Chapter X: Centres

"Not by looking within, but by living without,
This centre of self, shall a man grow wise."—Lytton.

META drove Jean over to Mrs. Fergusson's in a small dog-cart. It was a bright crisp afternoon, and Jean enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine, and the long stretch of hills and valleys that lay before them as they went.

They drove into the nearest town, which was five miles away. Mrs. Fergusson's house stood alone on the outskirts of the town, and was surrounded by high brick walls and a thin fringe of Scotch firs and larches. They were ushered into an upstairs drawing-room, but it was her "at home" day, and the room was full of people.

"Lots of these are Edinburgh folk," whispered Meta. "She always gathers clever literary people round her."

And then, stepping up to the hostess, Jean was introduced. Mrs. Fergusson was a tall, handsome old lady. Her white hair and brilliant dark eyes gave her a striking individuality. She looked at Jean kindly.

"The young portrait painter who is staying at Mrs. Gordon's? I am glad to meet you, my dear."

"I told her you would like her because she has an object in life," said Meta, a little saucily.

"Is it painting?" asked Mrs. Fergusson quietly.

Jean looked up at her frankly.

"I don't think it is altogether," she said. "It doesn't satisfy me."

"I am glad to hear that."

"Well," said Meta, looking puzzled, "I should have thought, if a girl throws away a fortune for it, as Miss Desmond seems to have done, it ought to be her object in life, if it isn't."

"You don't quite understand," said Jean. "It was not for painting, so much as for liberty, that I left my grandfather."

"Ah," said Mrs. Fergusson, "liberty is the young people's god nowadays."

Jean fancied she saw reproach in her eyes.

"It doesn't sound nice," she admitted hastily, "but if you knew my circumstances you would understand better. I was becoming a vegetable; nothing more or less would have pleased my grandfather."

"How is little Sunnie?"

Mrs. Fergusson quietly ignored Jean's speech. It made her feel ashamed of protruding her own personality before a comparative stranger.

"She is not well to-day, poor mite! When I left her she was longing for her doctor."

Mrs. Fergusson smiled.

"You have a fortunate subject for your study. I can imagine no greater pleasure than painting such a child, if art is your forte."

She moved away to speak to some one else. Jean was disappointed. She would like to have talked with her longer. Meta had left her and was having an animated conversation with a tall handsome man who was standing in the deep bay window with one or two other young people.

Jean sat down by an old lady, who eyed her curiously. In a few minutes they drifted into talk.

"Is Dr. Fergusson here?"

"Indeed, no," replied her neighbour, with a strong Scotch accent, "he'll be away visiting and curing his patients. He's a busy man, Leslie Fergusson is; not after George's pattern over there, who whiles away his time in ladies' drawing-rooms, and makes his mother wish she hadn't brought him into the world at all!"

"Is that Dr. Fergusson's brother? I did not know he had one."

Jean was smiling at the old lady's energetic disapproval.

"There are only the two, but I always say it is one too many for their mother's peace of mind! Clever? Ay, he may look so, and I will not say he isna, but he uses up his brain in composing trashy poems for local papers, and cultivating compliments and flirtations with any pretty lass about. He will tell you he is a barrister in Edinburgh. He's a briefless one, and will be never anything else in my estimation!"

Jean was silent. Her eyes left Meta and her companion, and travelled after Mrs. Fergusson. She longed, as she saw her move about and entertain her guests, to come one afternoon when she had no visitors and have her to herself. And she began to feel a little lonely. Every one seemed to know each other, and call each other by their Christian names. She realised that she was a stranger in a strange land, and thought it a little ill-natured of Meta to forsake her.

Then, in another moment, Mrs. Fergusson was before her and speaking to her.

"Miss Desmond, I would like to show you some favourite pictures of mine. They are in the library; will you come?"

"With the greatest pleasure."

Jean crossed the room with her in quite a flutter of delight.

As they passed up a low staircase, Mrs. Fergusson laid her hand on her arm.

"And how do you like us?" she asked, quaintly. "I hear this is your first visit to Scotland."

"Yes," said Jean impulsively. "It is my first visit, but I find Scotch people are hard to know. I don't think I should ever make friends here. I am willing, but—well—perhaps Mrs. Gordon is extra difficult to know, and of course, I am in a peculiar position. Everybody is very kind, but—"

"But they don't embrace you with open arms? No, they will not do that. We are slow and cautious folk, and take time to form friendships."

Jean coloured.

"I have no right to speak so, only I can't help getting interested in people. I just love little Sunnie, and hoped to like her mother. I feel so sorry for her. But I am nothing to any of them. Meta is very friendly, but she is variable."

Mrs. Fergusson looked at Jean rather searchingly.

"My dear," she said, "round whom or what does your life centre?"

Jean gazed at her uncomprehendingly.

Mrs. Ferguson smiled.

"I am not going to preach you a sermon," she said. "Now what do you think of these?"

The library was hung with numbers of valuable paintings, many of them genuine works of the old masters. Jean's eyes brightened. She forgot herself, and for the next ten minutes, became quite absorbed in them. Mrs. Fergusson's comments, and the information she gave Jean, proved her to be a true lover as well as a patron of art.

When they returned to the drawing-room, tea was being handed round, and shortly afterwards, Meta and Jean took their departure.

"Well?" asked Meta. "How did you get on with the old lady?"

Jean resented her tone.

"I don't think you went to see her this afternoon," she retorted.

Meta gave a low laugh.

"No; I took you to see her. But I told you what to expect. What do you think of George Fergusson?"

"I had no opportunity to judge. I was told he was a ne'er-do-weel and spent his life in drawing-rooms."

"What old cat told you that?"

Meta's tone was indignant.

"He very seldom appears on his mother's 'at home' days. He is nearly always in Edinburgh. He is quite as clever as the doctor, and much more genial and brilliant in society."

Jean made no reply.

After a few minutes she said—

"Why did you never tell me there was another son? I thought Dr. Fergusson was the only one. He never mentions his brother."

"Leslie never talks of his own people or of himself at all. I wonder you have not discovered that. And George is not often at home. They hardly ever meet. How would you like Mrs. Fergusson as a mother-in-law? Do you think she would make a nice one?"

Jean looked at Meta in astonishment; then she said quietly—

"I should not think Dr. Fergusson was at all a marrying man."

"Leslie! Gracious, no! If he ever marries, it will be Aunt Helen. You look surprised, but he is so devoted to Sunnie, that it would be a good arrangement all round. And if there is any one that Aunt Helen cares for, it is he."

This idea was such a novel one to Jean that she took time to consider it.

Meta rattled on—

"I told you that I would let you know my present purpose when we came away from Mrs. Fergusson's. Can you guess?"

"Yes," said Jean, smiling at her frankness. "You wish to become her daughter."

"Hush, you needn't proclaim it! George and I have known each other for years. There is an understanding between us, but it's a question of money. Of course if anything happened to Mrs. Fergusson, the sons would be well off. She is a very wealthy woman."

"But if I were a man," said Jean hotly, "I would earn my own living, not wait in idleness for money that I didn't make."

"Would you?" said Meta, in an offended tone. "You would be an immaculate being, then!"

Conversation languished after this. Each girl pursued her own thoughts.

When they arrived home, Jean's first question was about Sunnie. Mrs. Gordon answered her gravely—

"She is better. She has now gone to sleep. Dr. Fergusson has been to see her, and has just left."

Jean went to her room. There she sat down by her fire, and went into a reverie, from which she did not rouse herself till it was time to dress for dinner. The Fergusson family were engrossing her thoughts at present.

"I wish I could know Mrs. Fergusson. And I should like to see the doctor in his own home. He seems unapproachable, unless in Sunnie's company. I am sure he is truly good; but then most of my friends are that. I am sure that Colonel Douglas and Miss Lorraine are. And Mrs. Fergusson has a way of asking the same kind of questions that they do. 'Round what or whom does my life centre?' Round myself. I can answer that easily enough. But the answer would not please her. I wonder if it would the doctor. I think I shall try to get his opinion on the subject."

This idea she carried out a day or two afterwards. She was painting Sunnie, and he had been at the piano carrying them through flights of fancies till Sunnie hardly realised where she was.

"Come back to earth, Sunnie," Jean said, laughing. "You look too far away for me to paint. I shall have to get a telescope to see you with."

"Like the stars," said Sunnie dreamily. "I should like to float through the sky on a star, wouldn't you?"

"I think I should prefer the moon," said Jean; "a new moon would be most comfortable."

"The moon turns round the earth, doesn't it?" asked Sunnie, bent on getting information.

"Yes," replied the doctor; "the moon is our satellite. Do you know what a satellite is?"

"No."

"A revolving follower."

Jean saw her opportunity.

"I suppose people are very like planets," she said. "They must all have a centre round which they revolve."

Dr. Fergusson looked at her rather keenly.

"It's a good thing to know what our centre is."

"I should think it was generally the same in every case," said Jean flippantly. "Myself is my centre; isn't it yours?"

The doctor did not answer. He left the piano and came and stood behind her.

"You are managing your firelight well," he said.

Jean's brush stopped working.

"What ought to be the centre of our lives?" she persisted.

"The same as our earth's—the sun."

His tone was grave and quiet.

"Oh!" said Jean, with impatience in her tone. "I wish we didn't keep twisting round to religion. I never could be a saint! I have no wish to be one."

"I think," said Dr. Fergusson, ignoring her speech, "that there are three centres round which most people gravitate: Themselves, as you say, and that centre is the poorest and most unsatisfying of all. Then, the centre of others. It is a wider and more beneficial one. But our Maker created us to revolve round Him. We shall have mistaken our purpose in life, if we do aught else."

"I always have made mistakes," said Jean, "and I shall continue doing it to the end."

"Don't spoil your life here, child, for eternity has begun with you already, remember; and we are told that as a tree falls, so it will lie."

He placed his hand on her shoulder as he spoke.

Jean remembered the light pressure of it for long afterwards, and his words left a heavier pressure on her soul.

She made no reply. Her flippancy died away.

Her heart was saying in the midst of some painful throbbing, "With his hand upon me, I could be anything he liked to make me."

And then her cheeks burnt at the thought, and she recommenced her painting with a fierce abruptness that showed itself in her face.

Dr. Fergusson noted that look, and he turned to Sunnie.

"Now," he said, "I am off. And you won't see me again for a whole week. I am going to Edinburgh on business."

"Ah," said Sunnie, taking hold of one of his hands and laying it against her cheek, "you'll have to see a lot of strange and funny things to tell me when you come back. I like to hear about big towns where the children see no fields and have houses and chimney-pots peeping in at every window. Miss Desmond will have to tell me stories till you come back, and we'll make up what you're doing while you're away, won't we?"

She looked round for Jean, but she was busy packing up her things and moving her canvas away. She was nowhere to be seen, when Dr. Fergusson was taking his departure.