Part 78 (1/2)
Beth stopped short and coloured crimson, finding that every one in the room was listening to her.
Mrs. Carne stood while she was speaking with a cup of tea in her hand, and tried to catch Ideala's eye in order to signal with raised eyebrows her contempt for Beth's opinion; but Ideala was listening with approval.
”That is exactly what I think,” she exclaimed, ”only I could not have expressed it so. You write yourself doubtless?”
But Beth had become confused, and only gazed at her by way of reply.
She felt she had done the wrong thing to speak out like that in such surroundings, and she regretted every word, and burned with vexation.
Then suddenly in herself, as before, something seemed to say, or rather to flash forth the exclamation for her comfort: ”I shall succeed! I shall succeed!”
She drew herself up and looked round on them all with a look that transformed her. Such an a.s.surance in herself was not to be doubted.
The day would come when they would be glad enough to see her, when she too would be heard with respect and quoted. She, the least considered, she in her shabby gloves, neglected, slighted, despised, alone, she would arrive, would have done something--more than them all!
She arose with her eyes fixed on futurity, and was half-way home before she came to and found herself tearing along through the rain with her head forward and her hands clasped across her chest, urged to energy by the cry in her heart, ”I shall succeed! I shall succeed!”
”Who was that?” said Ideala in a startled voice when Beth jumped up and left the room.
”The wife of that Dr. Maclure, you know,” Mrs. Carne replied. ”Her manners seem somewhat abrupt. She forgot to say good-bye. I did not know she was by way of being clever.”
”By way of being clever!” Ideala e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”I wish I had known who she was. Why didn't you introduce her? By way of being clever, indeed!
Why, she is just what I have missed being with all my cleverness, or I am much mistaken, and that is a genius. And what is more important to us, I suspect she is the genius for whom we are waiting. Why, _why_ didn't you name her? It is the old story. She came unto her own, and her own received her not.”
”I--I never dreamt you would care to know her--her position, you know,” Mrs. Carne stammered disconcerted.
”Her position! What is her position to me?” Ideala exclaimed. ”It is the girl herself I think of. Besides, I daresay she doesn't even know what her position is!”
”That is what Sir George says, and he knows her well,” Mrs. Kilroy interposed.
”But I never suspected that she was in the least interesting,” Mrs.
Carne protested; ”and I'm sure she doesn't look attractive--such an expression!”
”You are to blame for that, all of you,” Ideala rejoined, with something in her gentle way of speaking which had the effect of strength and vehemence. ”I know how it has been. She is sensitive, and you have made her feel there is something wrong. You have treated her so that she expects no kindness from you, and so, from diffidence and restraint of tenderness, her face has set hard into coldness. But that is only a mask. How you treat each other, you women! And you are as wanting in discernment, too, as you are in kindness and sympathy. She has had to put on that mask of coldness to hide what you make her suffer, and it will take long loving to melt it now, and make her look human again. You misinterpret her silence too. How can you expect her to be interesting if you take no interest in her? But look at her eyes? Any one with the least kindly discernment might have seen the love and living interest there! If she had been in a good position, everybody would have found her as singularly interesting as she, without caring a rap for our position, has found us. She sees through us all with those eyes of hers--ay, and beyond! She sees what we have never seen, and never shall in this incarnation; hers are the vision and the dream that are denied to us. Were she to come forward as a leader to-morrow, I would follow her humbly and do as she told me....
I read some of her writings the other day, but I thought they were the work of a mature woman. Had I known she was such a child I should have wondered!”
”Dear me! does she really write?” said Mrs. Carne. ”Well, you surprise me! I should never have dreamt that she had anything in her!”
”You make me feel ashamed of myself, Ideala,” said Mrs. Kilroy with contrition. ”I ought to have known. But I could think of nothing, see nothing in her but that horrible business. I shall certainly do my best now, however, when we return from town, to cultivate her acquaintance, if she will let me.”
”Let you!” Mrs. Carne e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with her insinuating smile. ”I should think she would be flattered.”
”I am not so sure of that,” said Ideala.
”Neither am I,” said Mrs. Kilroy. ”I only wish I were. But she ignored us all rather pointedly when she came in.”
”To save herself from being ignored, I suppose,” said Ideala bitterly.
”The girl is self-respecting.”
”I confess I liked her the first time I saw her,” said Mrs. Orton Beg; ”but afterwards, when I heard what her husband was, I felt forced to ignore her. How can you countenance her if she approves?”