Part 72 (1/2)
[1] String-bed.
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
”Why was the pause prolonged, but that singing should issue thence?
Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized!”
--Browning.
Quita Lenox lay back in a long low chair, lost in thought, her hands clasped behind her head, the folds of her dull-blue tea-gown trailing on the carpet. A cus.h.i.+on of darker blue threw into stronger relief the brighter tints of her hair; and at her throat three rough lumps of Tibetan turquoise--recently sent by Lenox--hung on a fine gold chain.
His last letter, full of the discovery of his Pa.s.s, lay open on her knee,--read and re-read till its contents were stamped upon her brain; and it seemed to her high time that a fresh one came to take its place.
But the days slipped by--uneventful days, in which the long chair played a definite part--and no envelope in his hand-writing came to cheer her.
Yet she was far removed from unhappiness. Her increasing pride in him, and in his achievement, prevented that. Only there were moments when the inner vision was too vivid; moments between sleep and waking when pictures trooped unbidden through the corridors of her brain; when neither sleep nor effort of will could s.h.i.+eld her from that awful visualisation of the dreaded thing, which is the artist's penalty in the day of trouble. At such times, the fear that he might slip out of her life without knowledge of the great fact, that no amount of repet.i.tion can minimise, nor custom stale; without knowledge that through his long love and constancy she had attained to the 'greatest creative art of all,' had almost dragged her out of bed at midnight to begin the letter that should carry the word to him amid the sublimity of his glaciers and eternal silences. But always something stronger than fear had restrained her; so that the weeks had dropped away one by one, like faded petals, and the secret that was to be the crowning glory of their new life together still lay hidden in her heart.
The cheerful round of festivities common to an Indian Hill season had pa.s.sed her by; and she was content to have it so. Between her canvas and her unpractised needle, between the companions.h.i.+p of Michael, and of the Desmonds--while they were 'up'--her days had gone softly, yet pleasantly and profitably in more respects than one. For it is in the pauses between times of activity and stress that the still small voice of G.o.d speaks most clearly to the soul; that power is generated and garnered against the hidden things that shall be. It is in the pauses that we can, as it were, stand back a s.p.a.ce from our own corner of the picture we are so zealously making or marring, and catch an illuminating glimpse of the proportions of the whole.
Thus it had been with Quita Lenox. In these four months of seeming inactivity, the large, underlying forces of life had been silently at work in her, touching the impressionable spirit of her to 'fine issues'
that the sure years would reveal. Nor had her time of quiet been lacking in immediate results. A completed picture stood to her credit; and a drawer full of surprising achievements in the way of needlecraft; achievements so pathetically small that at times the sight of them brought tears to her eyes.
But this afternoon neither brush nor needle tempted her. In spirit she was with her husband, trying by concentration of thought to bridge the s.p.a.ce between. But always her thoughts ended in one cry: If only--if only--he could get back in time!
Michael Maurice had stayed on at the Crow's Nest, possibly from laziness, possibly for other reasons; and its little studio-drawing-room was as attractive, as untidy, and as eloquent of Quita's personality as it had been sixteen months ago. It was late August now; and a week's break in the rains had given the drenched hills and those who dwelt upon them a foretaste of that elixir of light and air which makes September the crowning month of the Himalayan year.
And to Quita it gave promise that her days of waiting were numbered.
In a week she would follow the Desmonds to Dera Ishmael, and remain with them, at their urgent invitation, till her husband's return. The friendly smile of the sun after days of downpour and restless mist lifted her to renewed hope that in spite of the mountains he would surely reach her in time.
From the open door a stream of afternoon light barred the room with gold. Pa.s.sing across her prostrate figure, it fell full upon her easel, and upon the picture in which she had tried to express her own solution of the artist's eternal problem--Art or Love. It had been begun as a subject-picture, inspired by the impa.s.sioned cry of Aurora Leigh: ”Oh, Art, my Art! Thou art much; but Love is more!” Then because her taste leaned always to the actual, and because the picture was to be a present for her husband, the woman's figure had grown into a portrait of herself; a thing so living, so eloquent of her new appealing charm, that even Michael's critical spirit had been roused to enthusiasm. He had one quarrel only with her achievement, namely, that it was not to be his own!
In detail, the picture was simplicity itself. Merely the woman beside her easel, turning eagerly away from it as if at the sound of a footstep; every line and curve of her athrill with expectancy, her eyes luminous with the dawn of a new truth, a new ecstasy of heart and spirit; while at her feet her palette lay broken in a dozen pieces, and her canvas had fallen, unheeded, to the ground. An open doorway behind her revealed a glimpse of sunlit verandah, trellis-work and honeysuckle; revealed also an unmistakable length of shadow,--the head and shoulders of the man whose large, lonely personality had so taken possession of her, as to transform her whole vision of life. And below the canvas, on the gilding of the frame, were graven the words: 'Love is more.'
For all her delight in this last work of her hands, there were days when the sight of it p.r.i.c.ked her to an anguish of impatience, shadowed always by the darker anguish of fear lest the ecstasy she had so vividly portrayed should be s.n.a.t.c.hed untasted from out her grasp; lest the footstep her heart hungered for should never come back into her life. But she fought resolutely against such black moods, for Michael's sake no less than her own. His joy in getting her back had done much to soften the pang of separation; and now, while she lay waiting and dreaming,--too lazy to pour out tea till he came--it was his footstep that put her dreams to flight.
He had been out on the Kajiar road 'taking notes,' and he flourished a sketch-book at her by way of greeting.
”Tea, _cherie_? _Ah, c'est bien_. I am thirsty!”
She flung out her left hand and took possession of the book.
”Pour it out yourself, there's a dear; and mine too.”
”_Voila donc_! What laziness!”
”Energetic people are privileged to be lazy--sometimes.”
He laughed, and obeyed her, setting a cup and plate within reach.
”You seem to have been making the most of your privilege. Have you done anything while I was out?”
”But yes. I have been possessing my soul in quietness; and--I have been talking to Eldred.”