THE MAKING OF A WOMAN

BY

AMY LE FEUVRE

AUTHOR OF "PROBABLE SONS," "THE MENDER," "A BIT OF ROUGH ROAD," "HEATHER'S MISTRESS," ETC., ETC.

LONDON

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

4 BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.4

Made in Great Britain Printed by Unwin Brothers, Ltd. London and Woking

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE CHISEL TOMINA IN RETREAT BRIDGET'S QUARTER DECK THE CARVED CUPBOARD A DAUGHTER OF THE SEA HEATHER'S MISTRESS HER HUSBAND'S PROPERTY JOYCE AND THE RAMBLER THE MAKING OF A WOMAN THE MENDER ODD MADE EVEN OLIVE TRACY DWELL DEEP A HAPPY WOMAN THE CHATEAU BY THE LAKE THE DISCOVERY OF DAMARIS

OF ALL BOOKSELLERS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. A STAGNANT ATMOSPHERE

II. REBELLION

III. A SPEEDY RETURN

IV. A FRIEND IN NEED

V. A NEW LIFE

VI. DISILLUSION

VII. "SUNNIE"

VIII. "AN OUTSIDER"

IX. THE FIVE MARGARETS

X. CENTRES

XI. "WORTH SENDING FOR!"

XII. AN EVENTFUL RAILWAY JOURNEY

XIII. KINGSFORD FARM

XIV. CHARLIE OXTON

XV. A SUBSTITUTE

XVI. A DOCTOR'S VERDICT

XVII. TOWN FRIENDS

XVIII. SUNNIE'S MOTHER

XIX. SUCCESS

XX. TWO LETTERS

XXI. THE STRUGGLING PROFESSIONAL

XXII. IN DIRE STRAITS

XXIII. AN ARRIVAL

XXIV. THEIR FUTURE

XXV. LOOKING BACK

THE MAKING OF A WOMAN

CHAPTER I

A STAGNANT ATMOSPHERE

"God's silence on the outside of the house, And we who did not speak too loud within."—Aurora Leigh.

SHE sat at her window overlooking the wide and dreary expanse of marshland. A faint streak of light near the horizon was all that could be seen of the sea. No trees or buildings broke the monotonous scene, and Jean's deep inquiring blue eyes sought in vain for anything to brighten her landscape. She was young, she was vigorous and healthy, and her spirits were good as a rule; yet to-day she was in the depths of depression, and the grey mist that was slowly rolling in from the ocean and obliterating the russet-brown rushes and the coarse dank grass that stretched for so many miles in front of her, only seemed a fit emblem of the cloud over her soul.

She threw up her head at last with a weary sigh.

"He is my grandfather!" she exclaimed aloud. "My father's father! But oh! If he had been my mother's father, how differently I should feel!"

She looked round her room, which was a large one, though barely and insufficiently furnished. Her eyes fell on a small oil painting on the wall. It was the portrait of her mother. The broad white brow, the delicately chiselled little nose, and sweet tremulous lips with their pathetic droop, and the deep earnest, soul-searching eyes, all combined to portray a sweet and beautiful woman. Jean inherited her mother's brow and eyes; her nose and mouth were more decided in character, her chin round and determined, and humour lightened the corners of her closely-shut lips. As her eyes met the ones in the portrait, she suddenly saw a scene before her. It had been enacted in this very room many years ago. A tiny curly-headed girl in black frock and white pinafore stood hugging a picture to her breast, and defying a stern old man before her.

"You sha'n't have my mother's picture! You've tooked her away from me and locked her up in a box, and she made this picture for mine own self, and I sha'n't give it to you! I shall grow up a big girl and paint millions of pictures—more than any one else in the world!"

The old man made a step forward, and the much-prized picture was torn from the child's tiny grasp. It was a pretty sketch of an old Italian châlet with a group of children gathering flowers in the foreground. On the floor were various bits of paper and a box of paints. Mr. Desmond had surprised his little granddaughter in one of her first efforts to follow in the steps of her artist mother. She had been happy all the morning with one of her mother's paintings before her, and had with untiring zeal been attempting to reproduce it upon scraps of writing paper. Much paint on fingers and pinafore was the result, also certain daubs of colour on the paper that meant much to her small mind, but very little to any one else.

"Listen to me!" was the wrathful exclamation as the old man, picture in hand, towered above her. "My son disgraced himself by marrying your mother. He could have allied himself with the oldest family in the county, and he refused. He died a beggar in Italy, and sent me his wife and child to support. I took you in for his sake; you bore his name, and when your mother had the audacity to sell her paintings with my son's name upon them, I forbade her to touch a brush or pencil again as long as she was under my roof. She obeyed me, and now that she is dead, am I to stand still and see you strive to make yourself perfect in the art that bewitched and ruined my only son? Who dared to give you pencil and paints?"

The small child was not awed, as her mother had been.

"I shall draw pictures every day, and you're a wicked man, grandpapa! Nurse did buy a paintbox for me, and if you take it away, I shall paint out of your ink-pot! I will! I will paint pictures like mother did!"

Jean smiled as she thought of the small fury dancing up and down, but she frowned when she recollected the summary chastisement that followed, and the consequent collapse and penitence of the motherless little one.

And then her mind left the past and dwelt in her present.

It was a very grey monotonous one, but there were gleams of brightness in it. She lived alone with her grandfather in an old stone house on the border of the marsh. For five years, she had been to a small private school in the neighbouring town, about nine miles away, and then at seventeen, her education was supposed to be complete. She came back, and was installed as her grandfather's housekeeper and companion.

She was fond of music, but there was no piano in the house; a great reader, but the only room that contained any books was her grandfather's library, in which he sat and dared any one to molest him. Drawing and painting were forbidden pastimes. At school, she had envied her fellow pupils who used to attend an art school close by; but, though she had never had a lesson, and in spite of her grandfather's prohibition, she was seldom without a pencil and sketch-book. Beauty in any shape or form intoxicated her; her lesson-books had not a margin that was not covered with faces and forms of all descriptions. When she returned home, she never rested till she had copied her mother's portrait, and as she traced the delicate, pensive features, her whole heart went out in love to her young mother, whose spirit had been crushed and broken by the tyranny of her father-in-law. When that occupation was finished, Jean looked around her, wondering how she would pass her time.

Four elderly servants formed the household—two men and two women. John and Mary were husband and wife; John was butler and valet to Mr. Desmond, Mary the cook. Elsie was the housemaid, and was a soured, miserable woman through numerous misfortunes in her life—chiefly the iniquities and treachery of some of her early lovers. Rawlings was gardener, and was the most cheerful individual of the community.

"Are you feelin' low?" he would say. "Come into the open air and it will blow away your feelin's!"

It was in the garden that Jean eventually spent most of her time. She learnt the times and seasons of every plant and flower from the old man; she was initiated into the mysteries of grafting, potting, and pruning. There was not a big flower garden; the wind swept over the lawn, and the salt spray stunted and burnt the trees and shrubs. It stood in the front of the house, unprotected from the open marshland, but the kitchen garden behind was encircled by four high walls, and it was there that Jean and Rawlings talked and worked together.

But lately the stormy spring weather had laid Rawlings low with an attack of rheumatism, and Jean had shunned the garden.

She had taken the opportunity to steal into the library when her grandfather was interviewing a tenant of his in the servants' hall. And when he returned, she was too deep in a volume of Scott's poems to notice his approach.

He looked at the girl as she sat on the floor by his bookcase, her head resting against the books behind her, and her lap full of odd volumes she had been glancing at. And then, harshly, he brought her out of the stirring scenes of battle and of love in which her soul was feasting.

"Did I give you leave to touch my books?"

Jean started to her feet and faced her grandfather with sparkling eyes.

"No," she said with spirit, "but I am hoping every day that you will. Grandfather, I cannot live this life much longer. You are starving me whilst you are surrounded with plenty. Let me share some of your books with you."

Mr. Desmond stooped and took up the book that she had laid down.

"Poems!" he sneered. "When a woman surfeits herself on romances and poetry, she lays the foundation for worse to follow. No, Jean; keep to your own province and let me keep to mine. Books are for men, household tasks for women. Let Mary teach you to cook a dinner, and Elsie to mend the house-linen. And never let me find you in this room again, unless I send for you!"

"But," argued Jean, stung to the quick by the contempt expressed in her grandfather's tone, "I have a brain as well as you. You don't want two cooks in the house nor two women to mend the linen. I have nothing to do these wet days. If you will not let me read your books, give me money to buy some myself. You will hardly let me read the newspaper. I shall turn into an imbecile, if I am treated like this! Oh! If I had money, how different my life would be here!"

Passion was in her tone. He waved her away like a naughty child.

"I clothe you and feed you. You want no more."

But Jean would not be dismissed.

"Grandfather, if you do not let me read, I shall paint. I shall make it my occupation in life."

The old man glared at her.

"If I ever catch you at it," he roared in fury, "I'll cast you out of this house for ever!"

"Perhaps," muttered Jean, "that would be the best thing that could happen to me!"

She left him, and went up to her room.

Would life always be like this? she wondered, and sitting at her window, gloom descended on her soul. Then she went to her bookcase and discontentedly viewed its contents. A Bible, a prayer-book, and a dictionary, half a dozen children's story books, and Boswell's "Life of Johnson." The latter was the only prize she had earned at school, and she had read it through already five times.

"If only I had money of my own!" she sighed. "I wonder if I could by any possibility earn any!"

Then she started up. "I will go out," she resolved; "as Rawlings says, it will 'blow away my feelin's'!"

She put on her thick coat and hat, and in a few minutes was treading the flat dreary road that led by the side of the marsh to the nearest town.

It was already getting dusk; a flock of wild ducks suddenly rose close to her, and flew screaming over the marsh towards the sea. There was no wind; the croaking of frogs seemed the only sound that broke the monotonous silence. She looked around her with keen alert eyes, but her gaze fell on stunted gorse bushes, and beds of the green rushes that were so familiar a landmark in this part of the country.

"Oh!" she said impatiently to herself, as she threw back her head with a quick, imperious gesture, "I know this all so well, that I could paint it with my eyes shut! It's a deadening part of the world to live in. Stagnant life, and I am beginning to think that mine is like it!"

Then she looked eagerly in front of her. Two figures were walking towards her. One of them she recognised. He was a friend of her grandfather's, who lived about three miles away at his place called the Hermitage, and on account of his quiet and studious habits was nicknamed "the hermit" by his acquaintances.

Mr. Desmond had a good many friends in the literary world, and it was of no uncommon occurrence for two or three men suddenly to turn up and dine and sleep with no previous intimation of their arrival. Jean often wished women would accompany them, but this was never the case. Old Mr. Desmond looked upon the weaker sex as being utterly unfit to converse intellectually with learned savants. He had never been a society man. His wife had died four years after his marriage, and since her death, he had become entirely absorbed in his books. Jean never had much to say to the men who frequented her grandfather's house. She took her seat at the dinner table, but did not see them afterwards. They looked upon her as a schoolgirl still, and were like her grandfather, more interested in science than in women.

Mr. Railton, "the hermit," was the one she knew and liked best. She quickened her pace, and a bright smile came to her lips as she greeted him.

"You are taking a constitutional," he said in his grave courteous manner. "I was bringing a friend of mine to see your grandfather this evening. Let me introduce him to you—Colonel Douglas. He has just come home from wanderings in Persia."

Jean held out her hand. "Then, you are sure of a warm welcome from grandfather," she said, "for the East is his pet part of the world."

As she gazed at the newcomer with some interest, she was conscious of an amused scrutiny in his eye. He was a tall well-knit man, with bronzed face and dark hair, and a certain humorous twist of countenance softened the otherwise stern ruggedness of feature.

"Not quite so dry and old as most of them," she thought, and she noted with appreciation his attire which, though irreproachable for a country gentleman, had a smartness and up-to-date appearance that was not usual amongst her grandfather's friends.

"And what is your favourite part of the world?" asked Colonel Douglas. "This?"—with a wave of his hand over the desolate marsh.

Jean was quite taken aback. She was not accustomed to be asked what were her likes or dislikes. She looked up at him earnestly.

"I should be happy anywhere away from this!"

A hidden fire and passion leapt to her eyes as she spoke, then she passed on, and the two men went their way.

"A sleeping volcano," said the Colonel. "Who is she?"

"The only granddaughter of Desmond—a good little thing in her way, I believe. She has not long been home from school. It is a dull life for her."

They commenced to talk of other things.

Jean soon came to a standstill.

"Of course, they're coming to dinner. I wonder if Mary knows. I don't believe she does. Mr. Railton won't make any difference, but this stranger—he is accustomed to good dinners, I feel sure; I think I will go back and warn her."

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?"