Chapter II: Rebellion

"We would be free as Nature, but forget
That Nature wears an universal law,
Free only, for she cannot disobey."—H. Coleridge.

JEAN was not quite so silent at dinner that night. Colonel Douglas told such entertaining stories, and deferred so often to her, that she surprised her grandfather by expressing opinions of her own. He snubbed her unmercifully more than once, but she did not as usual sink under it.

"You must come out to Persia, Mr. Desmond," said the Colonel gaily, "and bring your granddaughter with you. Travelling is made so easy nowadays for ladies. I have been asked to conduct a party through Egypt and Palestine. Shall I undertake you?"

Jean caught her breath, but her grandfather shook his head.

"I am too old to travel."

Colonel Douglas turned to Jean.

"Miss Desmond, can I not persuade you? My sister, whose husband is in India, will chaperon you with the greatest pleasure."

Jean looked across at her grandfather audaciously.

"Shall I go, grandfather? You do not want me here."

Mr. Desmond's brows lowered threateningly.

"When I do not want you, I will let you know," he said coldly.

Jean's eyes flashed.

"I shall paint a picture and get my liberty," she muttered to herself, and this resolve took hold of her, and remained with her to such an extent, that she lost all interest in the ensuing conversation.

Colonel Douglas glanced at her more than once, and noticed the absorbed dreamy look in her eyes. She left the dinner table, and did not see the gentlemen again that night, but upstairs, she was pacing her room with feverishly clasped hands and flashing eyes.

"What could happen, if he turned me out of the house? Where could I go? Would he give me any money? I'll begin to paint to-morrow. I will, I will! He couldn't turn me out of the house to starve. He would give me some money, and wash his hands of me, and I—where could I go? Why, the whole world would be before me. I would be able to go this tour in the East, and take my chance of what happened afterwards."

When she went to bed, she did not sleep. Visions of what might be, rose before her. Wandering beneath date-palms, and a cloudless blue sky; sleeping in white tents, with camels and mules and swarthy Arabs around her, sailing slowly up the Nile seeing strange sights every day, perhaps climbing the Pyramids and viewing the mysterious Sphinx. It all fascinated and enthralled her.

"I should be in a world of beauty and of art, and be surrounded with nice, friendly women and men. I should be able to give myself up to painting and to reading, and I should live, live, live!"

When the morning came, calm common sense battled with her impulsive excitement. She almost cried with vexation when she found her paintbox nearly empty, and not a piece of canvas or paper in her portfolio. But she would not be deterred from her purpose.

"I shall do nothing rash," she argued with herself, "but paint I shall, and as I have no money I shall beg, borrow, or steal. And yet—yet—it is all so hopeless. What should I do if my only relative cast me off? I can but wait. A change must come in my life, sooner or later. I will go out and talk to Rawlings. He is better, so will be in his beloved garden again."

She found him sowing seed. He looked up with a bright smile at her as she came.

"Eh, Miss Jean, 'tis good to be in the air agen. I have been giving thanks with the birds."

"You're always giving thanks, Rawlings. I wish I had any luck to thank for."

Jean balanced herself on the side of a cucumber frame, and looked about her with discontented eyes. It was a fresh clear morning, and the sun was streaming through the swiftly-passing clouds. The old kitchen garden, with its deep red walls and box-edged borders, was full of fresh young life, and Jean's fretfulness passed away.

"I shall make a picture of this garden," she said joyously, "and shall call it 'old age and youth.'"

"Meanin' you and me?" queried Rawlings, dubiously.

"No, I was thinking of the garden itself. How many lives have lived and died in it, Rawlings—vegetable life I mean!"

Rawlings shook his head.

"I've sowed here these twenty year or more. 'Tis a wonderful fruitful spot. But there, Miss Jean, I always hold there be no such thing as dyin' in Gods Kingdom. The plants live on in their seeds, and come up year by year; same in the bulb and root tribe, they bear life in them, whether buried or resurrected."

"I wish you were my grandfather, Rawlings; you would help me to blossom out and sow seed, wouldn't you? You wouldn't put me in a hole, and tell me to stop there, and prevent me covering as much ground as I wanted to. Grandfather would be a bad gardener, and how he would hate to see the wind come and scatter the flower-seeds in all directions! How I wish a wind would come and carry me off somewhere!"

"What is the matter with you, Miss Jean?"

"I want money, Rawlings—money to buy books and paints. How can I get some?"

He looked at her laughing face as she turned it up to his, then gave a dry little chuckle as he went on with his work.

"Books and paints be poor satisfaction for a discontented spirit," he observed. "I be happy without 'em, and so can ye be, Miss Jean."

"No, I can't!" she said, springing up and stamping indignantly with one foot on the ground. "I am starving, Rawlings, and I want to be fed!"

Then in another tone she asked—

"Have you ever been to London, Rawlings?"

"No, that I have not."

"Have you any friends there?"

"A married sister, Miss Jean, who did marry a man in the grocery line. She has ofttimes asked me to pay her a visit, but Lunnon be not to my taste."

"Where does she live, Rawlings?"

"That I can't tell ye, but the name of her house be 177, Charles Street."

Jean repeated this over softly to herself. Then she looked at some Neapolitan violets thoughtfully. Finally she went over to the frame and picked a large bunch of them, and then she ran off to the house, calling to Rawlings over her shoulder, "The wind has begun to blow, Rawlings."

An hour later, she was steadily walking along the same flat road that she had taken the day before, but there was purpose and determination in her face, and in her hand she grasped a small basket of fragrant violets. The town was reached at last, but as she came in sight of the shops, her courage failed her. She hesitated outside a greengrocer's, where flowers were displayed in the window; then squaring her shoulders, walked boldly in.

"Good morning, Miss Desmond," said the woman civilly. "What can I have the pleasure of serving you with?"

Jean became red and confused.

"I—er—don't want anything, thank you. At least I—have you any early potatoes yet?"

"Well no, miss. 'Tis too early. The spring be extra late this year—"

"Thank you—thank you—it isn't of the least consequence!"

Poor Jean dashed out of the shop, and then almost ran into the arms of Colonel Douglas. He started, then held out his hand pleasantly.

"Good morning," he said. "Have you driven in to shop?"

"I never drive," replied Jean. "I always walk."

Her cheeks were crimson, and she turned away her head; but not before Colonel Douglas's keen eyes had noted glittering drops on the end of her eyelashes.

"Splendid!" he said heartily. "There is nothing that does one more good than a thorough brisk constitutional, with a purpose at the end."

Jean's "purpose" nearly overwhelmed her now. Then in desperation she turned to him, shaking off her tears and diffidence.

"Colonel Douglas, will you help me? Buying and selling is only an honourable exchange, as my schoolmistress used to say. Do you want, do you know any one who wants some early Neapolitans?"

She held up her basket to him as she spoke, with a mixture of audacity and bashfulness that amused the Colonel.

He looked at the cool fresh bunch, with their sweet-scented fragrance, then quietly lifted them out of the basket and dropped half a crown in their place.

"This is a very honourable and pleasant exchange to me," he said, and raising his hat, he walked away.

Jean looked down at her basket, and then after him.

"I like him!" she mentally exclaimed. "He is a gentleman, and he isn't curious!"

Then she sped away to a stationer's and invested her one coin in a small quantity of paints and paper.

The walk home seemed short, but Jean nodded her head as she entered the house.

"It has been worth it, but I could never do it again."

She stationed herself in the kitchen garden that afternoon, and sketched old Rawlings amongst his cabbages with a true artist's delight. The old brick wall for a background, and the fresh green, with the sun upon it around the old man formed a pretty picture. She was almost disappointed that her grandfather did not appear upon the scene, but she was left in peace. Mr. Desmond seldom visited the kitchen garden, and had little idea how his granddaughter spent her days. A week passed. Jean worked on with a feverish excitement. Her scarcity of materials only made her more determined to persevere with the little she had. More than once her grandfather looked at her flushed cheeks and bright eyes, wondering at her animation.

"Jean," he said to her one evening after dinner, "I shall be absent a few days. I am going with Mr. Railton to town."

Jean looked up at him startled.

"Will you leave me some money?" she asked.

"I do not think you will need any. Mary manages the housekeeping."

"But, grandfather, I am penniless. It is dreadful to be kept so. Supposing I was out of doors and met with an accident, and had to go to an inn, or fell into a bog—or—"

Jean stopped her eager speech. She saw the ironical smile that she so disliked.

"Pray continue," Mr. Desmond said, "and give me a reasonable excuse for handing out some money to be squandered on ribbons and laces and sweetmeats!"

Jean's eyes flashed angrily, but her grandfather stopped her protestations by putting half a sovereign into her hand.

"Now what will you do with it?" he said, not unkindly.

Jean threw back her young head a little defiantly. "Feed my mind and heart," she said.

Mr. Desmond laughed.

"And what food do they require?"

"Books and paints."

The reply was prompt and unexpected. Mr. Desmond's brows contracted.

"You know my will about paints," he said.

Then Jean cast prudence to the winds. Her young, passionate soul swelled within her.

"Grandfather," she said, "you hate deceit of any kind and so do I. I have been waiting to tell you. I cannot keep from painting. It is no good. I believe it was born in me. I must do it; I have been painting a picture lately that I feel is the best I have done. I will show it to you if you like."

She darted from the room, returning very shortly with her treasure.

"There!" she said triumphantly as she held it out to him. "I know it is full of faults, but I have had no teaching, and if I can do as well without any help, what should I do under a master?"

It required no keen inspection to tell that Jean's little picture bore the marks of genius.

But she was quite unprepared for the paroxysm of fury that took possession of her grandfather. He seized the picture, and dashing it to the ground, stamped it underfoot. Then with an oath he turned upon her.

"Are you to be a perpetual taunt to me of my son's disgraceful alliance?" he roared. "Am I not to be master in my own house? Have I fed and clothed you all these years to meet with this insolent, ill-bred defiance? What did I tell you a short time ago?"

"That you would wash your hands of me, or words to that effect," said Jean, trembling before him, but steeling herself to withstand his anger. "You have housed and fed me all these years, but you have never loved me. I suppose I remind you too much of my mother. I want to go away from you. I cannot live on here and be kept from using the talent God has given me. As I must and will paint, I mean to go away. I want you to give me some money and let me go."

For a moment Mr. Desmond was taken aback by the girl's impetuous earnestness. But he was a passionate self-willed man who had never in his life been thwarted or contradicted by any of his household, and his temper was entirely beyond his control. He turned upon her in a fury, and Jean quailed before his violent words.

"Go to your room! Don't let me see you again until you are in a proper frame of mind. Do you think I am a man to be trifled with? Your mother brought evil into my family, and you are seeking to follow in her steps. I wish to heaven, I had cast her out when she first appealed to me! Your blood is the same as hers. I was a fool to think I could train you, and turn you out a respectable woman. Do you want to leave me? You can make your choice. If you won't obey, you can go and starve, for not one penny will I give towards your support away from me!"

This, interspersed with some very strong language, was the substance of his speech.

Jean fled up to her room frightened and angry, but not submissive. She did not see her grandfather before he left for London, and was very quiet for the next few days—so quiet that Elsie informed Mary that "the master had broken Miss Jean's spirit entirely."

"She locks herself up in her room for hours together, and walks about with her lips as grim as the master's."

"She is but a child," responded Mary. "She'll learn to give in to the master soon. 'Tis her high spirits that won't bear the curb."