Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 38

Chance and coincidence play curious pranks with human affairs, and one of the most obvious facts of daily experience is that the merest trifle, occurring in the most haphazard way, will often suffice to change the whole intention and career of a life for good or for evil.

It is as though a musician in the composition of a symphony should suddenly bethink himself of a new and strange melody, and, pleasing his fancy with the innovation, should wilfully introduce it at the last moment, thereby creating more or less of a surprise for the audience.

Something of this kind happened to Innocent after her meeting with the painter who bore the name of her long idealised knight of France, Amadis de Jocelin. She soon learned that he was a somewhat famous personage,--famous for his genius, his scorn of accepted rules, and his contempt for all "puffery," push and patronage, as well as for his brusquerie in society and carelessness of conventions. She also heard that his works had been rejected twice by the Royal Academy Council, a reason he deemed all-sufficient for never appealing to that exclusive school of favouritism again,--while everything he chose to send was eagerly accepted by the French Salon, and purchased as soon as exhibited. His name had begun to stand very high--and his original character and personality made him somewhat of a curiosity among men--one more feared than favoured. He took a certain pleasure in a.n.a.lysing his own disposition for the benefit of any of his acquaintances who chose to listen,--and the harsh judgment he pa.s.sed on himself was not altogether without justice or truth.

"I am an essentially selfish man," he would say--"I have met selfishness everywhere among my fellow men and women, and have imbibed it as a sponge imbibes water. I've had a fairly hard time, and I've experienced the rough side of human nature, getting more kicks than halfpence. Now that the kicks have ceased I'm in no mood for soft soap.

I know the humbug of so-called 'friends.h.i.+p'--the rarity of sincerity--and as for love!--there's no such thing permanently in man, woman or child. What is called 'love' is merely a comfortable consciousness that one particular person is agreeable and useful to you for a time--but it's only for a time--and marriage which seeks to bind two people together till death is the heaviest curse ever imposed on manhood or womanhood! Devotion and self-sacrifice are merest folly--the people you sacrifice yourself for are never worth it, and devotion is generally, if not always, misplaced. The only thing to do in this life is to look after yourself,--serve yourself--please yourself! No one will do anything for you unless they can get something out of it for their own advantage,--you're bound to follow the general example!"

Notwithstanding this candid confession of cynical egotism, the man had greatness in him, and those who knew his works readily recognised his power. The impression he had made on Innocent's guileless and romantic nature was beyond a.n.a.lysis,--she did not try to understand it herself.

His name and the connection he had with the old French knight of her childhood's dreams and fancies had moved and roused her to a new interest in life--and just as she had hitherto been unwilling to betray the secret of her literary authors.h.i.+p, she was now eager to have it declared--for one reason only,--that he might perhaps think well of her. Whereby it will be seen that the poor child, endowed with a singular genius as she was, knew nothing of men and their never-failing contempt for the achievements of gifted women. Delicate of taste and sensitive in temperament she was the very last sort of creature to realise the ugly truth that men, taken en ma.s.se, consider women in one only way--that of s.e.x,--as the lower half of man, necessary to man's continuance, but always the mere vessel of his pleasure. To her, Amadis de Jocelyn was the wonderful realisation of an ideal,--but she was very silent concerning him,--reserved and almost cold. This rather surprised good Miss Lavinia Leigh, whose romantic tendencies had been greatly stirred by the story of the knight of Briar Farm and the discovery of a descendant of the same family in one of the most admired artists of the day. They visited Jocelyn's studio together--a vast, bare place, wholly unadorned by the tawdry paraphernalia which is sometimes affected by third-rate men to create an "art" impression on the minds of the uninstructed--and they had stood lost in wonder and admiration before a great picture he was painting on commission, ent.i.tled "Wild Weather." It was what is called by dealers an "important work," and represented night closing in over a sea lashed into fury by the sweep of a stormy wind. So faithfully was the scene of terror and elemental confusion rendered that it was like nature itself, and the imaginative eye almost looked for the rising waves to tumble liquidly from the painted canvas and break on the floor in stretches of creamy foam. Gentle Miss Leigh was conscious of a sudden beating of the heart as she looked at this masterpiece of form and colour,--it reminded her of the work of Pierce Armitage. She ventured to say so, with a little hesitation, and Jocelyn caught at the name.

"Armitage?--Yes--he was beginning to be rather famous some five-and-twenty years ago--I wonder what became of him? He promised great things. By the way"--and he turned to Innocent--"YOUR name is Armitage! Any relation to him?"

The colour rushed to her cheeks and fled again, leaving her very pale.

"No," she answered.

He looked at her inquisitively.

"Well, Armitage is not as outlandish a name as Amadis de Jocelyn," he said--"You will hardly find two of ME!--and I expect I shall hardly find two of YOU!" and he smiled--"especially if what I have heard is anything more than rumour!"

Her eyes filled with an eager light.

"What do you mean?"

He laughed,--yet in himself was conscious of a certain embarra.s.sment.

"Well!--that a certain 'Innocent' young lady is a great author!" he said--"There! You have it! I'm loth to believe it, and hope the report isn't true, for I'm afraid of clever women! Indeed I avoid them whenever I can!"

A sudden sense of hopelessness and loss fell over her like a cloud--her lips quivered.

"Why should you do so?" she asked--"We do not avoid clever men!"

He smiled.

"Ah! That is different!"

She was silent. Miss Leigh looked a little distressed.

He went on lightly.

"My dear Miss Armitage, don't be angry with me!" he said--"You are so delightfully ignorant of the ways of our s.e.x, and I for one heartily wish you might always remain so! But we men are proverbially selfish-and we like to consider cleverness, or 'genius' if you will, as our own exclusive property. We hate the feminine poacher on our particular preserves! We consider that women were made to charm and to amuse us--not to equal us. Do you see? When a woman is clever--perhaps cleverer than we are--she ceases to be amusing--and we must be amused!

We cannot have our fun spoiled by the blue-stocking element,--though you--YOU do not look in the least 'blue'!"

She turned from him in a mute vexation. She thought his talk trifling and unmanly. Miss Leigh came to the rescue.

"No--Innocent is certainly not 'blue,'" she said, sweetly--"If by that term you mean 'advanced' or in any way unwomanly. But she has been singularly gifted by nature--yes, dear child, I must be allowed to speak!"--this, as Innocent made an appealing gesture,--"and if people say she is the author of the book that is just now being so much talked of, they are only saying the truth. The secret cannot be kept much longer."

He heard--then went quickly up to the girl where she stood in a somewhat dejected att.i.tude near his easel.

"Then it IS true!" he said--"I heard it yesterday from an old journalist friend of mine, John Harrington--but I couldn't quite believe it. Let me congratulate you on your brilliant success--"

"You do not care!" she said, almost in a whisper.

"Oh, do I not?" He was amused, and taking her hand kissed it lightly.

"If all literary women were like YOU--"

He left the sentence unfinished, but his eyes conveyed a wordless language which made her heart beat foolishly and her nerves thrill. She forgot the easy mockery which had distinguished his manner since when speaking of the "blue-stocking element"-and once more "Amadis de Jocelyn" sat firmly on her throne of the ideal!

That very afternoon, on her return from Jocelyn's studio to Miss Leigh's little house in Kensington which she now called her "home"--she found a reply-paid telegram from her publishers, running thus:

"Eminent journalist John Harrington reviews book favourably in evening paper suggesting that you are the actual author. May we deny or confirm?"

She thought for some minutes before deciding--and went to Miss Leigh with the telegram in her hand.

"G.o.dmother mine!" she said, kneeling down beside her--"Tell me, what shall I do? Is it any use continuing to wear the veil of mystery? Shall I take up my burden and bear it like a man?"

Miss Lavinia smiled, and drew the girl's fair head to her bosom.

"Poor little one!" she said, tenderly--"I know just what you feel about it! You would rather remain quietly in your own dreamland than face the criticism of the world, or be pointed out as a 'celebrity'--yes, I quite understand! But I think you must, in justice to yourself and others, 'take up the burden'--as you put it--yes, child! You must wear your laurels, though for you I should prefer the rose!"

Innocent s.h.i.+vered, as with sudden cold.

"A rose has thorns!" she said, as she got up from her kneeling att.i.tude and moved away--"It's beautiful to look at--but it soon fades!"

She sent off her reply wire to the publishers without further delay.

"Statement quite true. You can confirm it publicly."

And so the news was soon all over London, and for that matter all over the world. From one end of the globe to the other the fact was made known that a girl in her twentieth year had produced a literary masterpiece, admirable both in design and execution, worthy to rank with the highest work of the most brilliant and renowned authors. She was speedily overwhelmed by letters of admiration, and invitations from every possible quarter where "lion-hunting" is practised as a stimulant to jaded and over-wrought society, but amid all the attractions and gaieties offered to her she held fast by her sheet-anchor of safety, Miss Leigh, who redoubled her loving care and vigilance, keeping her as much as she could in the harbour of that small and exclusive "set" of well-bred and finely-educated people for whom noise and fuss and show meant all that was worst in taste and manners. And remaining more or less in seclusion, despite the growing hubbub around her name, she finished her second book, and took it herself to the great publis.h.i.+ng house which was rapidly coining good hard cash out of the delicate dream of her woman's brain. The head of the firm received her with eager and respectful cordiality.

"You kept your secret very well!" he said--"I a.s.sure you I had no idea you could be the author of such a book!--you are so young--"

She smiled, a little sadly.

"One may be young in years and old in thought," she answered--"I pa.s.sed all my childhood in reading and studying--I had no playmates and no games--and I was nearly always alone. I had only old books to read--mostly of the sixteenth century--I suppose I formed a 'style'

unconsciously on these."

"It is a very beautiful and expressive style," said the publisher--"I told Mr. Harrington, when he first suggested that you might be the author, that it was altogether too scholarly for a girl."

She gave a slight deprecatory gesture.

"Pray do not let us discuss it," she said--"I am not at all pleased to be known as the author."

"No?" And he looked surprised--"Surely you must be happy to become so suddenly famous?"

"Are famous persons happy?" she asked--"I don't think they are! To be stared at and whispered about and criticised--that's not happiness! And men never like you!"

The publisher laughed.

"You can do without their liking, Miss Armitage," he said--"You've beaten all the literary fellows on their own ground! You ought to be satisfied. WE are very proud!"