The Storyteller.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1915, Page 9 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

{By L. G. Moberlv).

ROMANCE OF A PORTRAIT.

.. CHA'PTER I. Across th£ "long' "room in Burlington House the- portrait taught and held his gaze 'long b'effire" he could reach the cornel'' where it liung, and threading his '\Vay amongst the crowd of smartly-dfess'ed hi en and women who thronged the great room was no easy matter, even-for a man of Brian \Varing's proportions. His height and his massive build would have made him noticeable in any assembly; but besides these characteristics, the rugged strength of his face and a certain hawk-like keenness in his eyes drew many inquisitive glances in his direction, and people questioned one another as to his identity. Those vividly blue eyes, set in a face bronzed by tropical suns, and the smile, .that had a way of flashing out suddenly, gave a charm that was quite extraordinary to the somewhat fltern ruggedness of his features, and more than one woman turned her head to watch his tall form steadily forcing itself in one direction.

"That man will always reach his goal, whatever it may be," an elderly lady said thoughtfully to her companion. "What a remarkable personality!" "That big chap with the blue «yes and close-cropped hair," the man addressed, looked at the slowly moving figure, "that's Brian Waring, the explorer. For years he has been heaven knows where —in some ungodly wilds. He is only just back; a fish out of water, I should fancy, in' this sort of show." The big man, quietly shouldering his way to the picture he wished to see, was wholly unconscious of the glances and remarks that followed him. He had drifted into the Academy, because on his return to civilisation after long years spent ill savage lands, he felt disposed to see and to do everything that civilised beings around him were doing. But since entering this particular room he had no eyes for the multitude about him, the men and womAi who, to the newly returned traveller, seemed to be so sophisticated, so artificial, so far removed from simplicity: his glance had never wavered from what had first attracted it, a portrait on the opposite wall. After prolonged efforts he elbowed himself at last directly in front of it, and stood silently there, oblivious of the flight of time, unaware of the people who surged around him, passing and repassing, talking, jesting, laughing; realising with the concentration, one thing only—the face of the woman in the picture. Her eyes looked straight into his eyes, and he thought he had never in the whole course of his existence seen anything more sad. And yet the lace was moulded for gladness, not for sorrow. Features oval in shape, delicate in coloring; well-cut lips; a cloud of dusky hair; and eyes that were neither green nor grey, shadowed by soft, dark lashes —all these made up a whole whose very loveliness had drawn him across the room. But the sadness in the deep eyes Jield him rooted to the spot, the sadness of the eyes, and an overmastering longing seized him to see what they would be like if they were glad instead; to sweep the wistfulness away from her lips and to make them smile. She wore a white gown, a great red rose was thrust into its folds, and all the color in the portrait seemed to come from the crimson of the rose and the soft Ted of the woman's lips, for her complexion was clear and pale. But Brian Waring, gazing at her pictured face, took no note of these details. The strength and sweetness of the mouth, the sadness of the eyes, it was these which made so strange an appeal to the man who had come back from the wilds. Smart women had feted and made much of him since his return; in his way he had even been something of a lion. But he shrank from the specimens of modern womanhood he came across, down in the depths of his heart which had never lost its boyishness and simplicity, he cherished an ideal woman, the woman of liis dreams who would be neither smart nor up-to-date, only simple and strong and sweet. And the eyes of the picture held him because they were sweet as well ai sad—in the whole face there was a restful peace. Brian Waring was a man of action, and sometimes, too, a man of impulse. Impulse moved him now. The catalogue gave him no information as to the personality of the lady with the lovely face; the title of the picture was merely one line of poetry: "Within her eve? a world of sadness lies," and the possibility that the portrait might only represent some painter's model thrust itself into Brian's mind. But another glaiice at the picture made him smile at his own thought. If that face was not the face of a woman into whose life some tragedy had actually entered, then all his powers of observation mast- go. for not'v'ng. It was not his way to allow himself to be baffle]; it was true enough that a goal oiue.i.et before him he was seldom, if ever, deterred from reaching it, and he lumed the page of his catalogue quickly, running his finger down the list of "artists' addresses, till he came to t'ii name of Bertram Grainger, the painte* of the portrait. "83, Bradley Fo;*d, X.V*.. ite r-\id. and then, without a second at any of the other portraits adonvng the walls of the Academy, wormed his way through the crowd and out of the building. "Probably a wild goose chase," he reflected, "but I shan't be satisfied till I find out whether that is a real woman or a posing one, and if she is real—" At that point the recurring circle of thought always bloke off, but there a little smile in his eyes and on his lips when presently his cab stopped before a green door set in. a high wall.

The wall ran round a garden set in the angle of two roads* and over the wall's top hung a long spray of crim3on rambler. A foreign servant, with a dark, sinister face, opened the green door, and, having bestowed a scrutinising glance upon him, led him up a path under a pergola of blossoming roses into the house, that stood in a fair-sized garden.

'You wish to see Mr. Grainger?" the servant questioned, when they stood in an oak-panelled hall, whose cool darkness felt refreshing after the dust and glare of the world outside. "He paints on the instant in his studio. I go to fitid if he will see von." The man ushered the visitor into a small sitting-room, whose windows overlooked a green lawn bordered with glaring flower-beds. But Brian barely had time to take in his surroundings when the Berrant returned and led him along £ narrow passage and down a staircase

into a big and sumptuously-furnished studio.

Bertram Grainger stood in the middle of the studio, brushes and palette in his hands, his eyes fixed upon his unfinished painting; but lie turned quickly when Brian's name was announced, and came forward with outstretched hand .

"Your name is a household word," he exclaimed eagerly. "I am honored by your visit." The artist was a short man, thick-set and powerful of build. Brian was moved by a sense of acute repugnance as he looked into the sallow face and brilliant eyes, in which, so it seemed to the explorer, there shone the very spirit of evil. Grainger's thin lips were parted now in a smile, which showed his very white teeth; and Brian was irresistibly reminded of some beast of prey intent on some cruel and bloodthirsty chase. The repugnance he felt lent unusual curtne3S to his speech, and it was unwillingly that he took the artist's outstretched hand. "I have come on a mere matter of business," he said coldly. "I saw a picture of yours to-day in the Academy. It interested me. I should be glad to know if it was painted from a mode), or if it is an actual portrait." Grainger's brilliant eyes narrowed for a moment. He looked at his visitor with a curiously questioning, appraising glance.

"You were interested in my picture," he said slowly, and Brian became aware of the singular charm of his voice. "Well, without conceit, I may own it is good work, perhaps the best I have yet done."

"And it is a portrait?" Brian could not entirely suppress the eagerness in his voice; and into the brilliant eyes watching him there leapt an expression of amusement, or mockery, or both. "A portrait? Oh, yes," he answered, with a little shrug of his shoulders. "I might even have done more to it, but the sitter irritated me. Her emotions ran away with her reason"—again came the shrug of the shoulders, which gave Brian a wild desire to shake him—"but I got what I wanted—l got that look of unfathomable sadness in her eyes. To have got that look was a triumph." The satisfied smile that parted the artist's thin lip 3 filled Brian with a burning wish to strike the sallow face and wipe the smile from it, but he only said quietly: "If she is a real woman, perhaps sho was really sad."

"Oh, she was really sad, right enough!" Grainger laughed. "Jt was not difficult to achieve that. If it had been a trifle less easy she\would have irritated me less; I might even have improved upon the picture. But she aggravated me, and —that was the end." ' I don't understand."

"Oh, it's simple enough." Grainger looked into the other's face with a cynical smile. "She \va, 3 pretty, the original of the portrait, and I had always meant to paint something round those lines about a world of sadness in her eyes, only I never could find anybody look as sad as all that," he laughed sarcastically. "I can't resist a pretty face, you know—, who can? And I did not resist Eipseth Montrose's face. Good Lord! I was only flirting and she was dead serious. But I got the sadness into her eyes, and that picture is going to make me famous."

"Are you going to tell me that for a picture's sake you deliberately used a woman's unhappiness—caused by you, and that you painted in her eyes the sadness which you had brought there?" "If you like to put it. in that way," Grainger answered airily; "I use everything for my art as an author uses everything for copy. I " "Where does she live, the woman whose portrait has brought you fame?" Brian asked coldly. "Oil! at the back of beyond. I cajne on the place by chance —a village dropped into a valley in the middle of Cornwall; Morden by name. Her cottage was called Tweenways. The name caught my eye, and then I asked her. She stood by the gate, laughing. I remember wondering what she would look like with sadness in her eyes." "You infernal blackguard," Brian's voice ranged with indignation. "You unutterably infernal blackguard!" and without another word the tall explorer shot out his arm and gave the artist a smashing blow in the face, which felled him to the ground. Then he walked slowly out of the studio, along the passage, through the sitting-room, and into the oak-pannelled hall, where the servant with the sinister face sat reading a newspaper.

"You had better go and see to your master," Brian said quietly. "I have knocked him down. Give him my card, and look after him," and before the astonished servant could reply the explorer had left the house, shutting the door with a sharp clang behind him. CHAPTER ir. "A village dropped into a valley." The words recurred to Brian's mind as he stood on the upland road and looked over its brim, where it dipped steeply into' the hollow below. Down yonder, where the road brimmed over into the hollow, he could see tall elms, a grey church tower, round which rooks wheeled and cawed, and a cluster of grey houses .nestling together at the valley's bottom. A peaceful place, hidden here amongst the Cornish uplands, "at the back of beyond," yet that beast with the brilliant eyes and mocking smile had come like the Serpent into Eden, to disturb its peace! So Brian reflected, as he turned away from the heather-cover-ed common, basking in the glow of July '.sunshine, and walked down the almost precipitous road that led to Morden. Coming further down the road Brian saw a square house in a garden, surrounded by a wall, across whose top straggled roses and honeysuckle and starry jesamine. Past the church, and across the little village street Brian walked, the kindly Cornish folk giving him friendly welcome as he went, but it was along a little side lane leading to a stretch of lovely woodland that he found the cottage lie sought. It stood at a cornel" where two roads met, a white house covered with creepers, and its name painted black upon the white gate, "Tweenways." A beflagged path of deep red brick led from the gate to an open front door, and on either side of the path was a patch of green lawn bordered with beds, in which a mass of sweet, old-fashioned (lowers grew together in a delicious profusion, and tall lilies nodded against the fence; holly■hocks, tall and stately, showed crimson and pink and yellow blossoms; love-in-the-mist softly blew amidst its laecwork of grey-green leaves; marigolds in flaunting yellow; roianonetts and stocks; all

these grew together in a riot of color and fragrance. Brian laid his hand on the latch of the wicket gate, and without the least conception of what he intended to do next, walked into the garden and along the flagged path between the blossoming beds. But he paused midway, as from the house there caine down the path towards him the woman of the picture, the woman of his dream. She wore white—something very simple that fell in straight lines about a tall, slight figure; But there was no crimson rose at her breast such as the pictured woman had worn, and as he looked at her he knew that the sadness in her eyes was far deeper, far more infinitely sad than the eyes of the picture had shown. A faint surprise flickered over her face when she saw the stranger, and Brian all at once realised that lie had not the slightest idea what lie should say., to her, how lie should explain his presence. And then, because lie was a simple man and very straightforward, and perhaps, too, because he came from the far places of the earth where men know little of equivocation, he did the most direct amf simple thing. He liftgsKhis hat, and said, quietly, with that gentle deference which was his characteristic attitude towards women, "I came because I did not know how to keep away." "I don't' understand," she said. And though she looked startled, she did not shrink away from him. Something in this tall, smiling stranger inspired her with confidence.

"I saw your portrait," the man of direct speech answered her question frankly, "I wanted to see you. I wanted to try—" He broke off abruptly, that sentence must not be ended yet, he realised—it was too soon to explain himself fully, and a dusky color mounted to his forehead as he finished lamely, "Being in the neighborhood, I thought I might venture to call on the original." Her eyes grew dark with pain, but she smiled nevertheless, a pitiful little attempt at a smile that smoto Brian's heart.

"It was kind of you," she said, and her voice quivered, "my aunt is indoors; will you come and speak to her, if you don't mind shouting rather loud, for she is very deaf."

Half wondering at his own temerity, half congratulating himself on his success, Brian followed the tall white figure through the cottage to the garden behind it, where an old lady sat knitting in a big arm-chair. The woods crept close about the garden, and from their depths came the whisper of the wind in the leaves, the murmur of the wood pigeons' coos; but the peffje of the place only seemed to emphasise the haunting sadness in Elspeth Montrose's eyes, the pathos of her smile.

To penetrate the exceeding deafness of the elder Miss Montrose was a task beyond Brian's power, but he gallantly did his best for a quarter of an hour, then raSe to take his leave. %

"One day will you take ine through your beautiful woods?" he said to Elspeth, looking at her again with his arresting smile. "I am going to stay for a little bit at the village inn." "Te stay at the village inn?" They were standing beside the gate into the lane, and there was bewilderment in the glance she lifted to his. "Yes, at the village inn," he repeated firmly. "Shall [ tell you what I want to do, what I mean to do?" For an instant he took her hands into his—his eyes looked deep into hers, "I want to teach you h»w to lo»k happy again; I mean to wipe the sadness out of your eves."

Miss Montrose was not at home, he was told by the little maid who opened the 'door to him when he called at Tweenways two days later. He had refrained from going near the cottage too soon after his visit. He surmised, and rightly, that he had been sufficiently startling on that first occasion, and that time must be allowed to elapse before he made another move. But a little judicious questioning drew from the little maid that Miss Montrose had gone across the wood to see a sick woman, and that the sick woman lived on the edge of the moorland just where the wood ended. A few minutes later and Brian, too, had passed in amongst the spreading oaks and beeches, walking along a moss-grown path, on either side of which spread a veritable sea of bracken amongst which crimson foxgloves, slim and stately, bent their heads to the breeze that ruffled the ferns.

Through the ihterlaced boughs overhead the sunshine flickered down upon the path in a lattice work of light and shadow; birds called softly in the undergrowth, and there were little rustlings that told of small inhabitants scurrying away from the intruder. But Brian saw no sign of human life until, as the trees thinned out, he caught sight of a shoulder of moorland clear cut against the skyline, and set down upon the shoulder a low cottage from whose chimney smoke curled up into the still atr. "The sick woman's house," the explorer reflected, and a second later a gleam o!" triumph shot into his eyes as a tall figure came out of the little place and turned up the moorland path, her white gown shining plainly against the background of heather. She' turned a startled glance upon Brian when presently he reached her side, and the color flashed vividly into her face. "I am surprised " she began, but Brian would not allow her to ftnish her speech. "Wait," he said quickly; "I know you think me either a knave or a madman. lam neither. But I believe in going straight to the point without beating about the bush."

"But how can there be a point to come to when I never saw you until two days ago?" she said, half whimsically, half tremulously. "We are quite strang.-rs; and I don't understand exactly what it is that vou "

"What I want?" he broke in again. "Shall I tell you?" She walked on rapidly up the hillside, but the explorer kept close beside her, his blue eyes looking down with tender amusement at her troubled face. . "I want you to let me be vour friend."

"My friend." sfie answered, with a little mocking laugh. "I am not the sort of woman a man wants for a friend. The man who said he loved me flung me away like an old shoe" —her voice grew vehement. "He took my heart, and he used my face for his work, and then a significant gesture; she laughed a bitter little laugh. "And then I came along," said Brian cheerily, "and I fling him down in his. studio, and left him there to think over things quietly." "You—what?" She faced him fully, her eyes wide with amazement. "I knocked the cur down," Brian said promptly. '•But why did you do it?" she asked, surprise overcoming every other, sensation. "You had never seen me; von know nothing about me even now—excepting that I have been tried and found wanting." "Shall I tell you something?" he said very gently. And before she quite understood what was happening she found herself seated be c Me Mm, fl '"

blossoming heather, in whose flowers tli« bees buzzed drowsily. "You think me extraordinary, almost beyoud the pale! But when I was a little chap ut school J always rushed my goals, and"—lie paused to give his words more significance—"and I have always attained my goals, whether by rushing them, boy fashion, or by sheer dogged obstinacy since I became a man. I have a goal in view now, but I want to tell you .something first." Elspeth murmured something unintelligible, and he went on:

'For years I have been wandering amongst savages i in a land as savage as its people. And through all. my wanderings I carried a dream. 1 dreamt that some day I would come home to the old country and have a home of my own, a home in which there would be my ideal woman, the sort oi woman I have always known I should some day want for my wife—gentle, loving, above all, womanly. After many years I came back to England. I found women who were smart, women who were beautiful, women who were clever, and pushing, and amusing. I did not find any who were womanly. I had nearly made up my mind to go back to my savage lands and never see England any more, when, in a moment of idleness, I went to look at the pictures in the Academy, And there I caught sight of a pictured face that seemed to me just what a woman's face should beonly her eyes were so sad, so desperately sad. I made up my miml then and there. lam not a man who doubts or hesitates long. I knew that if the woman of the picture was a real woman, I wanted to be tiie person to wipe the sadness out of her eyes; I wanted the woman to make the home of my dreams a real home."

When his voice ceased a great stillness seemed to wrap them round, a stillness broken only 'by the whisper of the wind in the trees below them, the murmur of bees among the heather. • "It is all absurd," Elspeth exclaimed suddenly. "You don't know me, I don't know you, and yet you come and say these wonderful things, as if . I can't understand it all. It is like some sort of fairy tale!" "Let me pretend it is a fairy tale," he said, entering into her mood. "In fairyland things happen all at once, and in funny, unexpected ways. Let mc stay down there in that enchanted valley of yours, and yon shall learn to know- me. It all sounds to you absurd now, and for the present ( won't ask you one single thing more than this—let us learn to know each other. By-and-bye you will understand.,." "By-and-bye you will understand." A month later these words came back to Elspeth when she stood in the wood amongst the waving bracken, waiting for the sound of Brian's footsteps on the moss-grown path. They had become friends. They had walked together over the moorland; he had sat with her and her aunt in the little old-world drawing-room—in the rose-scented garden; aad as she waited for him now amongst the bracken his words flashed into her mind: "By-and-bye yon will understand." Did she understand even now, she wondered? She only knew that the big man with the vivid blue eyes gave her a sense of wonderful peace; that his very masterfulness rested her; that the mingling in him of boyish impetuosity and purposeful strength had a fascination that drew her in spite of herself. And, above all. he had brought to her sore heart the healing certainty that just because one man had failed she was not therefore unwanted or unlovable. "I believe I have done what I set out to do!"

She had not heard his step on the patli, his voice sounded, close to lier ear, and she started and turned, to see in his eyes a look that made lier lower her own quickly to the bracken at her feet.

"Do you know the sadness has nearly gone out of your face?" he said. "Today I—have come to ask you whether we can stop playing at fairy tales and come to the real life stories? Will you," he came nearer to lier and drew lier into the shelter of his arms, "will you some day make my dream a reality? Will you let the homo I dreamt about be a real home —and the wife I dreamt about a real wife?" "It is all so absurd," she answered, not drawing away from him. but letting lier face'rest against his coat; "you just fell in love with my picture, and you don't really know "

"Don't I really know?" The touch of bis lips on hers cut short her sentence. "I loved your picture for its gracious womanliness; I find in you all that T saw in your picture, sweetheart, and I have taken the sadness out of your eyes, and there is joy in them instead, only joy!" "AH joy," she answered softly, "all and only joy."