Chapter XVII: Town Friends

"Friendship is the great chain of human society."—J. Howell.

THE marriage took place very quietly one bright frosty morning. Only Mrs. Talbot, Jean, and Colonel Douglas's best man were present. It was their wish to have it performed privately.

Jean's eyes were full of tears, when the parting came. The Colonel looked ill and worn, but his face was illumined with peace and content, and his wife was perfectly oblivious of everything and everybody but him.

As they drove away, Mrs. Talbot turned to Jean.

"That is a marriage that must have Heaven's blessing on it!" she said. "Philip is lucky to have won her at last, when he needs her most. He ought to have been married to her, years ago. I never could understand it. It seems an irony of fate, doesn't it? That they should be allowed such a short time of wedded bliss. But Frances is a sensible woman to have done it. She will be an invaluable nurse to him, and I really could not have left my family to go with him."

Jean felt very forlorn, when they had gone. Mrs. Douglas had let her house to a friend, and Jean was in lodgings with an old servant of hers, who had a house in a quiet little street at the back of the church in Kensington High Street. She was away most of the day, but in the evening, when she came back to her empty rooms, she realised how lonely a girl could be living in London. It was a good thing that she had her interest in Sunnie's picture just now. That occupied her thoughts and attention.

One afternoon, she was walking back to her lodgings, when she met Charlie Oxton.

He greeted her delightedly.

"I've been round to your house and had such an experience. Six young ladies drinking tea with their mamma. You could have knocked me down with a feather! They were all most gushing, and when I asked for your address, tried to look shocked. So, then I explained, I was your cousin and had a perfect right to go to your rooms and have tea or lunch, or dinner as I happened to want it. And I added, 'I'm from the Colonies, and I'm accustomed to straightforward, simple dealing.' And then seeing from their looks they didn't approve, I hooked it."

"But," said Jean, who could not help smiling at this characteristic speech, "I don't intend to offer you hospitality in my rooms. It is one of the things Miss Lorraine begged me not to do. Dear me! I shall never call her Mrs. Douglas. You see she didn't much like my living by myself; but girls do it as a matter of course now, and I am in no ways peculiar. Only I have to be very circumspect in my conduct."

"Bother take circumspection! Let us go and have tea somewhere. I hate English conventionality!"

Jean took him to a favourite tea-shop of hers.

"You have heard that my picture has been taken?" she said.

"No, really? Hearty congratulations. Rawlings must come up. He remembers the crimson rambler, and said only the other day, 'Miss Jean's fortin' be long in comin'. Well, her tooked her way agen the master an' me, and her be bound to suffer!'"

"Do you think they will sky it? Or stuff it, in some dark corner? I'm so anxious, that I long to go and beard the whole lot of them in their den. Who hangs the pictures, Charlie?"

"I'm hanged, if I know! What a rum affair this is of the Colonel's! It has all been done so rapidly that I can hardly believe it. What brought him to the scratch? Why on earth, do two old parties of that age want to spoon? I thought she was too sensible a woman for that sort of thing!"

Jean's eyes flashed.

"She is too sensible for you to discuss at all. I daresay, you can't understand it. They are both of them above and beyond you altogether, and I'll ask you not to mention their names before me, unless you do it respectfully!"

Jean's flashes of temper always amused Charlie Oxton. His eyes twinkled.

"You're awfully handsome when you're roused. I haven't the bump of veneration. Was born without it, they tell me. But I don't want to talk about them. It was quite 'promiskus'! How are your country friends? Awfully good sort they are!"

"I heard from Chris this morning," said Jean, relapsing into calm again.

"And that dreary old brown room you were painting. Is it finished? Has that been offered to the Academy? No? That's a pity. They'll lose something. Are you doing any portraits now? Because I think I could get you some commissions."

"I'm open to any offer," said Jean.

"But you won't paint me."

"No, you're too uninteresting. I like to paint good-looking people."

"Now that's what I call downright wickedness of you art people. You're all for outside show. Dress Vice up in beauty, and you'll paint her! The truly virtuous and intelligent of the earth count for naught. Why do you paint portraits? To perpetuate the individuals after they've gone the way of most men. Why should the homely good folk not be remembered, as well as fashion's beauties?"

"I quite agree with you," said Jean, "and as a matter of fact they often are—if they can afford it. It is only rich people, who order life-sized portraits in oils. But real good people will leave their lives and influence imprinted on the hearts of those who love them, and they will need no portraits to remember them by. The beauties who have nothing but their faces to recommend them, will need to have their pictures taken, if their friends wish to remember them at all."

"Poor Beauties!" said Charlie. "So now I know why you won't paint me. My life and influence has so imprinted itself on your heart, that you will need no portrait to bring me before you. Well—there's something soothing in that! But about this commission. It is an old chap who has been making his pile in Australia. He has had some funny ups and downs, but now he has settled down as a family man and bought an estate in Berkshire, and he wants to decorate his walls with the orthodox oil portraits. His wife vows she won't sit for the biggest painter living, but he is determined to have his own visage on his walls, and I undertook to sound you on the subject."

"I might not give him satisfaction," said Jean, slowly.

"Bless your heart! Anything would satisfy him. I believe I could sketch him off myself. A bald head, two keen far-seeing eyes, smug placid self-satisfied smile, thick plebeian nose, and very big prominent ears. White shirt front and red tie. Place him against a marble pillar, with an Italian stuccoed villa in the background, let his fat hand with two huge rings rest on a greyhound's head, and there you have him!"

"It doesn't sound enticing!"

"But, my dear girl, you don't paint because you like it, do you?"

"Of course, I do."

"I thought you were making it your profession."

"So I am."

Charlie looked at her and shook his head. "You'll never make your fortune," he said.

Jean laughed gaily.

"Not my pile, like your good friend, but I shall get along. I have no expensive tastes, and a simple life suits me best."

"There I'm with you! The more money you have, the more you multiply your responsibilities, worries, and accounts! I can tot up rows of figures, as long as they don't run into more than three or four figures; then I'm stumped! We have a good many tastes in common, Jean."

"Very few I should say," asserted Jean.

He chatted on, driving dull care away, persisted in loading her with flowers, when he left her at her door, and scolded her well, for not being willing to go to a theatre with him. He stayed in town several days, and each day, found him lying in wait for Jean as she came out of her art school. She was quite relieved when he left town. He made her promise to write to him, if she wanted commissions for portraits.

"I run up against a lot of people, am always looking up old chums and going to stay at their places. I'm not like you were—bound and tied to the old man. I told him I must have perfect liberty of action and speech, and he knuckled under, in no time. But I'm often in the way of getting you work, remember; and will be on the look out for a real out-and-out beauty for you! Drop me a line if you think better of my old sheep-farmer. He isn't a bad sort of fellow."

A few days after his departure Jean got the following letter from him—

"MY DEAR JEAN,—You should have seen Rawlings' face when I told him the news! He looked as if I were offering him a mixture of apple dumpling and squashed toads! A kind of proud disgust and of awed contempt showed itself in his smile. 'Ay, sir, if you be speakin' Gospel truth, I be pleased that the maid has not come to ruin. Her were allays so cocksure that her would do it, that I did feel 'twas the Almighty's business to teach her a lesson; but maybe the lesson will come. 'Tis from the top o' the tree, the fall be lowest! Go up to see it, sir? Well, maybe I shouldn't mind that, as long as it be a respectable, nice sort of a pictur! There are picturs, and there are picturs, sir, and 'tis to be hoped that Miss Jean have done her name and fam'ly credit. I be very pleased to hear that her have been doin' her best, but I've never rightly understood this Academy. 'Tis a school for young gents, I reckon; but tis not seemly for Miss Jean to be hangin' her pictur up on their walls!'"

"I can tell you, he'll be a proper treat in town, and we'll surprise you, when we meet you there. Take care of your little self, and for goodness' sake, guard the door of your lodging-house. What would happen to your reputation, if any male species—friend or relative—should leave their card on the doorstep! I gave the old man your news at dinner. I waited till it was nearly over, and then shot forth my explosive bomb."

"It shattered him, you bet! But he didn't move a muscle. In went his
eyeglass, and his glare was stony."

"Have I not requested you never to mention that young person's name to me? Her actions are of no consequence or interest in my eyes, and neither ought they to be in yours."

"'Hum!' I said, but I didn't plague him further."

"Goodbye, my little cousin."

"Your very plain but devoted"
"CHARLES."

"Absurd boy!" was Jean's comment. But she folded up the letter, and put it in her desk.

A short time after this, Mrs. Talbot came to see her.

"I promised Frances to look you up now and then, and I always consider you one of my brother's protégés—the only respectable one he has—excuse plain speaking, my dear! How are you getting on? Is your landlady attentive and obliging? You must come and dine with me one night. I shall be giving one or two quiet little dinners soon. By the by, do you know that Mrs. Gordon is coming up to town? She has taken a house in Chester Square for two months. She is bringing up that little child to a specialist. Dr. Fergusson has been planning it for a long time. I shake my head over it. He says she is strong enough for an operation now, which was talked about a long time ago."

"Really!" exclaimed Jean. "Is there any hope at all about her case? I fancied there was none."

"My dear, you know what doctors are! I believe myself, it will be a useless expense and trouble."

"But Dr. Fergusson must know. He would never let Sunnie suffer unnecessarily. And wonderful things are done nowadays. You have surprised me! I never thought Sunnie could be moved. How will she bear the long journey? When are they coming?"

Mrs. Talbot smiled at her excitement. "They will travel in an invalid carriage, of course, with every comfort. I believe they are to arrive to-morrow—I am not sure. Helen Gordon is an old friend of mine. Would you like to meet her again? I will send you an invitation to dinner the night I am expecting her, if you like."

"Thank you very much, but I don't know if Mrs. Gordon would care about seeing me again. She was very kind to me, but I'm a professional, Mrs. Talbot, and she only had me in her house for business. It is Sunnie that I would really like to see."

"Don't have any foolish pride. Mrs. Gordon will be glad to meet any of my guests. And as to Sunnie, go to see her, whenever you like."

When Mrs. Talbot left, Jean's feelings got the better of her. She danced upstairs to her dingy bedroom, put on her hat, and fled out into the park, with a song of thanksgiving in her heart.

Just when she was feeling most lonely, this news had been brought her. She could hardly believe that in a few days' time, she might meet the ones who were so constantly in her thoughts, and then she wondered how Sunnie would bear the journey, and whether she had any idea of what was going to be done with her.

For the next two days Jean haunted Chester Square. She hardly knew why she did it, but deep down in her heart, she had a secret hope that she might see Dr. Fergusson's tall, upright figure go in or come out of one of the houses. She felt shy about calling, for she did not feel sure of Mrs. Gordon's attitude towards her, but when the third and fourth day passed, and she heard and saw nothing of them, she resolved to venture. She knocked at the door in fear and trembling, and was more relieved than otherwise, when she was told that Mrs. Gordon was out. Then she asked for Sunnie's nurse, and was shown into the drawing-room. In a few minutes, the old nurse appeared, and her face was reassuring.

"Eh, dear Miss Desmond! 'Tis homely to see you, mem, in this great city. The bairn is just wonderfu', but she was awfu' upset by the journey, and we've had to keep her fearsome quiet. My heart misgies me ower this concarn, but 'tis the doctor's will and her mither's, and I'm ne'er the one to speak my mind agen it."

"Could I see her, do you think, nurse?"

"Weel, I'll no say ye mayn't, but the doctor's orders were that she mustna be excited, an' ye know what a bit o' quicksilver it is. There's to be a consultation to-morrow, an' I'm doubtin' if—"

"Never mind," said Jean, swallowing her disappointment bravely. "I will wait. I will leave you my address, Nurse, and then—"

She paused, for she heard a hasty knock at the hall door, and then a quick step that she knew very well.

In another moment the drawing-room door opened, and Dr. Fergusson walked in.