Chapter VI: Disillusion

"To know the world, not love her is thy point:
She gives but little, nor that little long."

WINTER passed. Jean studied hard at her beloved art, spending her leisure time in seeing her various friends and being initiated into Bohemian society. Miss Lorraine did not often interfere with her. Jean was intolerant of any criticism on her friends, but once Miss Lorraine seriously remonstrated.

"Jean," she said, "who was that man you were walking with, when I met you out to-day?"

"He is a great friend of Mr. Blake's-Herbert L'Estrange. He has just had a picture accepted for the Academy. He has been helping me lately. I never knew any one get such rich effects in colour as he does. You would like him, if you knew him, Miss Lorraine."

"Is he French or English?"

"A little of both. His father was French, and he was brought up in France. He is such a well-read man, not like many of them, who never read at all, and he is very fond of poetry. It is strange how he and I like the same authors."

Jean's tone was eager and her face flushed. Miss Lorraine looked keenly at her.

"He does not look prepossessing, Jean. Did the Blakes introduce him to you?"

"I am sure I do not remember. He is coming with us to Paris. I meet him everywhere. I think he is so intellectual looking. He may not be handsome, but if you knew him as I do, you would not mind his looks."

"Jean, dear," Miss Lorraine said kindly, "take a word of caution from me in good part. You have no mother, and an artist's life is full of dangers. Be careful, very careful, whom you make your friends. You will find, as your life goes on, that there are many people whose influence and friendship will hurt instead of help you."

Jean's eyes flashed.

"Mr. L'Estrange does not deserve this. You cannot understand my friends, Miss Lorraine; I do not expect you to. Mr. L'Estrange is a gentleman, and he never forgets it. He and I have mutual likes and dislikes, we have both suffered from our relations on account of art. He is a genius, and I am honoured by his friendship."

"He may be a genius and all that you say, but I do not think he is a good man. It is not often that I speak so strongly, but I know I am a good reader of faces, and his—. I can only say it does not read well."

"You are prejudiced and uncharitable."

Jean dashed out of the room, and Miss Lorraine sighed. When the spring came, the girl went to Paris. She wrote at first pretty frequently; then her letters flagged, finally ceased altogether, and Miss Lorraine took counsel with the Colonel about her.

"It sometimes strikes me, how strangely we are brought into contact with one another," she said, with a little laugh. "Here are you and I worrying ourselves over a girl who has no particular claim upon us, and who resents our interference in her affairs. Shall we put her out of our lives, and let her, as you say, buy her experience?"

The Colonel looked into the fire with knitted brow.

"I am responsible for her leaving her home," he said. "I should never forgive myself, if she came to grief in any way. Write to her continually, Frances, whether she replies or not. Let her see you mean to keep a hold over her. Write to Mrs. Blake."

"I have, but she does not answer. However, I know Jean is in good health, for my friend Miss Greer saw her working at the Louvre the other day."

"Did she speak to her?"

"Just for a few minutes. Jean was not communicative."

"We cannot put her out of our lives," the Colonel went on seriously. "She has been brought into them with a purpose."

Miss Lorraine smiled.

"I was not in earnest, Philip. I know she is one of your big family, and for that reason alone, I shall always take an interest in her. She has much to learn, but there is, if I am not mistaken, a capability and individuality which will never rest until much is learnt."

"May the Great Teacher take her in hand," said the Colonel musingly.

Miss Lorraine took her friend's advice. She wrote to Jean regularly and continuously through all the summer months. Once she had a short, hurried letter.

And then in October, Jean came back to her. She was sitting at her tea on a wet and stormy afternoon. Doughty was by her side. She had been out to see a sick woman in her district, and had come home tired and a little depressed. Leaning back in her chair, she was meditating upon the suffering in some lives and the impossibility to relieve it, when the door burst open, and Jean almost threw herself into her arms.

"Will you have me, Miss Lorraine? I am sick of everything, and I've come back to you!"

Miss Lorraine kissed her affectionately.

"I knew I had not lost you," she said, and then she made her sit down, and would hear nothing, till she had had some tea and had lost some of the tired lines in her young face.

She was looking very pretty, and had a certain indescribable French daintiness about her that had evidently been acquired in Paris.

"I am dying to tell you everything!" she said. "Don't have lights, let me tell you in the dusk."

So, when the maid had removed the tea things, Jean sat down on the rug and rested her head against Hiss Lorraine's knee. But she did not speak for some minutes, and when she did all eagerness had vanished from her tone.

"I have been doing a lot of thinking lately," she began slowly. "Why is it, I wonder, that artists in their love and appreciation of all that is beautiful seem to fail in—well—in moral beauty? Their lives don't correspond with their creed. Why should art, which ought to be such an ennobling pursuit, be attended on all sides by such enervating, demoralising effects?"

Miss Lorraine was silent. Then after a pause, she said—

"It is too often mere eye worship, perhaps."

"I am sick of it all!"

Jean's tone was vehement and bitter.

She went on—

"I haven't a friend left! Every one has failed and disappointed me."

"What about the Blakes?"

Jean looked uncomfortable.

"I have parted with them as friends. I am sorry for him, very, but I never wish to see her again. He is miserable, and she makes him so. I don't wish to tell tales of other people, Miss Lorraine, but her head has been turned by a—a horrid man. I don't think she means any harm, but she is for ever with him, and he is painting a picture with her. Do you remember how I told you the Blakes painted their pictures together?—she putting the landscape in, and her husband the figures? This man has taken her husband's place; he puts in his figures, and she paints the background. I hate his figures, and I hate his models. Mrs. Blake laughed, and told me I was prudish, but other people, as well as I, dislike Monsieur Tillôt's work. Oh, I can't tell you all; but I have felt lately that I will never touch a paint-brush again. The accessories of art in Paris have sickened me!"

Miss Lorraine listened. She knew she had not heard all, nor arrived at the true cause of Jean's distaste for her Bohemian life.

Then she asked very quietly—

"And has Mr. L'Estrange disappointed you?"

Jean gave a little shiver, and buried her hot cheeks in Miss Lorraine's gown.

"If I don't tell you to-night, I never shall," she said, with a note of desperation in her tone.

Then she blurted out bluntly—

"He—he never rested, till he made me like him, and two days ago—is it? It seems a year—I found out, he was a married man."

"My poor little Jean!"

Miss Lorraine put her hand softly on her head. And then the tired, excited girl burst into a passion of tears.

"I never wish to see any of them again!" she sobbed. "Every one seems a lie and a fraud, and Paris is a hateful city. It seems to make every one vile? Fancy his wife coming to me! A little half-starved woman supporting herself by needlework, and he—oh, I can't tell you! I will never, never believe in any one again!"

Much more she said in the dusky twilight, and though Miss Lorraine's heart ached for the girl's distress, she could not but be thankful that she had not sunk under the demoralising influence of her Parisian life.

When dinner-time came, Jean recovered herself, but her white cheeks and dark circles round her eyes told of her fatigue.

She talked of other matters for the rest of the evening, but when bed-time came, she put her arms round Miss Lorraine's neck.

"If I had not had you to come to, what should I have done? I knew you would receive me, though I have behaved so badly. I have been infatuated all the summer, and now I seem like Marius among the ruins! I said to myself, 'I will go back to her; it would be bliss to be one of her servants, for I should feel so safe!'"

And when Miss Lorraine had given her a good-night kiss and retired to her own room that evening, she thanked God that she had been able to preserve the link unbroken between this impetuous young girl and herself.

Jean was very quiet for the next few days. She unpacked her things, and settled down into Miss Lorraine's even, regular life. But when visitors arrived in the afternoon, she slipped away to her own room.

"I don't want to see anybody," she said; "not even Colonel Douglas."

Miss Lorraine respected her wish. She knew that she needed time and quiet to recover the mental shock that she had received.

And Jean's strong vigorous nature would not be suppressed for long. Of that she felt positively certain.

One afternoon, Miss Lorraine came in, and found Jean lying back in an easy chair with "Aurora Leigh" in her hand.

She dropped the book on the floor, and clasped her hands behind her head.

Looking up at her friend she said, with some of the old mischievous light in her eyes—

"Poets are shams, are they not? They dress everything up in such beautiful language that you begin to think that life is a beautiful thing after all, instead of being such a hollow delusion as it is!"

"You remind me of the story of the chaffinch, who built her nest upon a rotten branch of an old elm. When a storm came, it fell, and her nest was a ruin. 'Ah,' she said to a group of sympathising birds who gathered around her, 'let this be a lesson to you, not to trust to trees. They look so strong but they're all sham, rotten through and through. They were never meant to bear the weight of a nest!'"

Jean smiled, and then shook her head.

"I am not going to build again, Miss Lorraine. My life is ruined. My art was my god, and like Dagon it has fallen, and has broken into a thousand pieces!"

"May all such gods fall!" said Miss Lorraine gravely.

Jean looked at her in astonishment.

"That sounds like a curse. Do you hate art, Miss Lorraine?"

"No, but it ought not to be raised up as a god."

Jean was silent. Then she said suddenly—

"What is to become of me? What am I to do with my life?"

This egotistical question was not answered, for, visitors were announced, and they proved to be Colonel Douglas and his sister, Mrs. Talbot. Jean for an instant looked as if she meditated flight, then she thought better of it. She had seen the Colonel several times, and though she had not told him as much as she told Miss Lorraine, he knew pretty well what had caused her sudden return. He had had several long discussions with Miss Lorraine, and had now come with a formulated plan in his head for Jean's welfare.

The conversation was general for a time, then Mrs. Talbot said suddenly—

"Frances, I am come to ask a favour. I want Jean to take pity on me. I have promised a great friend of mine to send some one down to paint a picture of her little girl, and I can find no one to do it. Everybody seems too busy. It must be a lady, as she wants her to stay in the house, and it is her fastidiousness on this point that makes my task so difficult. Would Jean undertake it? My brother thought it possible she might."

Miss Lorraine looked across at Jean with a little smile.

"Well, Jean, speak for yourself."

"I have given up painting," Jean said shortly.

"But I heard from some one who knows you that you are so good at children's faces," said Mrs. Talbot persuasively. "And this child is a true artist's subject. She is a lovely little thing, I believe, but chained to her couch. It is her mother's greatest grief, for she is a hopeless cripple."

"I am not good enough at portrait painting to go," said Jean, but she seemed to be wavering.

"Mrs. Gordon is not particular. As long as you make a pretty picture of her child, she will be satisfied."

"Where do they live?"

"In Scotland. I am sure you will be happy there. It is a delightful old house to stay in."

"Think it over, Jean," said Colonel Douglas. "I am going to Scotland myself next week to shoot, and if you liked the idea, we could travel down together."

"We were just talking over winter plans when you came in," Miss Lorraine remarked. "I was hoping to have Jean with me, but I will spare her willingly, if she likes to go. It seems a chance for her."

"A chance for what?" asked Jean quickly, and a little rebelliously.

"For doing a kindness to others," the Colonel said gravely.

Jean looked at him in silence, and then a twinkle came into her eyes.

"You always think everybody is like yourself, Colonel Douglas. I don't live for others as you do, but entirely for myself."

"You mustn't make such a confession," said Mrs. Talbot, laughing. "We keep such facts to ourselves. There are very few people in the world who are able to be entirely selfish. Our circumstances and our families generally step in and spoil such a rôle."

"What a blessing they do!" Miss Lorraine remarked.

Jean said no more.

Two days afterwards, she asked Miss Lorraine to come out and shop with her.

"If I go to this place, I shall want some warm things," she said. "I have always heard that Scotland is like the Arctic Regions in winter."

Miss Lorraine responded at once. As they were walking towards the shops Jean said—

"Do you think me weak in changing my mind so soon? I meant to give it all up, but in spite of all that I have been through, I feel a longing to be at work again."

"My dear child, I am so glad to hear you say so. Your Paris experience was unfortunate, but it isn't your art that is to blame."

"No," said Jean. "You take Ruskin's view that it can be a great moral teacher. But why is it not? There must be something wrong somewhere."

"Every gift that is given to us can either be used for good or evil, I believe," said Miss Lorraine gently.

"I had a friend once who was a Dutch painter, and what do you think he used to say? 'Either God or the devil holds the painter's brush.' It seems strong language, but I believe he had got hold of a great truth. It applies to every talent that is given to us. Take music, or literature. It is just the same. We think we are so strong and independent, but in reality our lives and actions are being shaped by one or other of the two great powers. If the Prince of this World holds our brush, our pen, our voice, then our talent will further his cause."

Miss Lorraine was a reserved woman, and did not often touch on serious subjects. Jean listened, and was impressed.

"But, Miss Lorraine," she said hesitatingly, "that seems a crude statement. I daren't say that God influences my actions, but I would be horrified to think that the devil did."

"From the power of Satan unto God."

Miss Lorraine seemed to murmur the words rather than say them.

It was a strange prelude to shopping, but Jean had much to feed her thoughts that morning, in addition to her purchases.

She was very busy for the next few days, and very sorry when the time came to part with her friend.

"Promise me," she said impulsively, "that if I make a mess of this second step of mine, that you will receive me back with just as warm a welcome as you have done now. I am making a fresh start, but I don't feel so sure of myself as I did before, nor yet so young!"

"Lesson number one," said Miss Lorraine to herself, as she gave the promise required.