Audrey Craven Part 6

Ted raised his head and looked up. She was still standing in the same place, but one hand was moving slowly towards her pocket.

He sprang to his feet and faced her. She walked to the window, convulsively grasping her pocket-handkerchief.

He followed her.

"Miss Craven--dear Miss Craven--on my soul--I swear--I never----Can't you--won't you believe me?"

Still there was silence and an averted head.

"Speak, can't you!"

He leant against the window and began to giggle again. Audrey turned at the sound, and looked at him through eyes veiled with tears; her lips were trembling a little, and her fingers relaxed their convulsive grasp.

He darted forward, seized her hand, and kissed it an indefinite number of times, exclaiming incoherently--

"Brute, hound, cur that I am! Forgive me--only say you'll forgive me! I know I'm not fit to live! And yet, how could I tell? Good heavens! what funny things women are?" Here he took possession of the little lace pocket-handkerchief, and wiped her eyes very gently. Then he kissed her once on the mouth, reverently but deliberately.

To do Audrey justice, she had meant to sustain her part with maidenly reserve, but she was totally unprepared for this acceleration of the march of events. She said nothing, but went back submissively to her sofa, hand in hand with Ted. There they sat for a minute looking rather stupidly into each other's faces.

The lady was the first to recover her self-possession. She raised her hand with a benedictory air and let it rest lightly, ever so lightly, on Ted's hair.

"My dear boy," she murmured, "I forgave you all the time."

Now there is nothing that will dwarf the proportions of the grand pa.s.sion and bring you to your sober senses sooner than being patted on the head and called "My dear boy" by the lady of your love. Ted ducked from under the delicate caress, and rose to his feet with dignity. His emotion was spent, and he was chiefly conscious of the absurdity of the situation. Every object in that ridiculous room accentuated the distasteful humour of the thing. Psyche looked downcast virgin disapproval from her pedestal under the Malay creeses, and the frivolous little Parisienne flung her skirts abroad in the very abandonment of derision.

If only he hadn't made a fool of himself, if only he hadn't told that drivelling story about the j.a.panese umbrella, if only he hadn't laughed in that frantic manner, and if only----But no, he could not look back on the last five minutes. The past was a grey blank, but the flaming episode of the kiss had burnt a big black hole in his present consciousness. He felt that by that rash, unpardonable act he had desecrated the holy thing; and with it all, had forestalled, delayed, perhaps for ever prevented, the sanction of some diviner opportunity. If he had only waited another year, she could not have called him her dear boy.

"I'm fully aware," he said, ruefully, "that I've behaved like a heaven-afflicted idiot, and I'd better go."

"No, you shall not go. You shall stay. I wish it. Sit down--here."

She patted the sofa beside her, and he obeyed mechanically.

"Poor, poor Ted! I _do_ forgive you. We will never misunderstand each other again--never. And now I want to talk to you. What distressed me so much just now was not anything that you said or thought about _me_, but the shocking way you treat yourself and what is best in you. Can't you understand it? You know how I believe in you and hope for you, and it was your affectation of indifference to things which are a religion to me--as they are to you--that cut me to the heart."

She had worked herself up till she believed firmly in this little fiction. Yes, those tears were tears of pure altruism--tears not of wounded vanity and self-love, but of compa.s.sion for an erring genius.

She drew back her head proudly and looked him full in the face. Then she continued, in a subdued voice, with a certain incisive tremor in it, the voice that is usually expressive of the deeper emotions--

"You know, and I know, that there is nothing worth caring about except art. Then why pretend to despise it as you do? And Katherine's every bit as bad as you are,--she encourages you. I know--what perhaps she doesn't--that you have great enthusiasms, great ideals; but you are unfaithful to them. You laughed at me; you know you did----"

("I didn't," from Ted.)

"----because I'm trying to make my life beautiful. You're led away by your strong sense of humour, till you see something ridiculous in the loveliest and n.o.blest things" (Ted's eyes wandered in spite of himself to the little lady in terra-cotta). "I know why: you're afraid of being sentimental. But if people have feelings, why should they be ashamed of them? Why should they mind showing them? Now I want you to promise me that, from this day forth, you'll take yourself and your art seriously; that you'll work hard--you've been idling shamefully lately" (oh, Audrey! whose fault was that?)--"and finish some great picture before the year's out" (he had only five weeks to do it in, but that was a detail). "Now promise."

"I--I'll promise anything," stammered the miserable Ted, "if only you'll look at me like that--sometimes, say between the hours of seven and eight in the evening."

"Ridiculous baby! Now we must see about the pictures; we've just time before tea."

The mention of tea was a master-stroke; it brought them both back to the world of fact, and restored the familiar landmarks.

Ted, solemnly penitent, gave his best attention to the pictures: there was not a trace of his former abominable levity in the air with which he pa.s.sed sentence on each as Audrey brought them up for judgment. But when he came to the family portraits he suspended his verdict, and Audrey was obliged to take the matter into her own hands.

She took up a small picture in a square frame and held it close to Ted's face.

"Portrait of my uncle, the Dean of St. Benedict's. What shall I do with it?"

"That depends entirely on the amount of affection you feel for the original."

"H'm--does it? He's a dear old thing, and I'm very fond of him, but--what do you think of him?--from an artistic point of view?"

She stood with her body curved a little backwards, holding the Dean up high in a good light. Her att.i.tude was so lovely that it was impossible to disapprove of her. Ted's reason tottered on its throne, and he laughed, which was perhaps the best thing he could have done.

"He is not, strictly speaking, handsome."

"No," said Audrey; "I'm afraid he'll have to go."

She knelt down beside the portrait of a lady. It was evidently the work of an inferior artist, but his most malignant efforts had failed to disguise the beauty of the face. It bore a strong resemblance to Audrey, but it was the face of an older woman, grave, intelligent, and refined by suffering.

"I've been obliged to take this down," she said, as if apologising more to herself than Ted, "because I want to hang my large photo of the Sistine Madonna in its place."

"What is it?"

"It's--my mother's portrait. She died when I was a very little girl, and I hardly ever saw her, you know. I'm not a bit like her."

He stood silent, watching her intently as she spoke.

"Family portraits," she continued, "may be interesting, but they are not decorative. Unless, of course," she added, hastily, being at a loss to account for the peculiar expression of Ted's face, "they're very old ones--Lelys and Sir Joshua Reynoldses."

"That face does not look old, certainly."

"No. She died young."

She had not meant to say that; a little s.h.i.+ver went through her as the words pa.s.sed her lips, and she felt a desire to change the subject. But the portrait of the late Mrs. Craven was turned to the wall along with the Dean.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Ted, taking up a photo in a gla.s.s frame, hand-painted, "here's old Hardy! What on earth is he doing here?"

Audrey blushed, but answered with unruffled calm.

"Vincent? Oh, he's a family portrait too. He's my cousin--first cousin, you know."

"What are you going to do with _him_?"

"I--I hardly know."

She took the photo out of his hands and examined it carefully back and front. Then she looked at Ted.

"What _shall_ I do with him? Is he to go too?"

"Well, I suppose he ought to. He's all very well in his own line, but--from an artistic point of view--he's not exactly--decorative."