Chapter XIX: Success

"Defeat thou know'st not, canst not know;
Only thy aims so lofty go,
They need as long to root and grow
As any mountain swathed in snow."—MacDonald.

"GOT through splendidly and is doing well. There is every hope
for her.—L. F."

This was the contents of a note brought to Jean about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the relief was unspeakable. The following day she inquired at the door, and the old nurse saw her for a moment.

"The doctors are very pleased, mem. I canna say so much for meself, for the bairn is just prostrate. If I only ken rightly what they've been doin' to her, but 'tis the muscles and nerves they've keep it blatherin' over, an' whether its untwistin', or cuttin', or lengthenin', or shortenin', a body canna tell. The bairn is to be keep it terrible quiet. An' she lies like a lily, puir wee thing! One o' those wenches from the hospital is helpin' me, but she be a puir feckless critter, an' I'm no gaun to be trappit by sich a wean as her, for her head be so haughty as her brains be sma', an' I'll learn her a few trifles yet, forbye we've seen the last o' her."

But it was many days before Jean could see Sunnie, and meanwhile she had a great pleasure.

One afternoon, Dr. Fergusson met her out, and told her that his mother was coming up to town for a week or two.

"She will be at the Windsor Hotel, and will be so glad to see you. She told me to tell you so. I hope you will be able to go."

"Indeed I will," said Jean, with bright eyes. And she took the first opportunity of paying Mrs. Fergusson a visit.

She found her in a private sitting-room, looking as well and handsome as she had seen her before. She welcomed her very kindly.

"My goddaughter spoke so much of you that I was anxious to see you again. I have to thank you for making her come to me."

"I was so glad she went," said Jean. "She did enjoy it all so."

"I could see she did. She is a happy, unselfish girl with old-fashioned ideas of home and duty. I hope to see more of her. We quite missed her bright, cheery personality when she left us."

They talked a good deal of the McTaggarts, and then of Sunnie, and finally Mrs. Fergusson said—

"And how are you getting on? If I remember, when I saw you last, you were more interested in Miss Jean Desmond than any one else. Now she seems to have disappeared. Is she always in the background?"

"I hope she will be," Jean said, laughing and colouring. "I don't think there is anything interesting to tell you about her."

"Are you still portrait painting?"

"Yes, I am making that my study, but I am working under a master still; I have so much to learn."

"And are you going to make it your life work?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I think not."

Jean's tone was a little wistful. She added—

"I want to be of real use in the world, Mrs. Fergusson. I want to help those who are in need of help."

"Have you many friends in your art world?"

"Very few. I had some, but they came to grief in Paris—or rather the wife did. And I never have cared to make any since."

"I should have thought amongst art students that there was many a chance of befriending those less fortunate than yourself."

"Yes," said Jean thoughtfully, "there must be. Thank you for the suggestion. I will try."

When she rose to go, Mrs. Fergusson placed her hand affectionately on her shoulder.

"I must see more of you, dear. If you are in lodgings, you must have lonely evenings. You must spend some of them with me. Can you dine with me to-morrow night?"

Jean accepted gladly, and every detail of that evening at the "Windsor" remained long in her memory.

She arrived clad in her best evening gown, a white crêpe de chine with bands of gold embroidery, and a bunch of yellow roses at her breast.

Very sweet and bewitching she looked, and when Mrs. Fergusson, who was talking to her son, saw her enter, her keen bright eyes dwelt on the doctor's face as he greeted her, and she said to herself—

"I never thought she was so taking. I am beginning to suspect Leslie's silence and indifference about her."

It was a cheerful little dinner-party. Jean enjoyed seeing the mother and son together; their conversation was out of the ordinary, and she listened with intense interest when topics of the day were touched upon.

Dr. Fergusson saw her home.

Jean for the first time since her drive with him to Strathglen, saw and heard him out of Sunnie's presence. He was a different man. His light badinage and humorous gaiety were entirely put aside. A stern gravity and keen alertness of thought and speech were now his characteristics.

Jean felt awed, almost afraid of him.

When she parted with him, she said a little timidly—

"Thank you so much for coming with me, but I ought not to have troubled you. I am accustomed to go about alone."

"My mother has old-fashioned notions, and I have inherited them," he replied, with a smile that swept away every line of sternness from his face. "Good-night."

Jean went into her lonely rooms that night with a sense of warmth and protection such as she had not felt since Colonel Douglas and his wife had left London.

A few days afterwards, she went to see Sunnie. She found her apparently unchanged, her little face perhaps slightly whiter and more transparent in texture, but her shining eyes and dancing smile were still undimmed and undaunted.

Mrs. Gordon was sitting by her, and as she turned to greet her visitor Jean wondered at the subdued sweetness and gentleness of her smile.

She had the same erectness and dignity of carriage, but the cold hardness, the determined set of lips and brows, had disappeared.

"If you will stay with Sunnie for half an hour or so," she said, "I will go away, for I have a good many letters to write."

Jean gladly acquiesced, and Sunnie stretched out her small hand to take hold of hers.

"I shall hold you tight all the time, and then you won't be able to go. Shall I speak first or will you?"

"I will listen," said Jean, laughing. "Your little head will be lightened, if I let you relieve it."

"Yes," assented the child gravely, "it will. My head has got to be taken care of—it's the oldest part of me; for as to my body I don't understand it at all, it is going to be quite different and quite new again. Let me tell you, painter, dear. It was last week they made me stand, and two doctors besides Cousin Leslie were looking at me. And do you know, I did it! And it didn't hurt me, only I felt funny afterwards. And yesterday, they made me try to walk, and I actually could, holding nurses hand, only I felt giddy and it made me cry, and I told them I wasn't sure whether God would want me to, for that was going to be His treat for me when I got to heaven. It's all very wunnerful, isn't it? But I keep thinking I will wake up and find I have been dreaming. And then mother is so—so different. She came in one night and put her arms round me and cried, and said, 'Sunnie, we're going to live a new, life, you and I, but we shall have God between us.' I s'pose dear mother is so happy because I'm going to walk; she looks so pretty and young when she smiles."

"And when are you going back to Scotland, darling?" asked Jean.

"I don't know."

Sunnie raised herself up in her cushions.

"I want to go back, and I don't want to go back. I don't like the train. It will be years before I can walk like you, I expect; and oh dear! Oh dear! I should like to pull my soul out of my body, and put little wings on it and fly away! I'm afraid I don't like my feet. They seem so waggly, and make my back ache, and I've got to try, and go on trying, they say, to make them walk!"

Sunnie's brightness for one instant deserted her.

Jean could not bear to see the shadow on her face.

"Oh, Sunnie, think of picking the primroses in the woods when you go home, of chasing the butterflies, of running over the lawn, and playing with the dogs, of running messages for mother."

"Yes," put in Sunnie breathlessly, with burning cheeks, "of running down to open the door to Cousin Leslie, of running upstairs again, and showing him a little old empty sofa in the corner of the nursery, of driving in his high dog-cart along the roads, and perhaps riding a pony all by myself and jumping over hedges and ditches. Oh yes, it will be lovely when I can do it all; and till I can, as Cousin Leslie says, I can put my hands in God's, like the good Margaret did, and let Him lead me."

"Yes," said Jean, looking thoughtfully at her; "you will never be able to walk without God, Sunnie—I can't!"

Then they began to talk nonsense together, for Jean wisely determined to keep the child off the subject of herself, and she left her brimming over with her usual flow of fun and high spirits. She saw her often after this, and then came the eventful 1st of May.

Jean had the great pleasure of going to the private view and taking Mrs. Fergusson and Mrs. Gordon with her. Her picture was placed well, and several well-known R.A.'s congratulated her, on her first attempt. But she really enjoyed it most, a day later, after the public had been admitted and she slipped in amongst the throng. Mrs. Talbot accompanied her.

"I feel I am with a celebrity," she said, as they entered the room where the picture was. "It is quite on the line, my dear; you are fortunate. And what a winsome little creature she is! I foresee a good many mothers will ask you to paint their children after this. How did Mrs. Gordon like looking at it? I never have got her to dinner yet, she has been so wrapped up in that child. This operation is a wonderful one by all accounts; it will be a mercy, if the poor child is cured. It seemed so sad to think that property was lying waste, so to speak. Now a few years hence, Helen will be looking out for a suitable husband for her daughter. It is to be hoped she will keep her beauty, but after all, money is the attraction to most men nowadays!"

Jean listened to Mrs. Talbot's voluble talk, and wondered vaguely if Sunnie's recovery would be an unmixed blessing to her. Then, she was startled by hearing her name called, and turning round, met the beaming face of Charlie Oxton.

"Now, by Jove, this is lucky! Couldn't have hit it off neater! It was a sudden resolve this morning. I wired to you, but you've been out all day, so your landlady told me, and my wire is unopened. I called at your place a couple of hours ago. The sceptical Rawlings is here. I've brought him. Hush! See him opposite your production! I've hustled him in there and left him. He is a fish out of water, and though I'm getting no end of entertainment out of him, I don't like a perpetual grinning crowd dogging our footsteps. A pity your grandfather wouldn't come up. He's very seedy, has been in bed four days, and is crawling about looking like green meat!"

When Jean could get a word in, she introduced Charlie to Mrs. Talbot, but the latter soon moved away, and then Charlie edged up to the old gardener, and brought him to a quieter corner of the room, where Jean was sitting.

She had her hands seized and nearly shaken off her body.

"Eh, dear Miss Jean, this is a day! And ye looks near the same as when ye left us, only a bit finer in the garments! Well, to think on't! An' the pictur' be a very pretty one indeed, very pretty, quite like an ordinary. There was a little lass feedin' her dog in the Chris'mas al'mack Mary got from the grocer's, an' it be very similar to your pictur', very similar!"

"That's a tremendous compliment," said Jean smiling. "You mustn't make me too vain, Rawlings!"

"Eh, I hopes not, but ye always did say ye would do big things, Miss Jean. But now ye have climbed so high maybe ye'll be satisfied an' come back to us!"

"I've burnt my boats; I can't return," said Jean, and her smile faded away.

"This here town be a terrible place for a country-bred maid," went on Rawlings with a backward throw of his thumb to the gaily dressed throng behind them. "Why, where do all the folks come from? 'Scurshions up to London and back, I reckon. But I never seed nor heard such a stock! Their trailin' gowns a-switchin' round, the feathers, as big as a barn fowl's whole body, on their heads, their jool'ry an' chains a-rattlin' an' swayin' in the air, an' their sham flowers, an' their sham scents, an' worse than all, their bare necks showin' thro' ragged muslin! Why bless my soul, 'tis enough to scandalise a respectable person!"

"Now, Rawlings, look here, keep your eyes off the young women. I brought you up here to see the pictures; don't you be turning yourself into a critic of town beauties!"

Charlie's face looked very grave. Rawlings hitched up his shoulders, and taking out a red cotton handkerchief, mopped his forehead.

"The pictur's be worse than the females lookin' at them," he sighed. "I've had to turn my head in confusion four times in this very room! Miss Jean, the master be right. Artists an' sich like be a bad lot, they're no better than they should be, I be very much afraid. Your pictur' be very nice, but it be in bad company, an' I mind my copy-books at school, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"

"Now, Rawlings, leave the poor pictures alone, and tell me of your garden, and of Mary and John and Elsie."

"Elsie have left us, Miss Jean. She actooly at her time o' life took a husban', an' he a common porter on the line! An' the house be not changed for the better, for the young maids won't work, neither will they stay, an' Mary gets pretty distracted. John be in poor health, he's goin' the way o' most, rheumatics an' lumbago an' such like, an' when he be better, I be worse, an' so we ups an' downs like a see-saw!"

"You must come home, and have some tea with me," said Jean. "I invite both of you."

Charlie's eyes twinkled.

"We accept with thanks, don't we, Rawlings? I'm like a young lady now; I have my chaperon!"

Jean took them both back to her lodgings, where they had a merry meal. Rawlings overflowed with good advice and warning, Charlie with his usual lighthearted fun.

When they left, Rawlings wrung Jean's hand.

"You'd best come back, Miss Jean, before 'tis too late, for I've a fancy the old master be not with us for much longer."

"We will hope," said Charlie hastily, "that he'll live a long time yet, Rawlings. But even after his departure, Miss Jean might care to come back. Perhaps she would prefer the new master?"

There was a look in his eye underlying this audacious speech that made Jean blush. Then she threw up her head with a little of her old spirit.

"I left it, Rawlings, because I wished to. I never intend under any circumstances to return!"

"Ah," sighed Rawlings, with a shake of his head, "wilful maids be like weeds, ye can't keep 'em down nohow!"