Here also is your home.
They matter not, the cycles in their fashion,
And you shall ever sing, the while you roam,
Of life and hope and immemorial passion.
LUCIUS BEEBE.
The Great Buddha of Kwang Ki
I had not seen Helen Rochdale for almost a year. And indeed I cannot say that I ever wanted greatly to see her again. Not that seeing her wasn’t always to be a pleasure, but rejection by a girl whom one has loved almost since childhood means that one does not exactly seek her company afterwards. “You are such a wise, dear old thing—even if you’re only twenty-three,” her letter had begun, illogically enough, “that I want you to come over from your old Paris and tell me whether something I’ve gotten on the track of is a bargain or not. Now do be sweet about it. You know you love to talk about ‘patina’ and such things to father. And really he respects your advice tremendously. Can’t see why. I never did.” The letter wound on for several pages more. No other girl could have been at once so unaffectedly cordial and so blandly disarming—I almost imagined that our love affair was beginning, instead of buried a year or more. I mean she had written me in just the tone we used to use long before there was any thought of love between us, at least on her side. For I cannot remember when I was not more or less in love with Helen. Still, perhaps her request was not so remarkable. I was young, but I had been brought up in the very center of the art world. My father had been a collector by profession and a sculptor of sorts, as he used to say, by accident. Then, at the time I was growing up, his business had waxed profitable, so that we lived rather well, and the house of “Richards of London”, as our firm was called, possessed a certain indefinable halo of distinction that raised it quite out of the common rut of “art salesrooms”.
The foundations of my acquaintance with Lord Rochdale’s family had been laid when the late earl, Helen’s grandfather, appeared one day in a wrought-up state, and declared that a painting sold to him by our firm as a genuine Hobbema was spurious. I can remember to this very hour the royal rage into which he flew, and the decidedly quaint invectives of an earlier day that he hurled at my defenseless head, for I was alone in our galleries that afternoon. I at once offered to repurchase the picture from him at the original figure. But, at the same time, I assured him that it was a genuine Hobbema, and in the course of our rather long conversation on the subject I think we each rose considerably in the other’s regard. The upshot was that he took the picture back to its place in the ancient halls of Rochdale—pending the arrival of a certain celebrated art critic from Italy. And, on the appearance of that personage, he was so good as to invite me to take dinner at The Lawns, and be present when the final judgment was passed. Had he known that our own considerably more modest establishment almost adjoined The Lawns, and that I had grown up to worship his granddaughter Helen from afar, perhaps many things might have been different. But, be that as it may, I made the most of this opportunity, as well as such others as were offered me, and came in time to be a not unwelcome visitor at Lord Rochdale’s household.
The death of the old Lord Rochdale, with whom I had far more in common than Helen’s father, coupled with the revelation, not long after, that Helen liked me exceedingly but by no means wanted to become my wife, had driven me to Paris, there to take charge of our French branch and occupy myself exclusively with art matters. When Helen’s letter came, I do not think it ever seriously occurred to me not to obey her request. I am not, at least, a bad loser, and I very soon found myself speeding across the Channel for the first time in almost a year. Arrived in London, I was met by the very chauffeur who, years before, had tremblingly followed the late Lord Rochdale into our galleries, carrying the disputed Hobbema. A short ride, or rather a fairly longish one, brought me once again to the threshold with which I associated so many varied memories. Lady Rochdale was away, but I was received by the Honorable Helen Rochdale with a wink and a hearty handshake, and by the Honorable Helen Rochdale’s Aunt Eugene without a trace of the former and only a very feeble attempt at the latter.