Moth and Rust | Page 7

in it, as a hyacinth will build its fragrant bell-tower in the window of a tavern, in a stale atmosphere of smoke and beer and alcohol. Janet was self-contained as a hyacinth. She unfolded from within. She asked no questions of life. That she had had a happy, contented existence was obvious; an existence spent much in the open air, in which tranquil, practical duties well within her reach had been all that had been required of her. Her brother Fred, several years older than herself, had one redeeming point. He was fond of her and proud of her. He did not understand her, but she was what he called "a good sort."
Janet was one of those blessed women--whose number seems to diminish, while that of her highly strung sisters painfully increases--who make no large demand on life, or on their fellow-creatures. She took both as they came. Her uprightness and integrity were her own, as was the simple religion which she followed blindfold. She expected little of others, and exacted nothing. She had, of course, had lovers in plenty. She wished to be married and to have children--many children. In her quiet, ruminating mind she had names ready for a family of ten. But until George came she had always said "No." When pressed by her brother as to why some particularly eligible parti-such as Mr. Gorst--the successful trainer--had been refused, she could never put forward any adequate reason, and would say at last that she was very happy as she was.
Then George came, a different kind of man from any she had known, at least different from any in his class who had offered marriage. He represented to her all that was absent from her own surroundings--refinement, culture. I don't know what Janet can have meant by culture, but years later, when she had picked up words like "culture" and "development," and scattered them across her conversation, she told me he had represented all these glories to her. And lie was a little straighter than the business men she associated with, a good deal straighter than her brother. Perhaps, after all, that was the first attraction he had for her. Janet was straight herself. She fell in love with George.
"L'amour est une source naive." It was a very naive spring in Janet's heart, though it welled up from a considerable depth; a spring not even to be poisoned on by her brother's outrageous delight at the engagement, or his congratulations on the wisdom of her previous steadfast refusal of the eligible Mr. Gorst.
"This beats all," he said; "I never thought you would pull it off, Janet. I thought he was too big a fish to land. And to think you will queen it at Easthope Park."
Janet was not in the least perturbed by her brother's remarks. She was accustomed to them. He always talked like that. She vaguely supposed she should some day "queen it" at Easthope. The expression did not offend her. The reflection in her mind was: "George must love me very much to have chosen me, when all the most splendid ladies in the land would be glad to have him."
And now, as she walked on this Sunday afternoon in the long, quiet gardens of Easthope, she felt her cup was full. She looked at her affianced George with shy adoration from under the brim of her violent new hat, and made soft answers to him when he spoke.
George was not a great talker. He trusted mainly to an occasional ejaculation, his meaning aided by pointing with a stick.
A covey of partridges ran with one consent across the smooth lawn at a little distance.
"Jolly little beggars," said George, with explanatory stick.
She liked the flowers best, but he did not, so he took her down to the pool below the rose-garden, where the eager brook ran through a grating, making a little water prison in which solemn, portly personages might be seen moving.
"See 'em?" said George, pointing as usual.
"Yes," said Janet.
"That's a three-pounder."
"Yes."
That was all the stream said to them.
She lingered once more in the rose-garden when he would have drawn her onwards towards the ferrets, and George, willing to humour her, got out his knife and chose a rose for her. Has any woman really lived who has not stood once in silence in the June sunshine with her lover, and watched him pick for her a red rose which is not as other roses, a rose which understands? Amid all the world of roses, did the raiment of God touch just that one, as He walked in His garden in the cool of the evening? And did the Divine love imprisoned in it reach forth towards the human love of the two lovers, and blend them for a moment with itself?
"You are my rose,"