Nevertheless, there was a moment of tension when the doctor drew back the tea-table and they faced each other in easy-chairs on either side of the fireplace. Each noticed how characteristic was the att.i.tude of the other.
Jane sat forward, her feet firmly planted on the hearth-rug, her arms on her knees, and her hands clasped in front of her.
The doctor leaned back, one knee crossed over the other, his elbows on the arms of his chair, the tips of his fingers meeting, in absolute stillness of body and intense concentration of mind.
The silence between them was like a deep, calm pool.
Jane took the first plunge.
"Deryck, I am going to tell you everything. I am going to speak of my heart, and mind, and feelings, exactly as if they were bones, and muscles, and lungs. I want you to combine the offices of doctor and confessor in one."
The doctor had been contemplating his finger-tips. He now glanced swiftly at Jane, and nodded; then turned his head and looked into the fire.
"Deryck, mine has been a somewhat lonely existence. I have never been essential to the life of another, and no one has ever touched the real depths of mine. I have known they were there, but I have known they were unsounded."
The doctor opened his lips, as if to speak; then closed them in a firmer line than before, and merely nodded his head silently.
"I had never been loved with that love which makes one absolutely first to a person, nor had I ever so loved. I had--cared very much; but caring is not loving.--Oh, Boy, I know that now!"
The doctor"s profile showed rather white against the dark-green background of his chair; but he smiled as he answered: "Quite true, dear. There is a distinction, and a difference."
"I had heaps of friends, and amongst them a good many nice men, mostly rather younger than myself, who called me "Miss Champion." to my face, and "good old Jane" behind my back."
The doctor smiled. He had as often heard the expression, and could recall the whole-hearted affection and admiration in the tones of those who used it.
"Men as a rule," Continued Jane, "get on better with me than do women.
Being large and solid, and usually calling a spade "a spade;" and not "a garden implement," women consider me strong-minded, and are inclined to be afraid of me. The boys know they can trust me; they make a confidante of me, looking upon me as a sort of convenient elder sister who knows less about them than an elder sister would know, and is probably more ready to be interested in those things which they choose to tell. Among my men friends, Deryck, was Garth Dalmain."
Jane paused, and the doctor waited silently for her to continue.
"I was always interested in him, partly because he was so original and vivid in his way of talking, and partly because"--a bright flush suddenly crept up into the tanned cheeks-"well, though I did not realise it then, I suppose I found his extraordinary beauty rather fascinating. And then, our circ.u.mstances were so much alike,--both orphans, and well off; responsible to no one for our actions; with heaps of mutual friends, and constantly staying at the same houses. We drifted into a pleasant intimacy, and of all my friends, he was the one who made me feel most like `a man and a brother." We discussed women by the dozen, all his special admirations in turn, and the effect of their beauty upon him, and I watched with interest to see who, at last, would fix his roving fancy. But on one eventful day all this was changed in half an hour. We were both staying at Overdene. There was a big house party, and Aunt Georgina had arranged a concert to which half the neighbourhood was coming. Madame Velma failed at the last minute. Aunt "Gina, in a great state of mind, was borrowing remarks from her macaw.
You know how? She always says she is merely quoting `the dear bird."
Something had to be done. I offered to take Velma"s place; and I sang."
"Ah," said the doctor.
"I sang The Rosary--the song Flower asked for the last time I was here.
Do you remember?"
The doctor nodded. "I remember."
"After that, all was changed between Garth and me. I did not understand it at first. I knew the music had moved him deeply, beauty of sound having upon him much the same effect as beauty of colour; but I thought the effect would pa.s.s in the night. But the days went on, and there was always this strange sweet difference; not anything others would notice; but I suddenly became conscious that, for the first time in my whole life, I was essential to somebody. I could not enter a room without realising that he was instantly aware of my presence; I could not leave a room without knowing that he would at once feel and regret my absence. The one fact filled and completed all things; the other left a blank which could not be removed. I knew this, and yet--incredible though it may appear--I did not realise it meant LOVE. I thought it was an extraordinarily close bond of sympathy and mutual understanding, brought about princ.i.p.ally by our enjoyment of one another"s music. We spent hours in the music-room. I put it down to that; yet when he looked at me his eyes seemed to touch as well as see me, and it was a very tender and wonderful touch. And all the while I never thought of love. I was so plain and almost middle-aged; and he, such a beautiful, radiant youth. He was like a young sun-G.o.d, and I felt warmed and vivified when he was near; and he was almost always near. Honestly, that was my side of the days succeeding the concert. But HIS! He told me afterwards, Deryck, it had been a sudden revelation to him when he heard me sing The Rosary, not of music only, but of ME. He said he had never thought of me otherwise than as a good sort of chum; but then it was as if a veil were lifted, and he saw, and knew, and felt me as a woman. And--no doubt it will seem odd to you. Boy; it did to me;--but he said, that the woman he found then was his ideal of womanhood, and that from that hour he wanted me for his own as he had never wanted anything before."
Jane paused, and looked into the glowing heart of the fire.
The doctor turned slowly and looked at Jane. He himself had experienced the intense attraction of her womanliness,--all the more overpowering when it was realised, because it did not appear upon the surface. He had sensed the strong mother-tenderness lying dormant within her; had known that her arms would prove a haven of refuge, her bosom a soothing pillow, her love a consolation unspeakable. In his own days of loneliness and disappointment, the doctor had had to flee from this in Jane,--a precious gift, so easy to have taken because of her very ignorance of it; but a gift to which he had no right. Thus the doctor could well understand the hold it would gain upon a man who had discovered it, and who was free to win it for his own.
But he only said, "I do not think it odd, dear."
Jane had forgotten the doctor. She came back promptly from the glowing heart of the fire.
"I am glad you don"t," she said. "I did.--well, we both left Overdene on the same day. I came to you; he went to Shenstone. It was a Tuesday.
On the Friday I went down to Shenstone, and we met again. Having been apart for a little while seemed to make this curious feeling of `togetherness," deeper and sweeter than ever. In the Shenstone house party was that lovely American girl, Pauline Lister. Garth was enthusiastic about her beauty, and set on painting her. Everybody made sure he was going to propose to her. Deryck, I thought so, too; in fact I had advised him to do it. I felt so pleased and interested over it, though all the while his eyes touched me when he looked at me, and I knew the day did not begin for him until we had met, and was over when we had said good-night. And this experience of being first and most to him made everything so golden, and life so rich, and still I thought of it only as an unusually delightful friendship. But the evening of my arrival at Shenstone he asked me to come out on to the terrace after dinner, as he wanted specially to talk to me. Deryck, I thought it was the usual proceeding of making a confidante of me, and that I was to hear details of his intentions regarding Miss Lister. Thinking that, I walked calmly out beside him; sat down on the parapet, in the brilliant moonlight, and quietly waited for him to begin. Then--oh, Deryck! It happened."
Jane put her elbows on her knees, and buried her face in her clasped hands.
"I cannot tell you--details. His love--it just poured over me like molten gold. It melted the sh.e.l.l of my reserve; it burst through the ice of my convictions; it swept me off my feet upon a torrent of wondrous fire. I knew nothing in heaven or earth but that this love was mine, and was for me. And then--oh, Deryck! I can"t explain--I don"t know myself how it happened--but this whirlwind of emotion came to rest upon my heart. He knelt with his arms around me, and we held each other in a sudden great stillness; and in that moment I was all his, and he knew it. He might have stayed there hours if he had not moved or spoken; but presently he lifted up his face and looked at me. Then he said two words. I can"t repeat them, Boy; but they brought me suddenly to my senses, and made me realise what it all meant. Garth Dalmain wanted me to marry him."
Jane paused, awaiting the doctor"s expression of surprise.
"What else could it have meant?" said Deryck Brand, very quietly. He pa.s.sed his hand over his lips, knowing they trembled a little. Jane"s confessions were giving him a stiffer time than he had expected. "Well, dear, so you--?"
"I stood up," said Jane; "for while he knelt there he was master of me, mind and body; and some instinct told me that if I were to be won to wifehood, my reason must say `yes" before the rest of me. It is `spirit, soul, and body" in the Word, not `body, soul, and spirit," as is so often misquoted; and I believe the inspired sequence to be the right one."
The doctor made a quick movement of interest. "Good heavens, Jane!" he said. "You have got hold of a truth there, and you have expressed it exactly as I have often wanted to express it without being able to find the right words. You have found them, Jeanette."
She looked into his eager eyes and smiled sadly. "Have I, Boy?" she said. "Well, they have cost me dear.--I put my lover from me and told him I must have twelve hours for calm reflection. He was so sure--so sure of me, so sure of himself--that he agreed without a protest. At my request he left me at once. The manner of his going I cannot tell, even to you, d.i.c.ky. I promised to meet him at the village church next day and give him my answer. He was to try the new organ at eleven. We knew we should be alone. I came. He sent away the blower. He called me to him at the chancel step. The setting was so perfect. The artist in him sang for joy, and thrilled with expectation. The glory of absolute certainty was in his eyes; though he had himself well in hand. He kept from touching me while he asked for my answer. Then--I refused him, point blank, giving a reason he could not question. He turned from me and left the church, and I have not spoken to him from that day to this."
A long silence in the doctor"s consulting-room. One manly heart was entering into the pain of another, and yet striving not to be indignant until he knew the whole truth.
Jane"s spirit was strung up to the same pitch as in that fateful hour, and once more she thought herself right.
At last the doctor spoke. He looked at her searchingly now, and held her eyes.
"And why did you refuse him, Jane?" The kind voice was rather stern.
Jane put out her hands to him appealingly. "Ah, Boy, I must make you understand! How could I do otherwise, though, indeed, it was putting away the highest good life will ever hold for me? Deryck, you know Garth well enough to realise how dependent he is on beauty; he must be surrounded by it, perpetually. Before this unaccountable need of each other came to us he had talked to me quite freely on this point, saying of a plain person whose character and gifts he greatly admired, and whose face he grew to like in consequence: "But of course it was not the sort of face one would have wanted to live with, or to have day after day opposite to one at table; but then one was not called to that sort of discipline, which would be martyrdom to me." Oh, Deryck! Could I have tied Garth to my plain face? Could I have let myself become a daily, hourly discipline to that radiant, beauty-loving nature? I know they say, "Love is blind." But that is before Love has entered into his kingdom. Love desirous, sees only that, in the one beloved, which has awakened the desire. But Love content, regains full vision, and, as time goes on, those powers of vision increase and become, by means of daily, hourly, use,--microscopic and telescopic. Wedded love is not blind. Bah! An outsider staying with married people is apt to hear what love sees, on both sides, and the delusion of love"s blindness is dispelled forever. I know Garth was blind, during all those golden days, to my utter lack of beauty, because he wanted ME so much. But when he had had me, and had steeped himself in all I have to give of soul and spirit beauty; when the daily routine of life began, which after all has to be lived in complexions, and with features to the fore; when he sat down to breakfast and I saw him glance at me and then look away, when I was conscious that I was sitting behind the coffee-pot, looking my very plainest, and that in consequence my boy"s discipline had begun; could I have borne it? Should I not, in the miserable sense of failing him day by day, through no fault of my own, have grown plainer and plainer; until bitterness and disappointment, and perhaps jealousy, all combined to make me positively ugly? I ask you, Deryck, could I have borne it?"
The doctor was looking at Jane with an expression of keen professional interest.
"How awfully well I diagnosed the case when I sent you abroad," he remarked meditatively. "Really, with so little data to go upon--"
"Oh, Boy," cried Jane, with a movement of impatience, "don"t speak to me as if I were a patient. Treat me as a human being, at least, and tell me--as man to man--could I have tied Garth Dalmain to my plain face? For you know it is plain."
The doctor laughed. He was glad to make Jane a little angry. "My dear girl," he said, "were we speaking as man to man, I should have a few very strong things to say to you. As we are speaking as man to woman,--and as a man who has for a very long time respected, honoured, and admired a very dear and n.o.ble woman,--I will answer your question frankly. You are not beautiful, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, and no one who really loves you would answer otherwise; because no one who knows and loves you would dream of telling you a lie. We will even allow, if you like, that you are plain, although I know half a dozen young men who, were they here, would want to kick me into the street for saying so, and I should have to pretend in self-defence that their ears had played them false and I had said, "You are JANE," which is all they would consider mattered. So long as you are yourself, your friends will be well content. At the same time, I may add, while this dear face is under discussion, that I can look back to times when I have felt that I would gladly walk twenty miles for a sight of it; and in its absence I have always wished it present, and in its presence I have never wished it away."
"Ah, but, Deryck, you did not have to have it always opposite you at meals," insisted Jane gravely.
"Unfortunately not. But I enjoyed the meals more on the happy occasions when it was there."
"And, Deryck--YOU DID NOT HAVE TO KISS IT."
The doctor threw back his head and shouted with laughter, so that Flower, pa.s.sing up the stairs, wondered what turn the conversation could be taking.
But Jane was quite serious; and saw in it no laughing matter.
"No, dear," said the doctor when he had recovered; "to my infinite credit be it recorded, that in all the years I have known it I have never once kissed it."