Lena's Picture. A story of love

Front matter

LENA'S PICTURE A STORY OF LOVE BY Mrs. RUSSELL BARRINGTON What's the best thing in the world? June-rose, by May-dew impearled ; Sweet south wind, that means no rain ; Truth, not cruel to a friend ; Pleasure, not in haste to end ; Beauty, not self-decked and curled Till its pride is over plain ; Light, that never makes you wink ; Memory that gives no pain ; Love, when so you've loved again. What's the best thing in the world ? Something out of it, I think. Mrs, Browning. London OSGOOD, MCILVAINE & CO. 45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W. MDCCCXCIII A U rights reserz'ed NEW EDITION

Part I

This earth, embossed with mountains, laced with streams, Starred with fair cities, ringed about with towers, Whose face with hill and laughing valley gleams, Whose shadowy woods are full of tender flowers, The birds, the careless beasts beneath the moon, And that conceited race of feeble man, All hold their place by harmony, and soon Sans friendship would sink out of nature's plan. PlETER CORNELISZOON HOOFT.

Chapter I

Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn. Robert Browning. On the wall of a little bedroom in a far-off west-country home in Somerset hung the portrait of an old Romanesque church. Who had painted it, how it had come there, no one knew ; and for many years no one had ever had the curiosity to wish to know. Hung up as something to fill the space on the wall above the mantel shelf, it was recognised and dusted only as part of the other furniture of the room, and most of the picture was undoubtedly very dull, not worthy of much attention or acknowledg ment as a work of art. The old church was painted carefully and solidly. It was a very correct, laboured, conscientious, and thoroughly inartistic piece of work — heavy and ' tight ' — oily and black ; but every detail of the old church was depicted, and each paving-stone of the Platz from which it was drawn.

Some figures less elaborately painted, and switches of green paint meant for trees, decorated the foreground and filled in the I! I lower corners. The figures, however, were so thinly and inadequately put in that the lines of the ground showed through the skirts of the women and through the legs of the men. Evidently the artist was a painter of architecture ; and into the painting of the architecture he had put his conscience. But, in all probability quite unconsciously, he had put something much better into the rendering of the sky behind the building. All the rules and theories he had been taught, evidently in a German school of art, had not been able entirely to eradicate the power of placing something of the meaning of nature on his canvas when he worked from his sense of her meaning and not from taught theories ; and at one happy moment he had forgotten the laws of picture-making, and had thrown his own native power into the painting of a sky.

One evening his eye must have been caught by the beauty of a luminous light which hung in the horizon after the sun had dipped below it— a light at once clear, transparent, yet mysterious ; a light that seemed to hold a secret from a world whither the sun had travelled after he had said good-night to the town and its inhabitants. The painter of architecture had somehow got his pigments to record this clear, transparent, mysterious light, and the little picture got finished in two utterly discordant parts put upon one canvas— 24 inches by 20. The little bedroom where it hung was lived in by Lena Prevost, a young lady who knew nothing about pictures. She did not know that the painting of this sky was in the truest sense an artistic achievement — nor did she con sciously recognise that the church was a dull, useless piece of work — as far as an artistic result went, an utter waste of the many hours that had been spent on its pro duction.

A photograph would have given all it gave, and better. Nevertheless, from other than artistic reasons the sky had become much to her. She saw in it a hint of the world which was beyond the veil — a world Lena's thoughts and hopes made for as the natural goal of her everyday life. In painting the picture the artist probably had linked it on to no definite spiritual experience of his own, but he had been able nevertheless to give it a very distinct power of suggesting a comfort to Lena's spirit. One May afternoon she sat at the open window look ing back into her bedroom at the picture. Without being striking, without being beautiful in the sense in which the word beautiful is generally used, her appearance was uncommon. There was a fineness and a finish of make, a simple dignity and grace of movement which would have satisfied the judgment as well as the eye of the most fastidious critic.

From beauty we rather expect impressions which inspire astonishment, rapture, excitement; striking and beautiful colour, unusual and splendid form — qualities which come out and insist on our notice and appreciation. Lena had no beauty of that kind. Nothing about her or her appearance came out aggressively de manding attention ; but when you looked into it there was much to hold the attention. Though actually under middle height, her figure, owing to its proportions, left the impression of being rather tall. Her head was small and her waist short, and her simple skirts flowed in long lines, giving sense of height. The colour of her complexion was singularly quiet, pale, and even ; her hair a fair brown, with no noticeable lights shining on it. Her eyes, cleanly and delicately shaped, were light gray and not large.

Each eyelash seemed to have been placed as if nature had spent more than usual time and care on the placing ; and altogether, compared to the ordinary human race we see about us, Lena's make was as the statue the sculptor himself has chiselled and finished to the furthest point of finish, compared to the statue left by the workman who is employed to point the marble. The difference is felt but cannot be measured — it results from that inborn sense, enthusiasm for perfection, producing an imperative desire to perfect : the art of arts which creeps into a great artist's touch, leaving on the actual material of the marble a great purity in outline and form — no edge or surface being left smudged or un decided. Likewise nature had been in one of her most perfecting moods when she had invented Lena.

There are faces in pictures you see at Florence by Filippino Lippi which her face recalled. The evenness of colour shaded so faintly with mother-of-pearl-like tints ; the strongest, a pale, cool brown, recalled the fair reticence of the early tempera paintings, — her grave, reposeful quiet ness in attitude and movement, a grace also echoing that of the early masters' ideals. But the most obvious char acteristic suggested by her appearance was that it was never thought of at all by the person to whom it belonged. Nature had made her singularly simple and straightforward ; but her twenty-one years of life had added reasons for unusual self-control, restraint, and reserve. It was not exactly a sad face, but a very silent face, — there was a depression as well as a strength indicated, strange in the expression of a simple-natured girl, young, and in health.

She was more than usually still that afternoon, so still that not a fold of her soft gray dress moved. There was a sound of voices downstairs, one voice running on quickly and confusedly — weak, yet at times rising rather shrilly into petulance, and another voice, steady and quiet, only saying a word or two now and then. Then came a sound as if a scuffle was going on ; a door was slammed loudly, and the voices sounded fainter and more distant. The latch of the back door opening into the garden clicked. Then Lena turned, and, looking down, saw the cook running across to the old gardener, who was digging in the kitchen garden. Lena could see into this sideways from her window ; she could not hear what the cook said, but it seemed to strike the old man as important. He stopped his work, struck his spade into the ground, and, holding the handle firmly away from him, hurriedly scraped the clods of earth from his boots on either side of the blade, then, with a swaying hobble, ran to the shed where his coat hung on a nail, and while he was getting into it, made for the little gate dividing the garden from a field, through which a footpath leads you by a short cut to the town.

Before he reached the gate the cook called out to him, ' And mind you be as quick as you can.' Lena conjectured what was going on downstairs ; a look of faint sickening dread passed over her face, weigh ing the lids half over her eyes, and depressing and sadden ing the sensitive lines of her mouth. What had happened that day, what was then going on in the room below, brought into active vividness the -old aching pain which had coloured her life ever since she could remember anything. She longed to know more exactly what was happening below, but, as if spellbound, she sat on again motionless in her chair by the window. Long experience had taught her that her appearance on the scene might make things worse. Nearly an hour passed when the little garden gate in the kitchen garden was swung open again, and her brother George hurried up the path.

She heard him come into the house by the back door, go straight to the drawing room, and when he had shut the door all seemed quiet. Lena gave a long sigh. She always felt a sense of security when George was in the house, however bad things seemed to be. A few minutes after George's arrival the old nurse Drayton came up the stairs and knocked at Lena's door. 'It's a fine afternoon, Miss Lena; couldn't you go out for a walk ? ' She was a sturdy, tall, elderly woman, with a not unkindly though mysterious expression in her face — and a watchful eye, alert in seeing, steady and unflinching in controlling. ' Mr. George told me to tell you as how he thought you 'ad better,' she went on. ' Why was Mr. George fetched, Drayton ? ' Lena asked shortly. Drayton paused a moment, then said : ' Mrs. Prevost isn't very well, and I was thinking as how the doctor had better see her, but I didn't like to send for him without asking Mr. George ; you see I didn't like to upset you about it.' 'But why should I go out?' Lena asked. ' Well, we think we'd better try and get the missus to bed, and it'll be easier, Mr. George thought, if the house is quiet and no one about.' Lena said nothing, but rose from her chair.

She knew that was not all the reason. George would always spare her a scene if he could. She knew that sometimes force had to be added to persuasion — George knew well how she felt it, how faint and sick it made her. ' I am of no use,' she said to herself as she unhooked her cloak from the wardrobe. She went quietly out of the house, not passing the drawing-room windows. Poor Mrs. Prevost, protesting, jabbering, resisting, was got upstairs at last, and finally into bed. Then George was able to leave her with Drayton, while he started back to the town to consult with the doctor. It is but a mile from Islebarton to Bruport if you take the short cut across the fields. George had gone half-way, and had turned into the high road when he heard a sound of trotting horses. Then came in sight a high phaeton and a pair of fine bright bays shining in the warm sunset light, advancing quickly along the road towards him.

It was a sight suggesting prosperity. Sir Bernard and Lady Lovat, the carriage and the horses, even the groom sitting in the seat behind, all looked the picture of prosperity as they came briskly along facing full the western sunlight. Sir Bernard was a magnificent Englishman, bright coloured, splendid; Lady Lovat was fair and brilliant. They passed George like a flash of bright happiness ; the kindliness of Sir Bernard breaking out in a smile of greeting, and Lady Lovat, as she glanced down sweetly and nodded a recognition, looking altogether a smile. Dressed all in white — white feathers fluttering in a white hat ; white dress escaping and floating sail-like back in the breeze, as the carriage passed quickly through the air; white shawl held up in soft creamy folds round the warm fairness of her cheek and throat and against the crinkled gold of her shining hair, burnished yet brighter by the rays of the setting sun ; whiter than all, the brilliant flash that glanced out as the smile parted her lips.

They passed, a vision of strength and happiness and sparkling grace. Poor George felt himself and his conditions a sad contrast to those of these favoured people. He paused a moment to look after them. 'Why are some people so happy, I wonder ? ' he said to himself. There was no tinge of envy in the thought — only a puzzled, speculative feeling. It was strange there should be such a difference between the lots doled out to human beings. When we are happy we wonder why there should be sorrow ; when we are unhappy we wonder why there is gladness, — we are so apt to tune all nature for the moment to our own key, and when another is forced upon us we feel it strikes like an unreasonable discord, and are inclined to resent it. George walked on to the town perhaps all the more depressed by his miseries from having, for that moment, felt how strongly in contrast they were to the bright, happy prosperity of his neighbours.

His appearance was also a contrast to the Somerset type seen in the faces he met as he went along the road, the cheery, animal-like, reposeful countenances, the wide cheeks ripened into brilliant red like the apples of that country by the soft and balmy damp air of the west, belonging to a different race and kind of life, to the pale, sallow, long face, large deeply-set orbits, and look of habitual sadness and reserve, which were the striking characteristics of George Prevost's appearance. The little town of Bruport was formerly fortified on its hill ; but now little remains of the traces of the old walls. Most of the houses forming the town make one long street, running nearly a mile away across a flat moor from the fortifications and the church to the foot of an opposite hill, which George passed over coming into the town from Islebarton.

He had walked down half the street when he met the doctor at his own door, just returned from his afternoon round. When George had described some of the particulars of that day's trouble, Mr. Barrow looked grave, and merely answered he thought he had better go back with George and see Mrs. Prevost. His trap was there ready, the horse not yet unharnessed, and they could drive back together. As Lena returned to the house that evening after a long wandering over the fields and hill ridge, the doctor was leaving the house. George met her in the hall, and asked her to go with him into the study. In the twilight they sat down opposite each other. George leaned his elbows on his knees, and pressed his long fingers into his aching eyeballs. After a minute's silence he said, without looking at Lena : 'Barrow fears she will never get better.' Lena did not speak.

After another moment's pause George went on : ' The only chance would be for her to go away.' Then their eyes met, and Lena said in a husky voice : ' Then it is — it is like Gertrude ? ' George bent his head slowly by way of assent, and let his face fall again into his hands. But as they had looked into each other's eyes in that half light, out of the feeling that the same aching pain and desponding depression was hurting them both alike, arose a sort of comfort of sympathy ; but they could not speak of either the pain or the comfort ; such sorrow as theirs cannot easily be talked about — the mystery of its sadness makes words so inadequate. When this kind of hopeless sorrow falls to our lot — sorrow which is as the iron entering into the soul, but which no words can convey, and no human sympathy can exactly meet — obvious griefs which openly demand sympathy and which can be spoken of, hardly seem worthy of the name of sorrows.

A few days elapsed — then George and two nurses took Mrs. Prevost to the asylum, and Lena remained at home alone with the servants, too sad to feel any rest in soli tude — too pitiful to feel any relief yet from the quiet and calm, so new a sense in the atmosphere of the home.

Chapter II

Sorrow is hard to bear, And doubt is slow to clear ; Each sufferer says his say, His scheme of weal and woe ; But God has a few of us Whom He whispers in the ear : The rest may reason and welcome ; 'Tis we musicians know. Robert Browning. The ancestors of the Prevost family were Huguenots. George and Lena's grandfather had been possessed of a property in Essex, and a good income, the results of a successful business made originally by the members of the family who had migrated from France. This grandfather, however, had lost his property and most of his money in reckless speculations, and had died insane. His son married his cousin and migrated to Somerset to work up a business, shares in which were nearly all that was left of his father's estate. He took a long lease of Islebarton, a small place on Sir Bernard Lovat's estate, a mile distant from his work at Bruport.

His only son, George, was educated with a view to enter this business, and when his father died suddenly, when George was only eighteen years of age, he seemed fully prepared to act as the head of the family. George had never seemed young. He had never plagued his people by any boyish follies, and he was able to take his father's place, both in the business and at home, more as if he were middle-aged than a lad of eighteen, — his mother and his two little sisters treating him with more awe, perhaps, than with affection. Lena was eight years younger than George, her sister Gertrude four years younger than herself. From a baby Gertrude had been a strange, violent tempered child, and as she grew older she often became sulky and moody. She had silent fits, and resented any attempt made to rouse her out of them, becoming some times unreasonably exasperated.

But when her passion was spent she would come to Lena in a touchingly help less way, remorseful, yet still, Lena felt, unapproachable. Lena had a nature very tender and affectionate — very sensitive to pleasure and pain. The whole passion of it seemed to go out in pity for this poor little sister, who was always wrong with herself and with every one else. She longed with all her heart to get in touch with the queer little mind that seemed all awry, so that she might help it to get straighten There were moments when Gertrude's affection for her seemed strong enough to justify a hope that it might be used as a lever to raise and develop the whole nature ; but as soon as Lena would try to work on this, greater violence and un reasonableness would almost invariably follow. With George, Gertrude was rarely naughty, but also never affectionate; he also, though consistently kind and thoughtful in all that concerned her, never outwardly showed her any affection ; and as he was away the whole day at his business, it was on Lena the difficulties of Gertrude's peculiarities fell the heaviest.

Poor Mrs. Prevost only made matters worse. She was supposed to be a semi-invalid, with a nervous, hasty, unaccountable temper. She never left the child alone, and yet did none of the real work in trying to take care of her and train her. From very early days George, Lena, and the old nurse Drayton had a tacit under standing with each other that it was better to keep Gertrude as much away from Mrs. Prevost as they could, one seeming to excite the other's unreasonableness. Lena's sorest trouble was the feeling that by her mother's treatment Gertrude had lost perhaps the chance of ever being happy and like other children. Lena's judgment was developed early ; she had full use for it, when still but a young child, in trying to keep her mother and Gertrude reasonable, but her strongest affection went out towards the poor little sister, who she instinctively felt wanted mothering, and whose own mother seemed to be able only to increase her difficulties.

Lena was a born musician, and she could never remember the time when she could not play the piano. She would play by the hour to Gertrude. Generally it seemed to keep her quiet and good, but at other times it would excite her. Then no tune was the right one. To leave off was wrong; to go on was wrong; and Lena would be at her wits' end to know how to please her or how to quiet her. Every one said she spoilt Gertrude, but she could not help sacrificing herself for the chance of a gleam of that affection which Gertrude would at times give her. How could she be severe or angry with her ? — the poor child put herself so outside everything that was happy and cheerful. Lena herself hardly knew what it was to feel young, the pain of pity had so absorbed her young life. Gertrude was twelve years old, and hitherto the doctor had treated her naughtiness as a want of health, and hoped she would grow out of it.

But at that age her state became more difficult to manage. Mr. Barrow looked grave, said very little, but watched her more closely ; and when Mrs. Prevost, as was her wont, ran on with a long string of complaints against her in her presence, he would try to stop her. After one of these visits Lena found Gertrude alone, looking very unhappy and morose ; she went to the piano and began to play one of Gertrude's favourite tunes. Gertrude stopped her, and told her peremptorily to play another. Lena could not quite make out from her which she meant, but began another. Gertrude, in a violence of passion, rushed at her, seized one of Lena's wrists in both her hands and fastened her teeth in the flesh of her arm. The pain, the suddenness of the passion, overcame Lena ; she fell off the music-stool in a faint.

When she woke up she found herself on a sofa in the little back study, Drayton, her old nurse, sitting beside her, and a bandage round her arm. Gradually the scene with Gertrude came back to her ; she felt sick and despondent, and gave a hopeless sigh. Never before had Gertrude hurt her ! ' I'll fetch you a cup of tea, Miss Lena,' Drayton said, as if in answer to the sigh. While she lay alone she became conscious of voices in the next room. Listening with drawn breath she recognised they were her mother's and the doctor's voices. They might be blaming Gertrude. She started up and ran towards the drawing-room. The door was ajar, and before she pushed it open she heard the doctor say : ' I am afraid, Mrs. Prevost, it is not safe for Miss Lena for the child to remain longer at home.' 'You do not know how it happened,' Lena cried passionately, rushing into the room. ' It was my fault, not hers ; I was stupid and did not understand her ; you know it is her health makes her temper difficult : you have always said so, Mr. Barrow, and mamma com plained of her to you, and she knew it was unjust — that she could not help it.

She suffers much more than we do from it.' ' Now, my dear young lady, you must really go and lie down or you will be very ill yourself,' the doctor said, trying to calm her, but himself quite aghast at seeing this new aspect of the self-controlled little Miss Lena. ' But you are not to persuade mamma to send Gertrude away ; people would not understand her, and might be cruel — very cruel.' ' I promise you nothing shall be done which is not for your sister's good,' the doctor answered appeasingly. Then came a wretched, heart-breaking time for the poor girl. To George she appealed, but George finally agreed with the doctor and Gertrude was sent away. He told Lena gently that what the doctor had feared for some time had become evident. The brain was not sound, and Gertrude must have special treatment.

Lena's pain, when she realised this, took the form of feeling that it was a terrible injustice that nature should have afflicted her little sister with such fearfully sad conditions. Her mother put her to torture by referring to Gertrude's naughtiness as if she could help it. Even Drayton, who was generally helpful and reticent, made remarks which stung her to the quick, as pitying and depreciating instead of sympathising. George was away, having taken Gertrude to the doctor's house, where she was to live for the present. Lena was feverish and ill, and had to keep her bed. When George returned, her only comfort was talking to him about Gertrude. George explained that her state was but another case of the insanity which had been in their family for generations ; that they must face it and be brave, and submit and become all the more to one another. 'There is no shame in it,' George said, 'though people seem to think it such a pitiable misfortune.

But what we cannot help cannot be real shame. We must bear it bravely, and make no secret of it any more than we should were it any other illness which is inherited in the blood' ' Oh, but it is so much worse, George,' Lena exclaimed, ' and no one seems to pity it as they ought to.' 'We want no one's pity, Lena, for Gertrude or for ourselves. We must bear our own burden, and live for one another and take care of mother. We must never, never run the chance of inflicting our sorrow on any one else. We must never marry.' Lena felt a ray of comfort for the first time since Gertrude's outbreak. If she could give up something for Gertrude, that would make the pain and sense of injustice easier to bear ! Things would seem more evenly balanced ; the three would seem again to belong to one another.

It was the feeling that the poor child was exiled and thrown out from among them that caused the cruellest, bitterest pain to the sensitive pitying nature. To be able to sacrifice something for her, to keep her c 17 LENA'S PICTURE always in memory by their own actions, that would help them to bear this heavy burden. Warm June weather came, and Mr. Barrow said Lena might go out. One afternoon, George being still in the town at his business, Lena wandered farther than the garden, the limit hitherto of her walks, and crossed the fields towards the village church of High Mallett. She heard the sound of the organ being played by Mr. St. John, the clergyman of their parish. He was a great friend of her brother's, and had always been very kind to her, especially in helping her with her music. He too had a great gift for music, and seemed to Lena to play the organ and piano as well as they could be played.

He was dearly loved by all his village folk, though thought a strange man by his well-to-do neighbours. Clever they knew he was, and a man with fine literary taste, but except as their clergyman he refused intercourse with his richer neighbours. With the Prevost family alone he was intimate, but even George knew nothing of his history previous to his coming to High Mallett. It was supposed he had a story — some sorrow in his youth, but no one really knew anything on which to found such an idea except that, though still a young man, he had perfectly white hair — that he was never tired of doing kind things to the poor people, and equally consistent in politely snubbing all advances from the rich. Lena had not heard a note of music since the day she had fainted, and when the sounds of the organ came to her ear through the warm, bright sunlight, she felt inclined at first to turn and run away, but as the sound swelled towards her again it seemed to hold her.