A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette. Charlotte M. Brame
the sedulously deaf ears of Doris.
Such happened to be the case one August night, and set the beauty thinking. She was perched on the sill of the dairy window, next morning, watching Mattie make butter, but her brow wore a perplexed frown, and a look of curiosity not provoked by butter-making was in her blue eyes.
"What is the matter? What are you thinking of, Doris?"
"I am thinking that I am an example of Scripture truth."
"In what particular?" asked Mattie.
"In the particular of tumbling into the pit, or catching in the net, duly set forth by me for other people."
"I don't quite understand you."
"Then you are even duller than usual, and, as I may no more speak in parables, I will expound myself clearly. I deliberately endeavored to entrap and entangle Earle Moray into loving me, for my summer pastime. I did not duly consider that I might fall in love with him myself."
"Why not, if you desired him to love you?"
"That was merely part of beauty's dues, child. Why not? He is not rich enough, or great enough; he cannot take me to London, and make me a society queen."
"Certainly not. You did not expect that."
"True. And I did not expect to fall in love with him."
"But you have? Surely you have, he loves you so much."
"Eh? Do you want me to love him? I thought you wanted him."
"I only want him to be happy," said Mattie, turning away, with a blush.
"Perhaps I love him a little. I am not capable of loving much," said Doris, with exceeding frankness. "My chief affections are set upon the pomps and vanities of this life, which I presume were renounced for me in my baptism."
"Don't be so wicked," cried the scandalized Mattie.
"And yet I don't know that I could say 'yes,' if Earle asked me to marry him. I might, and then repent, and take it back. I suppose, if he asked father and mother, they would say 'yes,' and be fearfully awkward about it."
"You shall not talk so about them!" said Mattie, indignantly.
"I don't feel to them as you do – why is it? I don't feel a part of the Brace family. I like you, Mattie; father amuses me with his outspoken, homely ways; I don't consider mother much. She is good, but commonplace, like brown bread. In fact, you are all too rustic, and homely, and pious, and common-sensical for wicked me. Are you done with that butter? Why don't it grow made? I am sick of life. Earle is off to Brakebury for his mother. It is only half-past eight, and I feel as if I had been up a century. Come with me to get blackberries."
"I cannot. I have much dairy work to do yet," said Mattie.
"I wish you would go for blackberries for supper," said Patty Brace, coming in. "You don't seem disposed to do anything useful, Doris – suppose you try that."
"I take care of my room, and my clothes," pouted Doris, "and that nearly kills me. I wish I had a maid!"
Patty laughed.
"Well, child, the woods are cool and beautiful, and you are tired of doing nothing. Take this basket, and try and fill it with blackberries."
Fearful of being asked to do some more practical duty if she rejected this, Doris picked up the basket, put on a pair of gloves, tied her sun-hat down under her distracting little chin, and set forth toward the knoll, a place famous for blackberries. The grass was long and thick, the aftermath of clover loaded the air with fragrance, scarlet creepers ran along the hedges, and at the knoll, with purple stems and green and orange leaves, grew the blackberries in globules of polished jet. An inspiration of industry seized Doris, and she filled her basket; the soft little tips of her fingers were dyed crimson with the fruit. She lingered over her task. Earle might return, and it would be pleasant under the trees, birds singing and grass rustling about them, while Earle talked poetry to her.
But Earle did not come, and something in the silence of nature set this thoughtless creature to thinking.
It was one of those solemn hours of life when our fate hangs in the balance. What of her future? What should she do with herself? Should she give up her frantic ambition, her intense desire after excitement, riches, and splendor, and, accepting an honest man, settle in a simple, comfortable home, and grace it as a good wife and mother all her days? Could she do that?
Should she refuse Earle Moray, on whose lips an offer of himself and his all was trembling? Should she send him away? She scarcely felt ready for that. She had grown to love him a little – just a little – but more than any one – except herself. Should she fly this homely, quiet life, these good, uncongenial people, fly to the great city, and set out under a feigned name to make her own way in the world, as singer, actress – any wild, adventurous path that might find her at least a lord for a husband? Should she?
"Can I give him up? Can I leave him to Mattie? Will he ever be famous and rich enough to make it worth while to nourish my little bit of love for him into real love, if I can ever love? Oh, for some good fairy to rise up and tell me what to do!"
She started in sudden fear, for surely a step was coming close to her, some one from the other side of the coppice, who had watched her unseen. Not a fairy. A gentleman. A very presentable gentleman, who said:
"I beg pardon. Do not let me alarm you."
Then the two looked at each other.
Doris saw a handsome, middle-aged man, palette on his thumb, box of paints under his arm, portable easel in his hand; wide-awake hat, velveteen suit. She promptly summed him up – "artist."
He saw – Doris; Doris, mold of beauty; naiad in grace; innocence in her startled eyes; face of an angel; mien of a wood nymph. He began to believe in the gods of old. He said to himself, "Maid or spirit? Mortal or vision?"
"Forgive me for startling you," he said; "but I have been watching you as you stood under this tree – "
"I hate to be watched," interrupted Doris.
"As a man I was guilty; as an artist, guiltless, for an artist, above all things, loves and serves his art, and considers all he sees as subservient to it. I came to Downsbury in quest of studies in still life. For years I have had an ideal of a face that I wished to paint in my best mood: a face after which all should wonder. I have searched cities and country; I have wandered in my quest for that face through other lands; and when I saw you under the tree, I was all the artist – all lost in art – for yours is the face I have been seeking for my canvas."
"Why, do you mean I would make a picture – a real picture?" demanded Doris, with studied simplicity.
"Yes; ten thousand times yes! Under this greenwood tree, your basket at your feet, your hat swinging in your hand, your eyes lifted – yes, a picture to be known and praised forever. Child, I will make your beauty immortal."
This was what she had dreamed.
A poet was singing her praises, and would do so, whether she played him false or not; and here was an artist to paint her for a world to admire.
Could she who so inspired men tie herself to the narrow bounds of one humble, rustic hearth? Never!
"May I paint you?" demanded the artist. "May I set you in canvas, in immortal youth and loveliness, to live years, perhaps centuries hence, in deathless beauty?"
"The picture – the face – will live! Where, in those far off ages, shall I be?" asked Doris, earnestly.
Gregory Leslie thought the word and mood strange.
"The best part of you is immortal," he said, gently.
"And what would you call my picture?"
"'Innocence.' Yes, 'Innocence' should be its name!"
"But what in me seems to you the image of 'Innocence?'"
Stranger question still. But he answered as an artist:
"You have an ideal brow, rounded at the temples as the old masters painted their angels. Your eyes are large, bright, clear, as seeing more of heaven