"THE DAUGHTERS OF PHILIP"
In the market-place alone
Stood the statue carved in stone,
Watching children round her feet
Playing marbles in the street:
When she tried to join their play
They in terror fled away.
Christopher went to Australia in search of George Farringdon's son, and Elisabeth stayed in England and cherished bitter thoughts in her heart concerning him. That imagination of hers—which was always prone to lead her astray—bore most terribly false witness against Christopher just then. It portrayed him as a hard, self-righteous man, ready to sacrifice the rest of mankind to the Moloch of what he considered to be his own particular duty and spiritual welfare, and utterly indifferent as to how severe was the suffering entailed on the victims of this sacrifice. And, as Christopher was not at hand to refute the charges of Elisabeth's libellous fancy by his own tender and unselfish personality, the accuser took advantage of his absence to blacken him more and more.
It was all in a piece with the rest of his character, she said to herself; he had always been cold and hard and self-contained. When his house had been left unto him desolate by the stroke which changed his uncle from a wise and kindly companion into a helpless and peevish child, she had longed to help and comfort him with her sympathy; and he had thrown it back in her face. He was too proud and too superior to care for human affection, she supposed; and now he felt no hesitation in first forsaking her, and then reducing her to poverty, if only by so doing he could set himself still more firmly on the pedestal of his own virtue. So did Elisabeth's imagination traduce Christopher; and Elisabeth listened and believed.
At first she was haunted by memories of how good he had been to her when her cousin Maria died, and many a time before; and she used to dream about him at night with so much of the old trust and affection that it took all the day to stamp out the fragrance of tenderness which her dreams had left behind. But after a time these dreams and memories grew fewer and less distinct, and she persuaded herself that Christopher had never been the true and devoted friend she had once imagined him to be, but that the kind and affectionate Chris of olden days had been merely a creature of her own invention. There was no one to plead his cause for him, as he was far away, and appearances were on the side of his accuser; so he was tried in the court of Elisabeth's merciless young judgment, and sentenced to life-long banishment from the circle of her interests and affections. She forgot how he had comforted her in the day of her adversity. If he had allowed her to comfort him, she would have remembered it forever; but he had not; and in this world men must be prepared to take the consequences of their own mistakes, even though those mistakes be made through excess of devotion to another person.
In certain cases it may be necessary to pluck out the right eye and cut off the right hand; but there is no foundation for supposing that the operation will be any the less painful because of the righteous motive inducing it. And so Christopher Thornley learned by bitter experience, when, after many days, he returned from a fruitless search for the missing heir, to find the countenance of Elisabeth utterly changed toward him. She was quite civil to him—quite polite; she never attempted to argue or quarrel with him as she had done in the old days, and she listened patiently to all the details of his doings in Australia; but with gracious coldness she quietly put him outside the orbit of her life, and showed him plainly that he was now nothing more to her than her trustee and the general manager of her works.
It was hard on Christopher—cruelly hard; yet he had no alternative but to accept the position which Elisabeth, in the blindness of her heart, assigned to him. Sometimes he felt the burden of his lot was almost more than he could bear; not because of its heaviness, as he was a brave man and a patient one, but because of the utter absence of any joy in his life. Men and women can endure much sorrow if they have much joy as well; it is when sorrow comes and there is no love to lighten it, that the Hand of God lies heavy upon them; and It lay heavy upon Christopher's soul just then. Sometimes, when he felt weary unto death of the dreary routine of work and the still drearier routine of his uncle's sick-room, he recalled with a bitter smile how Elisabeth used to say that the gloom and smoke of the furnaces was really a pillar of cloud to show how God was watching over the people at the Osierfield as He watched over them in the wilderness. Because she had forgotten to be gracious to him, he concluded that God had forgotten to be gracious to him also—a not uncommon error of human wisdom; but though his heart was wounded and his days darkened by her injustice toward him, he never blamed her, even in his inmost thoughts. He was absolutely loyal to Elisabeth.
One grim consolation he had—and that was the conviction that he had not won, and never could have won, Elisabeth's love; and that, therefore, poverty or riches were matters of no moment to him. Had he felt that temporal circumstances were the only bar between him and happiness, his position as her paid manager would have been unendurable; but now she had taught him that it was he himself, and not any difference in their respective social positions, which really stood between herself and him; and, that being so, nothing else had any power to hurt him. Wealth, unshared by Elisabeth, would have been no better than want, he said to himself; success, uncrowned by her, would have been equivalent to failure. When Christopher was in Australia he succeeded in tracing George Farringdon as far as Broken Hill, and there he found poor George's grave. He learned that George had left a widow and one son, who had left the place immediately after George's death; but no one could give him any further information as to what had subsequently become of these two. And he was obliged at last to abandon the search and return to England, without discovering what had happened to the widow and child.
Some years after his nephew's fruitless journey to Australia Richard Smallwood died; and though the old man had been nothing but a burden during the last few years of his life, Christopher missed him sorely when he was gone. It was something even to have a childish old man to love him, and smile at his coming; now there was nobody belonging to him, and he was utterly alone.
But the years which had proved so dark to Christopher had been full of brightness and interest to Elisabeth. She had fulfilled her intention of studying at the Slade School, and she had succeeded in her work beyond her wildest expectations. She was already recognised as an artist of no mean order. Now and then she came down to the Willows, bringing Grace Cobham with her; and the young women filled the house with company. Now and then they two went abroad together, and satisfied their souls with the beauty of the art of other lands. But principally they lived in London, for the passion to be near the centre of things had come upon Elisabeth; and when once that comes upon any one, London is the place in which to live. People wondered that Elisabeth did not marry, and blamed her behind her back for not making suitable hay while it was as yet summer with her. But the artist-woman never marries for the sake of being married—or rather for the sake of not being unmarried—as so many of her more ordinary sisters do; her art supplies her with that necessary interest in life, without which most women become either invalids or shrews, and—unless she happens to meet the right man—she can manage very well without him.
George Farringdon's son had never turned up, in spite of all the efforts to discover him; and by this time Elisabeth had settled down into the belief that the Willows and the Osierfield were permanently hers. She had long ago forgiven Christopher for setting her and her interests aside, and going off in search of the lost heir—at least she believed that she had; but there was always an undercurrent of bitterness in her thoughts of him, which proved that the wound he had then dealt her had left a scar.
Several men had wanted to marry Elisabeth, but they had not succeeded in winning her. She enjoyed flirting with them, and she rejoiced in their admiration, but when they offered her their love she was frightened and ran away. Consequently the world called her cold; and as the years rolled on and no one touched her heart, she began to believe that the world was right.
"There are three great things in life," Grace Cobham said to her one day, "art and love and religion. They really are all part of the same thing, and none of them is perfected without the others. You have got two, Elisabeth; but you have somehow missed the third, and without it you will never attain to your highest possibilities. You are a good woman, and you are a true artist; but, until you fall in love, your religion and your art will both lack something, and will fall short of perfection."
"I'm afraid I'm not a falling-in-love sort of person," replied Elisabeth meekly; "I'm extremely sorry, but such is the case."
"It is a pity! But you may fall in love yet."
"It's too late, I fear. You see I am over thirty; and if I haven't done it by now, I expect I never shall do it. It is tiresome to have missed it, I admit; and especially as you think it would make me paint better pictures."
"Well, I do. You paint so well now that it is a pity you don't paint still better. I do not believe that any artist does his or her best work until his or her nature is fully developed; and no woman's nature is fully developed until she has been in love."
"I have never been in love; I don't even know what it is like inside," said Elisabeth sadly; "and I dreadfully want to know, because—looked at from the outside—it seems interesting."
Grace gazed at her thoughtfully. "I wonder if it is that you are too cold to fall in love, or whether it only is that the right person hasn't appeared."
"I don't know. I wish I did. What do you think it feels like?"
"I know what it feels like—and that is like nothing else this side heaven."
"It seems funny to get worked up in that sort of way over an ordinary man—turning him into a revival-service or a national anthem, or something equally thrilling and inspiring! Still, I'd do it if I could, just from pure curiosity. I should really enjoy it. I've seen stupid girls light up like a turnip with a candle inside, simply because some plain young man did the inevitable, and came up into the drawing-room after dinner; and I've seen clever women go to pieces like a linen button at the wash, simply because some ignorant man did the inevitable, and preferred a more foolish and better-looking woman to themselves."
"Have you really never been in love, Elisabeth?"
Elisabeth pondered for a moment. "No; I've sometimes thought I was, but I've always known I wasn't."
"I wonder at that; because you really are affectionate."
"That is quite true; but no one has ever seemed to want as much as I had to give," said Elisabeth, the smile dying out of her eyes; "I do so long to be necessary to somebody—to feel that it is in my power to make somebody perfectly happy; but nobody has ever asked enough of me."
"You could have made the men happy who wanted to marry you," suggested Grace.
"No; I could have made them comfortable, and that's not the same thing."
As Elisabeth sat alone in her own room that night, she thought about what Grace had said, and wondered if she were really too cold ever to experience that common yet wonderful miracle which turns earth into heaven for most people once in their lives. She had received much love and still more admiration in her time; but she had never been allowed to give what she had to give, and she was essentially of the type of woman to whom it is more blessed to give than to receive. She had never craved to be loved, as some women crave; she had only asked to be allowed to love as much as she was capable of loving, and the permission had been denied her. As she looked back over her past life, she saw that it had always been the same. She had given the adoration of her childhood to Anne Farringdon, and Anne had not wanted it; she had given the devotion of her girlhood to Felicia, and Felicia had not wanted it; she had given the truest friendship of her womanhood to Christopher, and Christopher had not wanted it. As for the men who had loved her, she had known perfectly well that she was not essential to them; had she been, she would have married them; but they could be happy without her—and they were. For Grace she had the warmest sense of comradeship; but Grace's life was so full on its own account, that Elisabeth could only be one of many interests to her. Elisabeth was so strong and so tender, that she could have given much to any one to whom she was absolutely necessary; but she felt she could give of her best to no man who desired it only as a luxury—it was too good for that.
"It seems rather a waste of force," she said to herself, with a whimsical smile. "I feel like Niagara, spending its strength on empty splashings, when it might be turning thousands of electric engines and lighting millions of electric lights, if only its power were turned in the right direction and properly stored. I could be so much to anybody who really needed me—I feel I could; but nobody seems to need me, so it's no use bothering. Anyway, I have my art, and that more than satisfies me; and I will spend my life in giving forth my strength to the world at large, in the shape of pictures which shall help the world to be better and happier. At least I hope so."
And with this reflection Elisabeth endeavoured to console herself for the non-appearance of that fairy prince, who, in her childish dreams, had always been wounded in the tournament of life, and had turned to her for comfort.
The years which had passed so drearily for Christopher, had cast their shadows also over the lives of Alan and Felicia Tremaine. When Willie was a baby, his nurse accidentally let him fall; and the injury he then received was so great that, as he grew older, he was never able to walk properly, but had to punt himself about with a little crutch. This was a terrible blow to Alan; and became all the greater as time went on, and Felicia had no other children to share his devotion. Felicia, too, felt it sorely; but she fretted more over the sorrow it was to her husband than on her own account.
There was a great friendship between Willie and Elisabeth. Weakness of any kind always appealed to her, and he, poor child! was weak indeed. So when Elisabeth was at the Willows and Willie at the Moat House, the two spent much time together. He never wearied of hearing about the things that she had pretended when she was a little girl; and she never wearied of telling him about them.
"And so the people, who lived among the smoke and the furnaces, followed the pillar of cloud till it led them to the country on the other side of the hills," said Willie one day, as he and Elisabeth were sitting on the old rustic seat in the Willows' garden. "I remember; but tell me, what did they find in the country over there?" And he pointed with his thin little finger to the blue hills beyond the green valley.
"They found everything that they wanted," replied Elisabeth. "Not the things that other people thought would be good for them, you know; but just the dear, foolish, impossible things that they had wanted for themselves."
"And did the things make them happy?"
"Perfectly happy—much happier than the wise, desirable, sensible things could have made them."
"I suppose they could all walk without crutches," suggested Willie.
"Of course they could; and they could understand everything without being told."
"And the other people loved them very much, and were very kind to them, weren't they?"
"Perhaps; but what made them so happy was that they loved the other people and were kind to them. As long as they lived here in the smoke and din and bustle, everybody was so busy looking after his own concerns that nobody could be bothered with their love. There wasn't room for it, or time for it. But in the country over the hills there was plenty of room and plenty of time; in fact, there wasn't any room or any time for anything else."
"What did they have to eat?" Willie asked.
"Everything that had been too rich for them when they were here."
Willie sighed. "It must have been a nice country," he said.
"It was, dear; the nicest country in the world. It was always summer there, too, and holiday time."
"Didn't they have any lessons to learn?"
"No; because they'd learned them all."
"Did they have roads and railways?" Willie made further inquiry.
"No; only narrow green lanes, which led straight into fairyland. And the longer you walked in them the less tired you were."
"Tell me a story about the country over there," said Willie, nestling up to Elisabeth; "and let there be a princess in it."
She put her strong arm round him and held him close. "Once upon a time," she began, "there was a princess, who lived among the smoke and the furnaces."
"Was she very beautiful?"
"No; but she happened to have a heart made of real gold. That was the only rare thing about her; otherwise she was quite a common princess."
"What did she do with the heart?" asked Willie.
"She wanted to give it to somebody; but the strange thing was that nobody would have it. Several people asked her for it before they knew it was made of real gold; but when they found that out, they began to make excuses. One said that he'd no place in his house for such a first-class article; it would merely make the rest of the furniture look shabby, and he shouldn't refurnish in order to please anybody. Another said that he wasn't going to bother himself with looking after a real gold heart, when a silver-gilt one would serve his purpose just as well. And a third said that solid gold plate wasn't worth the trouble of cleaning and keeping in order, as it was sure to get scratched or bent in the process, the precious metals being too soft for everyday use."
"It is difficult not to scratch when you're cleaning plate," Willie observed. "I sometimes help Simpkins, and there's only one spoon that he'll let me clean, for fear I should scratch; and that's quite an old one that doesn't matter. So I have to clean it over and over again. But go on about the princess."
"Well, then she offered her gold heart to a woman who seemed lonely and desolate; but the woman only cared for the hearts of men, and threw back the princess's in her face. And then somebody advised her to set it up for auction, to go to the highest bidder, as that was generally considered the correct thing to do with regard to well-regulated women's hearts; but she didn't like that suggestion at all. At last the poor princess grew tired of offering her treasure to people who didn't want it, and so she locked it up out of sight; and then everybody said that she hadn't a heart at all, and what a disgrace it was for a young woman to be without one."
"That wasn't fair!"
"Not at all fair; but people aren't always fair on this side of the hills, darling."
"But they are on the other?"
"Always; and they are never hard or cold or unsympathetic. So the princess decided to leave the smoke and the furnaces, and to go to the country on the other side of the hills. She travelled down into the valley and right through it, and then across the hills beyond, and never rested till she reached the country on the other side."
"And what did she find when she got there?"
Elisabeth's eyes grew dreamy. "She found a fairy prince standing on the very borders of that country, and he said to her, 'You've come at last; I've been such a long time waiting for you.' And the princess asked him, 'Do you happen to want such a thing as a heart of real gold?' 'I should just think I do,' said the prince; 'I've wanted it always, and I've never wanted anything else; but I was beginning to be afraid I was never going to get it.' 'And I was beginning to be afraid that I was never going to find anybody to give it to,' replied the princess. So she gave him her heart, and he took it; and then they looked into each other's eyes and smiled."
"Is that the end of the story?"
"No, dear; only the beginning."
"Then what happened in the end?"
"Nobody knows."
But Willie's youthful curiosity was far from being satisfied. "What was the fairy prince like to look at?" he inquired.
"I don't know, darling; I've often wondered."
And Willie had to be content with this uncertain state of affairs. So had Elisabeth.
For some time now she had been making small bonfires of the Thames; but the following spring Elisabeth set the river on fire in good earnest by her great Academy picture, The Pillar of Cloud. It was the picture of the year; and it supplied its creator with a copious draught of that nectar of the gods which men call fame.
It was a fine picture, strongly painted, and was a representation of the Black Country, with its mingled gloom and glare, and its pillar of smoke always hanging over it. In the foreground were figures of men and women and children, looking upward to the pillar of cloud; and, by the magic spell of the artist, Elisabeth had succeeded in depicting on their faces, for such who had eyes to see it, the peace of those who knew that God was with them in their journey through the wilderness. They were worn and weary and toil-worn, as they dwelt in the midst of the furnaces; but, through it all, they looked up to the overshadowing cloud and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. In the far distance there was a glimpse of the sun setting behind a range of hills; and one felt, as one gazed at the picture and strove to understand its meaning, that the pillar of cloud was gradually leading the people nearer and nearer to the far-off hills and the land beyond the sunset; and that there they would find an abundant compensation for the suffering and poverty that had blighted their lives as they toiled here for their daily bread.
Even those who could not understand the underlying meaning of Elisabeth's picture, marvelled at the power and technical skill whereby she had brought the weird mystery of the Black Country into the heart of London, until one almost felt the breath of the furnaces as one gazed entranced at her canvas; and those who did understand the underlying meaning, marvelled still more that so young a woman should have learned so much of life's hidden mysteries—forgetting that art is no intellectual endowment, but a revelation from God Himself, and that the true artist does not learn but knows, because God has whispered to him.
There was another picture that made a sensation in that year's Academy; it was the work of an unknown artist, Cecil Farquhar by name, and was noted in the catalogue as The Daughters of Philip. It represented the "four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy" of Philip of Cæsarea; but it did not set them forth in the dress and attitude of inspired sibyls. Instead of this it showed them as they were in their own home, when the Spirit of the Lord was not upon them, but when they were ordinary girls, with ordinary girls' interests and joys and sorrows. One of them was braiding her magnificent black hair in front of a mirror; and another was eagerly perusing a letter with the love-light in her eyes; a third was weeping bitterly over a dead dove; and a fourth—the youngest—was playing merrily with a monkey. It was a dazzling picture, brilliant with rich Eastern draperies and warm lights; and shallow spectators wondered what the artist meant by painting the prophetesses in such frivolous and worldly guise; but the initiated understood how he had fathomed the tragedy underlying the lives of most women who are set apart from their fellows by the gift of genius. When the Spirit is upon them they prophesy, by means of pictures or poems or stories or songs; and the world says, "These are not as other women; they command our admiration, but they do not crave our love: let us put them on the top of pinnacles for high days and holidays, and not trouble them with the petty details of everyday life."
The world forgets that the gift of genius is a thing apart from the woman herself, and that these women at heart are very women, as entirely as their less gifted sisters are, and have the ordinary woman's longing for love and laughter, and for all the little things that make life happy. A pinnacle is a poor substitute for a hearthstone, from the feminine point of view; and laurel wreaths do not make half so satisfactory a journey's end as lovers' meetings. All of which it is difficult for a man to understand, since fame is more to him than it is to a woman, and love less; therefore the knowledge of this truth proved Cecil Farquhar to be a true artist; while the able manner in which he had set it forth showed him to be also a highly gifted one. And the world is always ready to acknowledge real merit when it sees it, and to do homage to the same.
The Daughters of Philip carried a special message to the heart of Elisabeth Farringdon. She had been placed on her pinnacle, and had already begun to find how cold was the atmosphere up there, and how much more human she was than people expected and allowed for her to be. She felt like a statue set up in the market-place, that hears the children piping and mourning, and longs to dance and weep with them; but they did not ask her to do either—did not want her to do either—and if she had come down from her pedestal and begged to be allowed to play with them or comfort them, they would only have been frightened and run away.
But here at last was a man who understood what she was feeling; to whom she could tell her troubles, and who would know what she meant; and she made up her mind that before that season was over, she and the unknown artist, who had painted The Daughters of Philip, should be friends.