it.”
Una hid her face in the comforting arms, the very touch of which brought strength to her.
“I was afraid you might worry yourself,” continued Amethyst, “but I haven’t had a chance of looking after you before. If you stay away to-night, it will still have to be done some time. Take it as easy as you can.”
“I thought he had dropped my lady,” whispered Una.
“Well, you know, they had some intercourse when the amethysts – Ah! talk of hating, I should like to throw them into the sea – when they were got back. It would look very odd if he cut us. And as for you, darling, you are so different now – like another person.”
Una turned round and looked up into her sister’s face.
“Am I so changed?” she said.
“Why, yes, no one would know you for the same silly little girl,” said Amethyst, jestingly, but she felt, as she spoke, that her words gave a pang. “Change is best for us both,” she said steadily, with a certain sombre look in the eyes that were bent on Una’s.
Una was silent. Changed in a sense she was, for two years before she would have sobbed herself into hysterics, if half the same weight of emotion had been stirring in her breast. Now she lay still, enduring a knowledge of herself that never ought to have come to her seventeen years. The anguish that had come upon her might be shame and loathing, but it filled her soul. The face might be hateful that had once been adorable, but it blotted every other out. She had thought herself possessed by a new spirit, a holy spirit of love and peace, and behold the old possession had driven the new one away. There was a Face to which she had learned to turn, a Love she was beginning to know, and now – and now.
She pressed her hand on her heart, and was silent. Instinctively she felt that even Amethyst would not understand. With an effort to turn to a trouble that could be spoken of, she said —
“And Sylvester Riddell – I am ashamed to see him.”
“Sylvester Riddell knows nothing about you, darling,” said Amethyst.
“Amethyst, does seeing him make you – feel?”
“Oh, I don’t mean to feel,” returned Amethyst, lightly, “I have a great deal too much to do; let bygones be bygones. Now then, don’t let us make mountains of molehills. Here is all your hair tumbling down, I’ll do it up prettily. If you had any consideration for the small amount of lady’s-maiding we ever get, you wouldn’t grow such a quantity.”
“My ridiculous hair,” said Una, pulling it through her fingers, and lingering a little on the epithet. Then, with a hot blush she rose.
“Yes, it tires me dreadfully to do it myself.”
A deficiency of personal attendance was one of the forms of “simplicity” with which the Miss Haredales had to put up, and both Amethyst and Kattern spent most of their leisure in “fixing” – to use a convenient Americanism – their own and their sisters’ costumes. A constant attention to frills does not leave much time for feelings, but it was of set purpose that Amethyst absorbed herself in the present.
“You know, dear,” she said, as she divided and twisted the long heavy lengths of Una’s hair, “it is absurd to think that all one’s cargo must be in one ship. No one thing is enough, and there’s always something more. For instance, one can’t think only of society, and of looking well. That’s one thing. It’s a good big thing, but there are so many others. Now last night I should have liked to have looked at all those pictures, and talked about them to some one that understood. If I go to a concert, I feel as if there was enough in music to fill up one’s life. I want to have something of it all. There’s no end to the possibilities of everything. I could talk to that queer Mr Carisbrooke for hours!”
“I wonder what Sir Richard would say if you told him that,” said Una, rather dryly.
“Oh, it’s only that he gave me a new idea. I want to work it out. So you see, no one thing ought to spoil everything else. Of course we’re none of us likely to expect beds of roses, we’ve learned our lesson. But when there are so many chances, it is wise and right to take the life that offers the most – the most chances of doing, and being.”
Una’s hair was finished by this time, and she stood up in her long white dressing-gown, leaning her hand on the toilet-table, and looking at her sister with searching eyes.
“Amethyst,” she said, “I don’t believe you were ever really in love with Lucian Leigh at all.”
The colour flamed into Amethyst’s face, and her bosom heaved.
“Yes, I was,” she said, “but that’s just what I want to show you. That’s over, but one isn’t all heart, any more than I hope and believe one is all face. One has a mind, and a soul, and possibilities. I won’t go to the bottom, if I was shipwrecked once. Nothing can ever take up the whole of one, I suppose. I thought it could then. Now if I don’t get ready quick, I shall be late.”
She ran away as she spoke. It was not her way to neglect the necessity of the moment, and she made such good speed, that she was in the drawing-room before any of the guests arrived. On the table lay a thin square book bound in bluish-green, with a silver iris in the corner.
“Sylvester Riddell’s poem, my dear,” said Lady Haredale. “I bought it when I was out with the children. He’ll like to see it on the table. Look at it, then you can talk to him about it.”
Amethyst took it up, and glanced over the pages. She was a rapid reader, and in a very few minutes, she caught the idea of the poem, the passionate search for an ideal, and it attracted her. Did it contradict the philosophy which she had been preaching to Una, or was it in truth its justification? The look of interest was still on her face, the book in her hand, when its author was announced, and, when she put it down and greeted him with a delightful smile, as of one caught in the act, Sylvester felt that all the reviews in London might cut ‘Iris’ to pieces. She had had her day.
He sat by Amethyst at dinner, and neither prince nor millionaire was there to claim her attention. She appeared neither cold nor resentful, and that she was somewhat excited, he did not guess. Her lovely eyes, with their mysterious depths, were turned upon him, and she referred to his poem with a certain modest deference, as if in explaining it, he did her an honour. Sylvester had never known before, how utterly he had failed to express his hero’s rapture, when Iris shone upon him with no cloud between.
“It is no new subject,” he said, modestly, “but the idea possessed me – ”
“It seems new, I think,” said Amethyst, who, at twenty, had not quite exhausted all the ideas of life. “It is very interesting, but, practically, when Iris was so unattainable, don’t you think he would have managed to get on without her – by the help of his music – and his battles?”
“You see,” said Sylvester, eagerly and nervously, “in a measure he found her in art, and in the struggle of life, and, in so far as she was embodied in them, she gave them value.”
“I am not sure that I understand,” said Amethyst, in soft considerate tones. “What is it that you intend Iris to signify?”
“She was his dream of perfection,” said Sylvester, very low, “his vision – well, his Beatrice. He found something of perfect beauty in many things – when he sought it with sufficient pains, but – but love, of course, was the higher revelation. He could be content with nothing less.”
“Ah, I must read to the end. Was she always an abstraction?”
“She did not always seem so,” said Sylvester, as for a moment he met her eyes.
Amethyst blushed, with an inward start, she had forgotten for the moment her resentment; now came a throb of triumph. So he did not hate and despise her, this man who had thought her false to his friend. Had she conquered him too? As her thoughts glanced at the other conquest awaiting her disposal, she might be pardoned for feeling that, for her at least, life held many different possibilities.
“I don’t think your father would believe in Iris,” she said suddenly, with girlish abruptness.
“I am afraid he doesn’t,” said Sylvester. “But why do you say so?”
“He gave me some advice once, that I have found out to be true. But it wasn’t at all consistent with dreams of finding perfection. – At least – after all, I am not quite sure of that.”
She sat for a moment with a perfectly simple, considerate expression on her beautiful face, evidently pursuing a new idea. But she did not tell Sylvester what it was; and turned off the subject with an inquiry for Mr Riddell and other Cleverley friends.
Meantime, it was Una’s unlucky fate to find herself sitting by Major Fowler. Outwardly she was mistress of the situation, and behaved with creditable self-possession; while he talked in a good-humoured, half-joking strain, that would have been suitable enough if Tory or Kattern had been his companion. He took up the old intimacy, asked home questions as to this thing and the other, how Charles fitted in to the family circle, how “Aunt Anna” managed to hit it off with my lady, and Una answered like one under a spell. Then he began to talk about himself, praised his wife to her, said certainly he’d done the right thing, laughed a little at the way he was kept in order – all in the old way, the familiar chatter to his little sympathetic friend. It was all very natural – if only to poor Una it had not been such exquisite – rapture or anguish, she could not tell. Then he went back to an old habit of talking about herself. She was quite grown-up – not a little school-girl – such a fine young lady. Somehow, he had always thought of her as a little long-haired girl. All the awkwardness was ignored, and he made their old relation seem the most natural thing in the world. The poor child’s eyes turned to his, and he smiled in the half-familiar, half-flattering fashion of old times. For an instant his hand, as he poured her out some water, touched her ungloved fingers. There was storm and tumult in Una’s soul, she turned her head away, and put all the distance possible into her voice. He gave an odd little smile, took up the cue, and began to talk society chit-chat, but all the while there was an undercurrent, and Una felt that in another moment they would laugh together at the idea of making talk for each other. There was nothing else like it in the world.
The state of things at last caught Amethyst’s notice, and diverted her mind from philosophy and poetry. With the manner of one from whom a word was a favour, she spoke across the table to Major Fowler, and asked him to persuade Mrs Fowler to patronise the approaching bazaar, and so made the conversation general, for everybody began to discuss it at once.
“Shall you sell rosebuds, Miss Haredale?” said Major Fowler. “Anything, of course, for the charity.”
“I shall try to do my duty,” said Amethyst. “Mr Riddell should give us some copies of his beautiful poem,” said Lady Haredale. “Get him to give them to you, Amethyst, to sell yourself!”
“I shall make a point of buying one, then, at any price,” said Major Fowler.
The bazaar was a very magnificent one, the stallholders so high in rank, that the author of ‘Iris’ might well have felt it a lucky chance; but to Sylvester the idea was agony.
“No,” said Amethyst slowly. “Books never sell at bazaars, I can’t undertake them.”
“My dear child,” said her mother, “you are really rude. This book would sell, of course.”
“I couldn’t sell it,” said Amethyst, and Sylvester felt as if he could have gone down on his knees to her, in gratitude.
He was half-wild. The atmosphere of this London world was not pure and sweet enough to hold his Iris. Here again was this old tempter, as he believed Major Fowler to be, by her side. Amethyst was no heavenly spirit, serene herself, to draw and influence struggling manhood; but a woman of the world, for whom an anxious lover saw many dangers, a jewel in which it was easy to find flaws, seen every moment in a changing light. She had indeed no time to dwell on one subject. A theory of life must give place to the exigencies of the bazaar. Una could only have a word and a kiss, as Amethyst hurried away with her mother to a great reception, as soon as the dinner-party was over. Sylvester Riddell had had his word and his thought. Now, on a grand staircase, amid a splendid throng of fine people, Sir Richard Grattan and Prince Pontresina were both awaiting her. She felt that the choice between Titian and the newest R.A. would soon be forced upon her, and was glad to turn to receive the courtesies of the very great lady at whose stall she was to help on the next day.
This was scarcely over, when she caught sight of the peculiar face of Mr Carisbrooke, standing under a group of palms and other tropical plants in the corridor, at the head of the staircase.
Her young intellect must have been vigorous and strong, her interest in new ideas very keen; for, in the midst of all the distracting whirl, her thoughts flashed back to her previous interview with him, and she made an opportunity to join him, and put her question, as if he and she had been alone in the place.
“Mr Carisbrooke,” she said, “you have set me thinking. I should like you to try your experiment. I want to know what my picture told you.”
Probably, if Amethyst had not been accustomed to find her every word taken as a favour, she would not have made so abrupt a demand; but she was quite in earnest, and stood before him as simply as a scholar before a teacher, and he answered her at once, looking straight into her eyes.
“There was the good child,” he said, “there was the young fancy. They have gone by. There is the beautiful lady. She has pleasure and power. She will have wealth, everything that the world can give. I wonder if it will satisfy her.”
“Do you think it ought to be satisfactory?” said Amethyst.
“Do you think it ever is?” he responded. “Ah! If I could have found it so! But I’m an old fellow, you know, Miss Haredale, and it is not my place to put lawless ideas into a young lady’s head, or to take up her time from more worthy claimants.”
“Oh,” said Amethyst, as Sir Richard and his sister bore down upon them, “that is as I think. Tell us the story you were speaking of the other day, Mr Carisbrooke. I want to hear the end of it.”
Mr Carisbrooke told a curious instance of thought transference in a pair of lovers, and told it very well. Amethyst listened with great interest, and perhaps chose to make her interest apparent, though Sir Richard repressed his impatience with difficulty.
When she found herself alone in her room that night, she stood for a moment and looked at herself in the glass. Why had she been so kind to Sylvester Riddell, when she had so much cause for righteous anger against him? Somehow, he belonged so much to days when she had felt kindly to every one, that she had forgotten to be unkind.
Yet he could look at her as he had done to-night, and think of her – what he had made Lucian believe!
“All for my beauty!” she said to herself. “I despise him for it!” she exclaimed, half aloud. “He ought to scorn me!”
But before she went to bed, she finished his poem. It vexed and dissatisfied her. It did not seem that the hero had managed to combine success in life with the search after, much less with the possession of, Iris. And Amethyst was finding that success in life was a very good thing.