The artist half closed his eyes, and as he described his picture in a voice full of music and mystery, an attentive hush fell upon the gay group around him. When Garth Dalmain described his pictures, people saw them. When they walked into the Academy or the New Gallery the following year, they would say: "Ah, there it is! just as we saw it that day, before a stroke of it was on the canvas."
"In your left hand, you shall hold the mirror, but you shall not be looking into it; because you never look into mirrors, dear d.u.c.h.ess, excepting to see whether the scolding you are giving your maid, as she stands behind you, is making her cry; and whether that is why she is being so clumsy in her manipulation of pins and things. If it is, you promptly promise her a day off, to go and see her old mother; and pay her journey there and back. If it isn"t, you scold her some more. Were I the maid, I should always cry, large tears warranted to show in the gla.s.s; only I should not sniff, because sniffing is so intensely aggravating; and I should be most frightfully careful that my tears did not run down your neck."
"Dal, you ridiculous CHILD!" said the d.u.c.h.ess. "Leave off talking about my maids, and my neck, and your crocodile tears, and finish describing the portrait. What do I do, with the mirror?"
"You do not look into it," continued Garth Dalmain, meditatively; "because we KNOW that is a thing you never do. Even when you put on that hat, and tie those ribbons--Miss Champion, I wish you would hold my hand--in a bow under your chin, you don"t consult the mirror. But you shall sit with it in your left hand, your elbow resting on an Eastern table of black ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. You will turn it from you, so that it reflects something exactly in front of you in the imaginary foreground. You will be looking at this unseen object with an expression of sublime affection. And in the mirror I will paint a vivid, brilliant, complete reflection, minute, but perfect in every detail, of your scarlet macaw on his perch. We will call it "Reflections," because one must always give a silly up-to-date t.i.tle to pictures, and just now one nondescript word is the fashion, unless you feel it needful to attract to yourself the eye of the public, in the catalogue, by calling your picture twenty lines of Tennyson. But when the portrait goes down to posterity as a famous picture, it will figure in the catalogue of the National Gallery as "The d.u.c.h.ess, the Mirror, and the Macaw.""
"Bravo!" said the d.u.c.h.ess, delighted. "You shall paint it, Dal, in time for next year"s Academy, and we will all go and see it."
And he did. And they all went. And when they saw it they said: "Ah, of course! There it is; just as we saw it under the cedar at Overdene."
"Here comes Simmons with something on a salver," exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess.
"How that man waddles! Why can"t somebody teach him to step out? Jane!
You march across this lawn like a grenadier. Can"t you explain to Simmons how it"s done? ... Well? What is it? Ha! A telegram. Now what horrible thing can have happened? Who would like to guess? I hope it is not merely some idiot who has missed a train."
Amid a breathless and highly satisfactory silence, the d.u.c.h.ess tore open the orange envelope.
Apparently the shock was of a thorough, though not enjoyable, kind; for the d.u.c.h.ess, at all times highly coloured, became purple as she read, and absolutely inarticulate with indignation. Jane rose quietly, looked over her aunt"s shoulder, read the long message, and returned to her seat.
"Creature!" exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, at last. "Oh, creature! This comes of asking them as friends. And I had a lovely string of pearls for her, worth far more than she would have been offered, professionally, for one song. And to fail at the last minute! Oh, CREATURE!"
"Dear aunt," said Jane, "if poor Madame Velma has a sudden attack of laryngitis, she could not possibly sing a note, even had the Queen commanded her. Her telegram is full of regrets."
"Don"t argue, Jane!" exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, crossly. "And don"t drag in the Queen, who has nothing to do with my concert or Velma"s throat. I do abominate irrelevance, and you know it! WHY must she have her what--do--you--call--it, just when she was coming to sing here? In my young days people never had these new-fangled complaints. I have no patience with all this appendicitis and what not--cutting people open at every possible excuse. In my young days we called it a good old-fashioned stomach-ache, and gave them Turkey rhubarb!"
Myra Ingleby hid her face behind her garden hat; and Garth Dalmain whispered to Jane: "I do abominate irrelevance, and you know it!" But Jane shook her head at him, and refused to smile.
"Tommy wants a gooseberry!" shouted the macaw, having apparently noticed the mention of rhubarb.
"Oh, give it him, somebody!" said the worried d.u.c.h.ess.
"Dear aunt," said Jane, "there are no gooseberries."
"Don"t argue, girl!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess, furiously; and Garth, delighted, shook his head at Jane. "When he says "gooseberry," he means anything GREEN, as you very well know!"
Half a dozen people hastened to Tommy with lettuce, water-cress, and cuc.u.mber sandwiches; and Garth picked one blade of gra.s.s, and handed it to Jane; with an air of anxious solicitude; but Jane ignored it.
"No answer, Simmons," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "Why don"t you go? ... Oh, how that man waddles! Teach him to walk, somebody! Now the question is, What is to be done? Here is half the county coming to hear Velma, by my invitation; and Velma in London pretending to have appendicitis--no, I mean the other thing. Oh, "drat the woman!" as that clever bird would say."
"Hold your jaw!" shouted Tommy. The d.u.c.h.ess smiled, and consented to sit down.
"But, dear d.u.c.h.ess," suggested Garth in his most soothing voice, "the county does not know Madame Velma was to be here. It was a profound secret. You were to trot her out at the end. Lady Ingleby called her your "surprise packet.""
Myra came out from behind her garden hat, and the d.u.c.h.ess nodded at her approvingly.
"Quite true," she said. "That was the lovely part of it. Oh, creature!"
"But, dear d.u.c.h.ess," pursued Garth persuasively, "if the county did not know, the county will not be disappointed. They are coming to listen to one another, and to hear themselves, and to enjoy your claret-cup and ices. All this they will do, and go away delighted, saying how cleverly the dear d.u.c.h.ess, discovers and exploits local talent."
"Ah, ha!" said the d.u.c.h.ess, with a gleam in the hawk eye, and a raising of the hooked nose-which Mrs. Parker Bangs of Chicago, who had met the d.u.c.h.ess once or twice, described as "genuine Plantagenet"--"but they will go away wise in their own conceits, and satisfied with their own mediocre performances. My idea is to let them do it, and then show them how it should be done."
"But Aunt "Gina," said Jane, gently; "surely you forget that most of these people have been to town and heard plenty of good music, Madame Velma herself most likely, and all the great singers. They know they cannot sing like a prima donna; but they do their anxious best, because you ask them. I cannot see that they require an object lesson."
"Jane," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "for the third time this afternoon I must request you not to argue."
"Miss Champion," said Garth Dalmain, "if I were your grandmamma, I should send you to bed."
"What is to be done?" reiterated the d.u.c.h.ess. "She was to sing THE ROSARY. I had set my heart on it. The whole decoration of the room is planned to suit that song--festoons of white roses; and a great red-cross at the back of the platform, made entirely of crimson ramblers. Jane!"
"Yes, aunt."
"Oh, don"t say "Yes, aunt," in that senseless way! Can"t you make some suggestion?"
"Drat the woman!" exclaimed Tommy, suddenly.
"Hark to that sweet bird!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess, her good humour fully restored. "Give him a strawberry, somebody. Now, Jane, what do you suggest?"
Jane Champion was seated with her broad back half turned to her aunt, one knee crossed over the other, her large, capable hands clasped round it. She loosed her hands, turned slowly round, and looked into the keen eyes peering at her from under the mushroom hat. As she read the half-resentful, half-appealing demand in them, a slow smile dawned in her own. She waited a moment to make sure of the d.u.c.h.ess"s meaning, then said quietly: "I will sing THE ROSARY for you, in Velma"s place, to-night, if you really wish it, aunt."
Had the gathering under the tree been a party of "mere people," it would have gasped. Had it been a "freak party," it would have been loud-voiced in its expressions of surprise. Being a "best party," it gave no outward sign; but a sense of blank astonishment, purely mental, was in the air. The d.u.c.h.ess herself was the only person present who had heard Jane Champion sing.
"Have you the song?" asked her Grace of Meldrum, rising, and picking up her telegram and empty basket.
"I have," said Jane. "I spent a few hours with Madame Blanche when I was in town last month; and she, who so rarely admires these modern songs, was immensely taken with it. She sang it, and allowed me to accompany her. We spent nearly an hour over it. I obtained a copy afterwards."
"Good," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "Then I count on you. Now I must send a sympathetic telegram to that poor dear Velma, who will be fretting at having to fail us. So "au revoir," good people. Remember, we dine punctually at eight o"clock. Music is supposed to begin at nine.
Ronnie, be a kind boy, and carry Tommy into the hall for me. He will screech so fearfully if he sees me walk away without him. He is so very loving, dear bird!"
Silence under the cedar.
Most people were watching young Ronald, holding the stand as much at arm"s length as possible; while Tommy, keeping his balance wonderfully, sidled up close to him, evidently making confidential remarks into Ronnie"s terrified ear. The d.u.c.h.ess walked on before, quite satisfied with the new turn events had taken.
One or two people were watching Jane.
"It is very brave of you," said Myra Ingleby, at length. "I would offer to play your accompaniment, dear; but I can only manage Au clair de la lune, and Three Blind Mice, with one finger."
"And I would offer to play your accompaniment, dear," said Garth Dalmain, "if you were going to sing La.s.sen"s Allerseelen, for I play that quite beautifully with ten fingers! It is an education only to hear the way I bring out the tolling of the cemetery chapel bell right through the song. The poor thing with the bunch of purple heather can never get away from it. Even in the grand crescendo, appa.s.sionata, fortissimo, when they discover that "in death"s dark valley this is Holy Day," I give then no holiday from that bell. I don"t know what it did "once in May." It tolls all the time, with maddening persistence, in my accompaniment. But I have seen The Rosary, and I dare not face those chords. To begin with, you start in every known flat; and before you have gone far you have gathered unto yourself handfuls of known and unknown sharps, to which you cling, not daring to let them go, lest they should be wanted again the next moment. Alas, no! When it is a question of accompanying The Rosary, I must say, as the old farmer at the tenants" dinner the other day said to the d.u.c.h.ess when she pressed upon him a third helping of pudding: "Madam, I CANNOT!""
"Don"t be silly, Dal," said Jane. "You could accompany The Rosary perfectly, if I wanted it done. But, as it happens, I prefer accompanying myself."
"Ah," said Lady Ingleby, sympathetically, "I quite understand that. It would be such a relief all the time to know that if things seemed going wrong, you could stop the other part, and give yourself the note."
The only two real musicians present glanced at each other, and a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt pa.s.sed between them.
"It certainly would be useful, if necessary," said Jane.
"_I_ would "stop the other part" and "give you the note,"" said Garth, demurely.
"I am sure you would," said Jane. "You are always so very kind. But I prefer to keep the matter in my own hands."