Netta Syrett

“ At some little distance, under the shade of a straggling elder bush Helen sat, reading. Bridget lay very still, listening half unconsciously to the whirr of wings, feeling the hot sunshine wrapping her round, her eyes fixed on the intense blue sky above the cliffs opposite, where the swallows were darting, wheeling, skimming in airy dance. In one hand she held a letter. This she presently drew noiselessly from its envelope. She had read and re-read it a hundred times; but now she read it once more with careful deliberation. It was dated the day after her walk with Carey in the Bushberry woods. ”

“ Filled with a nervous mistrust of her own power to please, she had shunned humanity as represented by any living soul outside the gates of Fairholme Court.
“I know nothing about any one,” was the dreary burden of her thoughts. “I don’t understand anything about real men and women. My own life is empty, and so for me, the lives of others are empty too. I have nothing to say to them, no help to give them, I’m useless in a world of which I know nothing except at second hand. And as I grow older my heart will dry up and wither more and more, till I’m an old maid—the conventional old maid.” ”

“ Behind its rose-pink summit white clouds drifted, and round it circled white pigeons. It was a tower that Cecily had learned to love, its very incongruity in the midst of London roofs appealing to her imagination. It was an exotic flower, blossoming radiantly above the gray heart of London. She looked at it to-day with a fresh sense of its beauty. It affected her like the glamour of an Eastern story. With a keen sense of gratitude she realized that beauty once more had power to thrill her. She remembered how at the Priory last year the blue sky had been hateful, the sunshine vain. ”

“ Of all the delightful games which children play in the nursery or in the schoolroom, perhaps the favourite one is dressing-up, and acting. And of all the Christmas treats, perhaps the best is going to the theatre—either to the pantomime or to one of the fairy plays which fortunate children can now enjoy.
There are grown-up people too who never get tired of dressing-up and acting, nor of going to the theatre to see other people act. It is a taste which is shared by children and grown-up people alike. ”

“ Betty stared. She thought Godmother must be joking.
“Perfectly true,” the old lady assured her in answer to her smile. “On that island just above the water on the right, in another six hundred years, Westminster Abbey will rise.”
Betty heard the gurgling of the water as it washed between the reeds and bulrushes of the island, and as she thought of the beautiful Cathedral under whose shadow her godmother’s house stood, it seemed a miracle that such a change could have taken place.
“Human beings are rather wonderful, aren’t they?” remarked Godmother, smiling, as though she read her thoughts. ”

“ Dymfield was an ideally beautiful village, to which even the doctor’s motor-car scarcely [61] brought more than a hint of the rush and hurry and ugliness of much of modern life.
In the gardens of the thatched cottages, summer flowers made a blaze of colour. Roses and honeysuckle clambered over porch and roof.
The church, resting peacefully in the green sea of the churchyard, was like some great rock, stained with lichen, crumbling with age, beautiful in its decay. ”

“ And, yet, there in some magic way lay Salome before her eyes, her anklets tinkling when she moved, and her little face full of life. And there sat the lovely queen, surrounded by her maidens in their transparent robes! And the cedar trees murmured overhead, and from the groves of lemon trees sweet scents were blown, and below lay the marvellous city.
Rachel grew so confused that it was with difficulty she could prevent herself from saying aloud all she was feeling. And this, as somehow she knew, would be the greatest possible mistake.
“The queen is sad because the king is away, isn’t she?” ”

“ London has never since been visited by that dreadful Plague which before the Fire was always hovering in its narrow lanes ready to break out violently at intervals. In sweeping away the picturesque buildings, many of which had been standing for hundreds of years, it also swept the city free of the poisonous germs in it, which had never before died out. The new houses were healthier, many of the streets were made broader. There was air and light where formerly there had been stuffy darkness. And light and air are the good spirits that drive away the demons of disease. ”

“ The thought of her mother, of her angry reproachful words half an hour ago, brought back her misery in a flood. She always shrank from allowing herself to analyze her feeling for her father; but for her mother—that was different.
Her eyes wandered over the little room. She looked at the frilled curtains her mother had hemmed, at the valance round her bed, at the lace-edged covers on the dressing-table and chest of drawers, at the numberless trifles about the room, all of them dainty and pretty. ”

“ I’ve been a beast!” she cried involuntarily. “I’ve always been so selfish and hateful to Harry. I’ve taken everything as my right. I’ve never thought of any one but myself. I’ve never thought of the lives of other women. You are right. It would only be one more selfishness to tell him. I won’t. I’ll love him instead.”
“Do that, my dear, and you’ll make him the happiest of men,” returned Anne simply. “And don’t refuse him children, Madge,” she added softly. “You owe him that. Besides, you’re refusing the greatest happiness for yourself. The blessing that women—women like me, can never have. ”

“ Mayne said nothing. He had seated himself once more in the arm-chair, and Rose was aware of the rigidity of his attitude. It was as though his body had become suddenly frozen.
She went on, not quite steadily. “You hate me for saying it, of course. So should I, if I were you. But, Dick—you and I are not by nature self-deceivers. We think straight. And when one person loves, even though the other does not, is it quite safe? There comes a weak moment—a sense of the dreariness of life—gratitude on one side; on the other a strong emotion. Oh, Dick, you know as well as I do.” ”

“ The long line of quays formed a white, glittering fringe on either side of the river. In the gardens and open courtyards between the houses the palms and cedar trees and masses of flowers shone like coloured fire, and the great temple of Belus towering towards the sky, with its seven storeys of seven colours, might have been the enchanted palace of a magician. Rachel gazed and gazed as though she wanted to fix the vision of so much loveliness upon her mind for ever. ”

“ Naturally gifted as a linguist, Anne learnt quickly, and often from choice, as time went on, the two women spoke French together, rather than English.
But it was to the English poets that Anne most often returned. Poetry suited her nature. It was the form of art which to her, most fully expressed the heights and depths, the beauty and the terror, the haunting melancholy, the fear, the inexpressible longings, the regrets, the sadness, the innocent delights of life, which, in all its complexity, she had begun to recognize through the world of books. ”

“ And now there won’t be any more magic for ages.”
“That will be your own fault then,” returned Godmother briskly. “With certain books, some of which you know already, as guides, and a certain exercise of imagination which will grow stronger if you practise it, the Present will melt into the Past, and you will be able to call it up at your pleasure. But never forget, Betty, that the Past has made the Present, and when you are grown up, try to make other people reverence the Past of London, and be unwilling, except for very pressing reasons, to destroy what is old and full of memories. ”

“ I know your feeling. It is terrible, this conflict between what one owes to one’s self, and one’s love, or obligation to those who stand in the way. But, Bridget, what are we to do? How will the world go on if we are to be cramped, hindered, fettered, forever? If we are never to be ourselves, never to take the path that leads highest? Suppose you had remained with your—with Travers, out of fear of hurting your mother? ”

“ At ten o’clock, when Philippa went to Robert’s study, Cecily was at work in her own room, whence she did not emerge till after the secretary’s hour for departure. With all her strength she strove to forget her presence in the house, and the effort, at first apparently impossible, became at last no effort at all. Gradually her work absorbed her; gradually she began to live in another world of her own creating, often so completely that she woke with a start to the consciousness of her outward existence, in so far as it was connected at all with her husband. ”

“ Anne sighed as she reached the top of the Spanish steps, and leant on the wall to take a last look at the city she loved.
Overhead, that “great inverted bowl we call the sky,” here, deeply blue, surpassingly beautiful. Beneath it, the dancing sunshine playing alike on dome and pinnacle, roof and tree, and on the thousands of men and women in the busy streets. Men and women hiding within their breasts incalculable heights and depths of virtue and vice, actual or potential. ”

“ There, towering upwards to the height of sixty feet, they caught a glimpse of a majestic figure. It gleamed with the white ivory and flashed with the gold which crowned it, and for a second they saw a grand calm face looking down upon the olive-wreathed victors who bowed low before the shrine.
“You behold the masterpiece of Phidias—the Seventh Wonder of the World,” murmured Sheshà. “Jupiter Olympius from his temple blesses the victors in the games he was the first to institute.” ”

“ He was shown into the salon, a primitive, stone-flagged little place. It was filled with cool, green light, that filtered through the vine leaves round its window. Out in the glaring sunshine, a yellow dog lay sleeping, stretched across the garden path. There was no other sign of life. The stillness grew intolerable. Carey rose and stood by the window in the hope of feeling a breath of air, and heard his heart beating in muffled throbs.
The door suddenly opened. He turned with an effort, and saw that it was Bridget who stood there; but he dared not look at her. ”

“ There was the Roman city, with its fortress and its market-place filled with the British people the Romans had conquered. Then the city of the Middle Ages, inhabited by a different race—the English race—the little city with its gabled houses encircled by fields and woods. Next came the city of Elizabeth’s day, richer and bigger now, with its ships floating up to London Bridge, its beautiful “Chepe” or market-place crowded with prosperous people. ”

“ Nigel’s devotion was so beautiful; his attitude of reverential adoration was so supremely right and touching. It was the forever profoundly necessary and inevitable attitude of the eternal man towards the eternal woman. At this time she thought and talked much about the sacred name of “wife.” So intense was her conviction that the true meaning of life lay in the sacramental view of marriage, that Robert and his claims sank into the background of her consciousness. In her heart, which she pictured as a sort of solemn temple of purity, Nigel was radiantly enthroned. ”