The Rosary | Page 6

Florence L. Barclay
was her niece and former ward, the Honourable Jane
Champion; and this consisted merely in the fact that the Honourable
Jane was the one person who might invite herself to Overdene or
Portland Place, arrive when she chose, stay as long as she pleased, and
leave when it suited her convenience. On the death of her father, when
her lonely girlhood in her Norfolk home came to an end, she would
gladly have filled the place of a daughter to the duchess. But the
duchess did not require a daughter; and a daughter with pronounced
views, plenty of back-bone of her own, a fine figure, and a plain face,
would have seemed to her Grace of Meldrum a peculiarly undesirable
acquisition. So Jane was given to understand that she might come
whenever she liked, and stay as long as she liked, but on the same
footing as other people. This meant liberty to come and go as she
pleased; and no responsibility towards her aunt's guests. The duchess
preferred managing her own parties in her oven way.
Jane Champion was now in her thirtieth year. She had once been
described, by one who saw below the surface, as a perfectly beautiful
woman in an absolutely plain shell; and no man had as yet looked
beneath the shell, and seen the woman in her perfection. She would
have made earth heaven for a blind lover who, not having eyes for the
plainness of her face or the massiveness of her figure, might have
drawn nearer, and apprehended the wonder of her as a woman,
experiencing the wealth of tenderness of which she was capable, the

blessed comfort of the shelter of her love, the perfect comprehension of
her sympathy, the marvellous joy of winning and wedding her. But as
yet, no blind man with far-seeing vision had come her way; and it
always seemed to be her lot to take a second place, on occasions when
she would have filled the first to infinite perfection.
She had been bridesmaid at weddings where the charming brides,
notwithstanding their superficial loveliness, possessed few of the
qualifications for wifehood with which she was so richly endowed.
She was godmother to her friends' babies, she, whose motherhood
would have been a thing for wonder and worship.
She had a glorious voice, but her face not matching it, its existence was
rarely suspected; and as she accompanied to perfection, she was usually
in requisition to play for the singing of others.
In short, all her life long Jane had filled second places, and filled them
very contentedly. She had never known what it was to be absolutely
first with any one. Her mother's death had occurred during her infancy,
so that she had not even the most shadowy remembrance of that
maternal love and tenderness which she used sometimes to try to
imagine, although she had never experienced it.
Her mother's maid, a faithful and devoted woman, dismissed soon after
the death of her mistress, chancing to be in the neighbourhood some
twelve years later, called at the manor, in the hope of finding some in
the household who remembered her.
After tea, Fraulein and Miss Jebb being out of the way, she was spirited
up into the schoolroom to see Miss Jane, her heart full of memories of
the "sweet babe" upon whom she and her dear lady had lavished so
much love and care.
She found awaiting her a tall, plain girl with a frank, boyish manner
and a rather disconcerting way as she afterwards remarked, of "taking
stock of a body the while one was a-talking," which at first checked the
flow of good Sarah's reminiscences, poured forth so freely in the

housekeeper's room below, and reduced her to looking tearfully around
the room, remarking that she remembered choosing the blessed
wall-paper with her dear lady now gone, whose joy had been so great
when the dear babe first took notice and reached up for the roses. "And
I can show you, miss, if you care to know it just which bunch of roses it
were."
But before Sarah's visit was over, Jane had heard many undreamed-of-
things; amongst others, that her mother used to kiss her little hands, "ah,
many a time she, did, miss; called them little rose- petals, and covered
them with kisses."
The child, utterly unused to any demonstrations of affection, looked at
her rather ungainly brown hands and laughed, simply because she was
ashamed of the unwonted tightening at her throat and the queer stinging
of tears beneath her eyelids. Thus Sarah departed under the impression
that Miss Jane had grown up into a rather a heartless young lady. But
Fraulein and Jebbie never knew why, from that day onward, the hands,
of which they had so often had cause
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