One day I had the whim to creep again within the little glade where
Anthony Cardew had come to my help. It was now all hung about with wild
roses and woodbine and was very sweet, and far overhead the trees met in
a light, springing roof of green, more beautiful than any cathedral.
It had grown dark, and as I stood in the glade the rain pattered on the
leaves overhead, but not a drop reached me. There were harebells and
saxifrage in the moss, and underneath the bushes there was scented
woodruff, and there was also sweet wild thyme. I thought I would make a
summer drawing-room of the place, which none should know of beside
myself, and should bring my books there and my needlework and
embroidery, and spend long hours there alone or with a dog's
companionship which is better than solitude.
The shower passed away over the hills, and the sun shone out. It
sparkled here and there where a raindrop hung on a leaf and it suffused
the glade with a warm, golden glow.
Suddenly something sparkled that was not a raindrop, something in the
moss and undergrowth at the entrance to the glade. I wondered I had not
seen it before, but it was the first time I had entered the glade since
Anthony Cardew had been there.
I picked up the shining thing with great eagerness and found it to be a
miniature set about with brilliants. My foot struck against something
which proved to be a leather case in which the miniature, no doubt, had
lain. As it fell the case must have opened, and that was a lucky thing,
for if the miniature had remained in the case it might have lain there
till the day of judgment. It was the mere accident of the stones
sparkling that had caught my eye.
I stood with the miniature in my hand and stared at it, and it began to
dawn upon me why Anthony Cardew had thought me a ghost. The face was
far, far more beautiful than mine could ever be, yet it was strangely
like the face that looked at me from the glass every morning when I did
my hair.
To be sure, mine, I thought, was a poor simple, common face beside the
face in the miniature with its wonderful expression. I have heard my
grandmother say that the fair beauties of the South are the most
beautiful of all, as beautiful as they are rare; and the original of the
miniature had an opulent, golden beauty which we of the cold North
could never attain. Perhaps the beauty might even have been over-opulent
if sorrow and sadness had not given the face an air like a crowned
martyr in heaven. So sweet it was, so gentle, so full of spiritual
light, that I felt I could worship the owner of such a face.
Then I noticed the grand-ducal crown in diamonds at the top of the
miniature, and it came to me that this was the portrait of the lady
Anthony Cardew had served with a passionate devotion. No wonder I felt
aflame for her, although I was only a girl; and I thought that so Mary
Stuart must have looked to have left love of her alive in the world to
this day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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