Frank Frankfort Moore

“ The truth that had been revealed to her among Sir Joshua Reynolds’ superb canvases, that love was more than all else that the world could give her, remained before her, as a luminous fixed star, to be a guide to her life; and the happiness that she now felt was due to the thought that she could go to the man whom she loved, without a misgiving, without fearing that he would hear those dreaded voices of the world saying that he had been a fool to ally himself with a nonentity, or that she would hear the whispers of those who might suggest that she had done very well for herself. ”

“ If there had been any thought of revenge in her heart originally—and she felt that perhaps there had been some such thought the moment that Sir Percival Hope had told her what she should have seen for herself long before, namely, that Claude Westwood was in love with Clare—there was now nothing in her heart but pity for the girl whom she had left sleeping in the next room.
She felt that she had been amply revenged upon the man who had treated her so cruelly. She had crushed him with a completeness that would have satisfied even the most revengeful of women. ”

“ When the autumn winds have garnered their harvest from the boughs of the woodland, their aftermath begins in the meadow. But, my Beloved, neither you nor I can be altogether melancholy among the autumn hedgerows, for, through the signs of the year’s decay, the Hope that is in us seems to break more abundantly into bloom. We feel that death is not for all things that made life beautiful; Love and Faith and Truth are not among the spoils of Time. We are lifted up and strengthened by this reflection as we retrace our steps amid the slowly gathering shadows of the evening. ”

“ A man with a heart such as I know yours to be, cannot but be ashamed of a woman, who, though the wife of another man, allows him to kiss her—yes, and who gives him kiss for kiss. Oh, go away—go away! I have had enough of your love—enough of your kisses, enough shame! Go away! I never wish to see you again—to kiss you again.”
She had walked to the other end of the room, and stood under a Venetian mirror—it shone like a monstrous jewel above her head—looking at him, her hands clenched, her eyes flashing through the tears that had not yet fallen. ”

“ The tears forced themselves into her eyes with the pure intensity of her passion. She sat there dreaming her dreams and thinking her thoughts until she seemed only to hear the sound of the waters of the distance; the sound of the breaking waves seemed to have passed away. It was this sudden consciousness that caused her to awake from her reverie. She turned and saw that the waves were breaking on the beach behind her—the rock where she was sitting was surrounded with water, and every plunge of the advancing tide sent a swirl of water through the gulf that separated the rocks from the beach. ”

“ Oh, it is too cruel!”
“You dear child,” said Fanny. “It is only cruel if it sets you crying in this way. What does it matter to anyone if the book has gone and nothing has come of it? I have been thinking that writing a book and publishing it is like throwing a stone into the sea. It may fall so that it sinks down plumb, or it may fall so that it makes a splash for a while, but it sinks to the bottom all the same. Success or failure is only the difference between a splash and a ripple. ”

“ WHEN evening came Daireen and her father sat out upon their chairs on the stoëp in front of the house. The sun had for long been hidden by the great peak, though to the rest of the world not under its shadow he had only just sunk. The twilight was very different from the last she had seen on land, when the mighty Slieve Docas had appeared in his purple robe. Here the twilight was brief and darkly blue as it overhung the arched aloes and those large palm plants whose broad leaves waved not in the least breeze. ”

“ You saw how Miss Gerald turned away from it with a shudder?”
“Why did she do that?” said Markham.
“Heaven knows,” said Glaston, with a little sneer.
“Heaven knows,” said Markham, after a pause and without any sneer.
“She could not understand it,” continued Glaston. “All that that face means cannot be apprehended in a glance. It has a significance of its own—it is a symbol of a passion that withers like a fire—a passion that can destroy utterly all the beauty of a life that might have been intense with beauty. You are not going away, are you?” ”

“ It’s marvellous what a glint of moonlight can do. It throws a glamour over the essentially commonplace, the same way that—well, that that fancy known as love does upon occasions, otherwise the plain features of a woman would perish from the earth and not be perpetuated. The lumpy daughter of the village who exists simply to show what an artist was Jean François Millet, appears down there to float through the moonlight like the restless spirit of a princess. Is she coming to meet the spirit of her lover at their old trysting-place? ”

“ This is what a garden of flowers means to any one who enters it in a proper spirit of comradeship, and not in the attitude of a School Inspector. We go into the garden not to educate the flowers, but to be beloved by them—to make companions of them and, if they will allow us, to share some of the secrets they guard so jealously until they find some one whom they feel they can trust implicitly. A garden is like the object of Dryden's satire, “Not one, but all mankind's epitome,” and a knowledge of men that makes a man a sympathetic gardener. ”

“ Dick, dear Dick, I can be a good woman for your sake. I know that I am older than you by some years—oh, what do the years matter when the heart has not grown old? Dick, there is not a grey hair in my heart. I have been vain, I know; I have loved seeing men make fools of themselves, but none of them all has ever made a fool of me. No, don’t tell me that I am making a fool of myself before you now! ”

“ His voice was hoarse and quite unlike the voice that had whispered the lines of Shelley, with his face within the halo of moonlight that had clung about her hair.
She was more frightened still. Her hands were clasped over her heart—the lamplight gleamed upon the blood-red circle of rubies on the one ring that she wore—it had never left her finger.
He came into the room. She only retreated one step.
“For God’s sake, Beatrice, do not call me husband! I am not your husband!”
She came toward him; and now the look of fear that she had worn, became one of sympathy. ”

“ A woman had just sent away from her, forever, the bravest man in all the world—those were Phyllis’ words—a king of men—the one man who loved her and whom she loved. She had pretended to him that she was subject to the influences of religion, of honor, of duty! What hypocrisy! They knew it, those leering creatures—they knew that she cared nothing for religion, that she regarded honor and duty as words of no meaning when such words as love and devotion were in the air. ”

“ But when the headlands at the entrance were reached, the company who sat on the weather side of the cutter Acushla became aware of a commingling of sounds. The organ voice of the lough only filled up the intervals between the tremendous roar of the lion-throated waves that sprang with an appalling force half way up the black faces of the sheer cliffs, and broke in mid-air. All day long and all night long those inexhaustible billows come rushing upon that coast; and watching them and listening to them one feels how mean are contemporary politics as well as other things. ”

“ She had heard of fickle women—loving a man passionately one day, and the next carried away by the glamour of a new face and a changed voice—but how could he fancy for a moment that she was such a woman?
Thus she sat, with her thoughts and her memories and her anticipations, until the full moon had arisen behind the trees of Westwood Court and was flooding the sky with light and sending the great shadows of the elm far over the lawn. ”

“ AWAY from the glens and the heather-clad mountains, from the blue loughs and their islands of arbutus, from the harp-music, and from the ocean-music which makes those who hear it ripe for revolt; away from the land whose life is the memory of ancient deeds of nobleness; away from the land that has given birth to more heroes than any nation in the world, the land whose inhabitants live in thousands in squalor and look out from mud windows upon the most glorious scenery in the world ”

“ She gave no start at his words, nor did she withdraw her hand. Through the silence the splash of the waterfall above them was heard clearly. She looked at him through the long pause.
“I do not know,” she said. “I cannot answer you yet——No, not yet—not yet.”
“I will not ask,” he said quietly. “Not yet—not yet.” And he dropped her hand.
Then he rose and looked out to that star, which was no longer smothered in the splendid blue of the heavens, but was glowing in passion until the waters beneath caught some of its rays. ”

“ Almost every flower is a geometrical study. Let rose bushes ramp as they may, the sum of all their ramping is that triumph of geometry, the rose. Let the clematis climb as unruly as it may, the end of its labours is a geometrical star; let the dandelion be as disagreeable as it pleases—I don't intend to do so really, only for the sake of argument—but its rows of teeth are beautifully geometrical, and the fairy finish of its life, which means, alas! the magical beginning of a thousand new lives, is a geometrical marvel. ”

“ But still the six couples continued wildly dancing, the moonlight striking them aslant and sending six black quivering shadows far over the ground. Suddenly a man dropped out of the line and lay gasping on the grass. Then a girl flung herself with a cry into the arms of a woman who was standing among the onlookers. Faster still and faster went the grotesquely long arms of the dwarf fiddler—his shadow cast by the moonlight was full of horrible suggestions—and every now and again a falsetto whoop came from him, his teeth suddenly gleaming as his lips parted in uttering the cry. ”

“ I thought of you as that modest little flower—a violet trying to obscure its own charm by the leaves that surround it; but all in vain—in vain, for its presence has given a subtle perfume to the air, and all who breathe of its delicate sweetness take the spirit of the spring into their souls and know that a violet is there, though hidden from their view. That is how I saw you. I have always loved the violet, and felt that shyness and sweetness were ever one; and am I to be reproached if I have a longing to pluck my violet and have her ever with me? ”

“ The little tarn at the foot of the lowest crags was black and still, waiting for the first star-glimpse, and from its marge came the wild notes of a harp fitfully swelling and waning; and then arose the still wilder and more melancholy tones of a man's voice chanting what seemed like a weird dirge to the fading twilight, and the language was the Irish Celtic—that language every song of which sounds like a dirge sung over its own death:—
Why art thou gone from us, White Dove of the Irish
woods?
Why art thou gone who made all the leaves tremulous with
the low voice of love? ”

“ You are not angry with us, I know, but it was so indeed.”
“Why should I feel angry with you for feeling just what I do myself, only more intensely,” said Fanny. “Tis one of the greatest mysteries of life—the only mystery of life that I have yet faced—why a man who is as handsome as an archangel, and who possesses a voice that an archangel might envy, should so much as glance at an insignificant young woman like myself! ”

“ He caught her by the arm.
“Yes, Harold—husband,” said she.
He started.
“Husband! Husband!” he said. “I never thought of that. Oh, my beloved—my beloved!”
He stood irresolute for a moment.
Then he gave a curious laugh, and she felt his hand tighten upon her arm for a moment.
“Yes,” he whispered. “You heard the words that—that man said while our hands were together? ‘Whom God hath joined’—God—that is Love. Love is the bond that binds us together. Every union founded on Love is sacred—and none other is sacred—in the sight of heaven.” ”

“ A tragedy!” said he. “I want you, Ella. I told you that I could not live without you.”
“You want me? You want me, Bertie?” said she. Tears were in her eyes and in her voice, for there was to her a passion of pathos in those words of his. “You want me, and you know that it is only my soul that shall be lost if I give myself to you. God has decreed that only the soul of the woman pays the penalty of the man’s longing for her.”
“You soul shall be saved, not lost,” said he. “At present it is your soul that is in peril, when you give your sweetness to the man whom you have ceased to love—ah! ”

“ Agnes put down her face to the girl's and kissed her. It was some time, however, before she could speak, and in the meantime Clare was sobbing in her arms.
What was Agnes to say to comfort her? What words could she speak in her ears that would soothe her? She could only express the thought which was nestling in her own heart and seemed to give her some consolation in the midst of all the bitterness of life:
“My Clare—my Clare—we shall always be together. Whatever may happen, nothing can sunder us.” ”

“ Never mind Edmund Airey. You, yourself, can see, Beatrice, how impossible it would be for any man with the least sense of honour, situated as I am, to ask you to wait—to wait for something indefinite.”
“You did not ask me to wait for anything. You did not ask me to wait for your love—you gave it to me at once. There is nothing indefinite in love.” ”

“ The vineyards of the lower slope, beneath which the red road crawled, were dim and colourless, for the sunset bands had passed away from them and flared only upon the higher slopes.
Upon the summit of the ridge of the silver-fir ravine Daireen Gerald sat looking out to where the sun was losing itself among the ridges of the distant kloof, and at her feet was Oswin Markham. Behind them rose the rocks of the Peak with their dark green herbage. Beneath them the soft rustle of a songless bird was heard through the foliage. ”

“ But quickly the vision passes, when our eyes wander on down the leafy path of autumn that was once the primrose path of spring; for there we see—is it an autumn hedgerow or an ocean on a night when the air is saturate with golden moonlight? All before our eyes is yellow—not a russet tinge appears among those gracious leaf-ripples that lose themselves in the distance. We wander along until the mellow line is broken by a forest of bramble. ”

“ Along this lovely coast the vessel moved through the sparkling green ripples. Not the faintest white fleck of cloud was now in the sky, and the sunlight falling downwards upon the island, brought out every brown rock of the coast in bold relief against the brilliant green of the slope. So close to the shore the vessel passed, the nearer cliffs appeared to glide away as the land in their shade was disclosed, and this effect of soft motion was entrancing to all who experienced it. ”

“ Have you not heard of the curious charms possessed by rings, Harold—the strange spells which they carry with them? The ring is a mystery—a mystic symbol. It means what has neither beginning nor ending—it means perfection—completeness—it means love—love’s completeness.”
“That is what your ring must mean to us, my beloved,” said he. “Whether you take it from your finger or let it remain there, it will still mean the completeness of such love as is ours.”
“And I am to take it off, Harold?”
“Only so long as you stay at Abbeylands, Beatrice. What does it matter for one week? ”

“ I keep my eyes of devotion upon your face, my beautiful saint, and I am rapt with the glory of this hour—we are carried away on the wings of our love until the world is too far beneath us to be seen—only the heaven is revealed to us—to me—I look into your face and I have a glimpse of heaven itself! ”

“ Well, there is a love that means purity; and there is a love that means self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice: that is, that a woman is ready to sacrifice herself—her life—her soul—for the man whom she loves. I tell you—I, who know the truth—I, who have been at the brink. It is not that the pit is dear to us; it is that the man is dear to us, and we must go with him,—wherever he goes,—even down into hell itself with him.”
“Oh, Ella, Ella! this is the love of the satyr. It is not the love of the one who is made in the image of God.” ”

“ When she had flung down and trampled on the ivory miniature of him which had stood on her table, she had wept over the fragments, and the next day she had been filled with remorse. She had seen him many times since that day, but no reproach had passed her lips, for no reproach had been in her heart. She had merely thought of him as having ceased to love her whom he had promised to love. But now when she stood alone in her room, knowing that he had not merely forsaken her but had come to love another woman, her hands clenched and her heart burned with the desire of revenge. ”

“ Oh, child! what do I not owe to you? my life—the peace of my soul for ever and ever. And yet—must we speak no word of love together, Daireen?”
“Not one—here,” she said. “Not one—only—ah, my love, my love, why should we speak of it? It is all my life—I breathe it—I think it—it is myself.”
He looked at her and laughed. “This moment is ours,” he said with tremulous passion. “God cannot pluck it from us. It is an immortal moment, if our souls are immortal. Child, can God take you away from me before I have kissed you on the mouth?” ”

“ But just as I felt myself struggling for breath, a long ray of moonlight slipped aslant the pavement of the hall, and the atmosphere became less dense. In a few moments the hall was filled with moonlight, and I saw that, just where the light streamed, there was growing a tree—a tree of golden fruit that shone in the moon’s rays. A little way off a fountain began to flash, and its sparkling drops fell musically into the basin beneath the fantastic jets. All at once a nightingale burst into rapturous song among the foliage. ”

“ The broad leaves of the feathery plants were hanging dry and languid across the walks, and the grass was becoming tawny as that on the Lion's Head—that strangely curved hill beside Table Mountain. The giant aloes and plantains were, however, defiant of the heat and spread their leaves out mightily as ever.
The gardens are always charming in the southern spring, but never so charming as when their avenues are crowded with coolly dressed girls of moderate degrees of prettiness whose voices are dancing to the melody of a German valse not more than a year old. ”

“ That was what the girl asked herself while she lay awake on her own bed. Would Ella not see, on the white pillow beside her head, the crimson stains of the feathers that had been snatched out of the dripping red hand of death, but the man who had not feared to grapple with death itself in that hell which people called a paradise? ”

“ Beloved, who art ever by my side, whose gracious presence, unseen by mortal eye, is ever, ever felt by me—dear Companion, ever youthful, ever lovely, come with me into the autumn woodland and let us converse together. See, my dear one, the bend of the river by which we wander has brought us within view of the wonderful tints of the hedgerow. If the summer has died it has left the autumn wealthy, and its treasury is a hedgerow. ”

“ I wanted to see you both married.”
“Ella—Ella!”
“I wanted it, I tell you, not because I loved you, though you know that I love you better than anyone in the world.”
“Dearest Ella!”
“Not because I knew that you and he would be happy, but because I wished to snatch my own soul from perdition. I think it is safe now—but oh, my God! it is like the souls of many other mortals—saved in spite of myself! Phyllis, you have been my salvation. You are a girl; you cannot understand how near a woman may go to the bottomless pit through the love of a man. ”

“ She felt that she occupied quite a secondary place in his affections compared with music—that he loved music with the passionate devotion of a lover, while to her he could only give the cold, calculable affection of a brother. She felt all the sting of jealousy which an affectionate sister feels when her brother, in her presence, looks into the eyes of the woman whom he loves and puts his arm about her. ”

“ Alas! a few steps onward, and we are face to face with the realities of autumn, for here the hedgerow has been exposed to the blast of a cold wind from the north, and we see nothing but a tangled network of gaunt branches. Weird skeleton fingers are stretched out at us on every side. Every leaf save one has been swept away, and as we stand looking at this desolate place—the visible boundary of autumn and winter—the sere solitary leaf flutters to the ground at our feet. [Pg 372] The wind that comes from where the sun is setting in lurid glory sends a faint whisper through the woodland. ”

“ I had it first from my dear Maestro. He used to urge us daily, ‘Play your best at all times; even though you fancy you are alone in the room, be assured that the true musician can never be alone. Who can tell what an audience the spirit world gives to him? He must remember that his playing is not merely a distraction for the crowd in the concert-room, it is an act of devotion—an act of worship.’ That is what the Maestro said, and every day I recall his words.”
“They are words which no true artist should forget,” said she. “The sentiment which they convey should be the foundation of every art. ”