Netta Syrett

“ 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.” ”

“ Even when we burnt incense,—and René at once began to send it up in clouds,—she thought we were laughing at her.” François laughed gently himself.
“You remember Anne? You know how she would take praise. Adorably, like a little girl who is almost too shy to be pleased. It was absurd, of course. She was by no means young even then, remember. But somehow that only made it more piquante. Anne is one of the few women for whom age is an absurd convention. Quite meaningless, quite beside the point. The goddesses are immortal.” ”

“ Certainly the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
There was a moment’s pause, during which Mrs. Dakin glanced towards the sofa, to which Anne had returned.
Her green and lavender gown fell in graceful folds round her feet. Against the cushions of dim purple at her back, her hair shone with a sort of moon-lit radiance. The poise of her head, the smile that wavered constantly near her sweet mouth, the radiance of her blue eyes, above all a certain dignity, too gentle to be quite stately, yet suggesting stateliness, made her a lovely and a gracious figure. ”

“ The fountain Miss Page had brought back after one of her periodical journeys to Italy. It was a slight, graceful thing, of delicate workmanship, its thread of water falling from a fluted shell into a square marble basin. It was a fountain beloved by the fan-tailed pigeons, who from their dovecote behind the kitchen garden came to it often to drink. When they perched on the edge of the shell, or walked near it on the grass, their snowy tails outspread, a hint of Italian courtyards, a sort of fragrance of Italy, was wafted into the English garden. ”

“ For as she thought and planned Anne saw clearly, as only a woman who is leaving her youth behind, can see clearly—without illusions, with only stern facts to guide her.
René Dampierre was young. Naturally, inevitably, sooner or later, he would turn to youth for love, and she must not stand in his way.
But because of this, could she not even for a little while know the joy which was every woman’s birthright?
If she were willing to pay for it, why not? Whatever happened, whatever misery was in store, at least she paid alone. She involved no one in her debt. ”

“ Anne sighed. “I see what you mean. But it seems that art is very cruel.”
“It is.”
“Then I think if what you say is true, an artist ought to keep out of the way of any woman who—cares. But he wouldn’t if she pleased him,” she added softly.
François laughed. “In your wisdom you have divined the natural selfishness of man,” he said.
As the months passed slowly on, a change, or rather a development gradual but steady, was taking place in Anne’s nature, a development that presently made itself manifest in her appearance, in her attitude, in her demeanour, physical as well as mental. ”

“ Anne sighed once more, and then smiled at the futility of considering it again just now, when there was packing to be done.
He maketh His sun to shine upon the just and upon the unjust.
The words slipped into her mind before she turned away, with a momentary sensation of reassurance. At least the sunshine fell upon every one alike. Perhaps it symbolized a cloak of charity wider and larger than any woven by human minds.
“Will Madame come upstairs?”
The maid re-entered the room in which Anne had been waiting, and then preceded her up the staircase to a door which she threw open. ”

“ It was a face which looked older than the one now bent over it. A disfiguring gown, fastened with a little tucker at the neck, concealed the [58] long line of the throat. Except for the indication of a clear cut chin, and a mouth sweet, despite its sadness, there was no beauty, not even a suggestion of grace or charm in the picture.
Anne replaced the photograph, and slowly shut the book.
There was a look of terror on her face. She had called up a ghost—the ghost of her past self.
Like a woman whose one idea is flight, she half rose, and for a moment glanced with frightened eyes about the room. ”

“ We owe everything to your generosity, dear. And now we’re going to talk business. You’ve put me off in every letter, but I must insist——”
Anne laid her hand quickly on his lips. “I won’t hear a word about it!” she declared. “You’re not going to rob me of one of the greatest delights of my life, Hugh? The power I once had to help my only brother? You can’t be so unkind!”
Her tone of pained entreaty made him laugh. He kissed her again.
“You dear absurd woman! Why haven’t you married, Anne?” he exclaimed suddenly. “Some man’s been robbed of a wonderful wife. It’s not fair of you!” ”

“ Nothing but the grey hopeless depression of a woman who has never taken her part in the world, who has always stood outside, who knows nothing of life; the sort of woman who ignorant to begin with, grows narrower and more prejudiced as the years pass, till at last in the bitter sense of the word, she is an old maid by nature, useless as a friend, helpless as a comforter, of no account in a world of men and women she cannot understand. ”

“ Her plea of ignorance was a true one in every sense of the word. It was the plea of a woman who had passed most of her life with ordinary conventional people, as oblivious to the complexities of human life as to the world of ideas in art, in philosophy, in all the realms invaded by human thought and emotion.
If her existence was troubled, it was with the discontent of a child who cries for the moon which it regards as a pretty material plaything, rather than the trouble of a woman to whom the moon is a symbol of the rare, the exquisite things of life, which she weeps to find beyond her reach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fresh curtains at the windows with their rose garlands, pleased her eye. The inlaid cabinets, the tables, the dainty bookcases, shining and spotless from the maids’ energetic ministrations, reflected the firelight at every angle. The pictures she loved seemed even more beautiful for her absence, and the pots of lilies and hyacinths about the room filled the air with sweet scent.
Anne looked from them to her books, as one glances from one loved face to another. It was good to be home, and she felt happy, [294] and at rest. ”

“ The library was also unaltered, and in this room, and in the garden, Anne found all the joy of her life.
She was permitted to do what she liked with the garden, and, under the direction of the old gardener, who rejoiced to find some one who loved the work, and, delighted in its results, Anne planned and planted and laid the foundation for the beauty that now surrounded her. The hours in the open air restored her health. Insensibly, she grew strong and straight. ”

“ Madge Dakin, who with her husband had returned a few days previously, she had already seen.
She looked thin and pale still, but Anne was satisfied to hear that Harry was the dearest and best of men, and that she had never been so much in love with any one in her life.
To-day Anne found the human comedy agreeable. A spectacle to be viewed with a smile from which tears of pity and sympathy were not very far removed. But the smile came first. ”

“ There were big gaps in the journal, but if they had been filled, the word across the page would have been the classic nothing of the diary of Louis XVI.
In thought Anne went back over the long, dreary years—the incredibly empty years of a woman whom lack of means as well as lack of opportunity cuts off from the world.
A woman moreover, whose youth was spent under conditions less elastic, less favourable to development than those of modern days.
The cold bare nave of St. Jude’s rose vividly in her mind. She saw the pews full of women in frowsy faded bonnets—the bonnets of Dalston. ”

“ He laughed. “Anne! You are the same Anne. So demure—so discreet.”
“I thought you would have married by this time, François,” she said after a moment.
He shook his head. “No dear Anne, you didn’t. You know I am not the man to marry.”
She returned his glance. “You are right,” she answered quietly. “You have become such a celebrity François, that I ought to be afraid of you,” she added.
His face changed. “I have become a popular painter, you mean.”
“You are not satisfied?” She put the question softly.
He shrugged his shoulders. “One becomes what one is fit to become. I’m a lazy devil, Anne. ”

“ Except for his genius, he was the average kindly natured man. But Anne very wisely took his genius into account. He was not the man to marry, and she knew it. She is proud, as only a woman of her type can be proud. And then—here felt the artist in life—this was her first and last passion, the only vital emotion she had ever experienced in an existence otherwise incredibly grey, incredibly monotonous. ”

“ Beneath the blinds one caught a glimpse of [63] one of the rose-gardens. Protected by a yew hedge, roses of all colours lifted their sweet, hot faces to the sun. A grass path running down the middle of the garden ended at a white seat, in a bower of white blossom.
Sylvia drew a deep breath. “I believe all the delicious scents in the world are here!” she exclaimed.
“That’s why I like this room in the afternoon,” said Anne. “The sun draws all the sweetness out of the roses, and sends it up here. Take off your hat, my child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In life, as [95] Anne had come to know it through her reading, there had been, and still were, fierce passions of love and hate, swaying men and women as the trees of a forest are swayed by a rushing wind. Passions which had given birth to the great stories of the world—the stories of Helen of Troy, of Abelard and Heloise, of Launcelot and Guinevere, of Romeo and Juliet. ”

“ No one has ever taken any trouble with her. Did you notice how interested she was the evening we were really talking—the evening Monsieur Fontenelle dined here? She was proud of you then. She wished she could take part in the conversation. Her mind is empty because she has never troubled to fill it. But it’s a mind of good quality. She has the power to be interested in a thousand things. You could open a new world to her, if you were careful—and had a little tact. And we all know that you possess that admirable quality!”
The flattery of her smile was not lost upon the doctor. ”

“ Anne found the bedroom she had loved as a child, now her own, almost unchanged. The rosebuds on the wall were faded certainly, but the dimity valance at the window, the white curtains to the bed were fresh and spotless, and the “spindly” furniture remained. The white roses had grown much taller. They clambered round the window now, and far above her head, looked down at her as she opened it in the morning. ”