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SEPIA.
As naturally as if she had been born to that very duty and no
other, Mary slid into the office of lady's-maid to Mrs. Redmain,
feeling in it, although for reasons very different, no more
degradation than her mistress saw in it. If Hesper was
occasionally a little rude to her, Mary was not one to accept
a rudeness--that is, to wrap it up in resentment, and put it
away safe in the pocket of memory. She could not help
feeling things of the kind--sometimes with indignation and anger;
but she made haste to send them from her, and shut the doors
against them. She knew herself a far more blessed creature than
Hesper, and felt the obligation, from the Master himself, of so
enduring as to keep every channel of service open between Hesper
and her. To Hesper, the change from the vulgar service of Folter
to the ministration of Mary was like passing from a shallow
purgatory to a gentle paradise. Mary's service was full of live
and near presence, as that of dew or summer wind; Folter handled
her as if she were dressing a doll, Mary as if she were dressing
a baby; her hands were deft as an angel's, her feet as noiseless
as swift. And to have Mary near was not only to have a
ministering spirit at hand, but to have a good atmosphere all
around--an air, a heaven, out of which good things must momently
come. Few could be closely associated with her and not become
aware at least of the capacity of being better, if not of the
desire to be better.
In the matter of immediate result, it was a transition from
decoration to dress. If in any sense Hesper was well dressed
before, she was in every sense well dressed now--dressed so, that
is, as to reveal the nature, the analogies, and the associations
of her beauty: no manner of dressing can make a woman look more
beautiful than she is, though many a mode may make her look less
so.
There was one in the house, however, who was not pleased at the
change from Folter to Mary: Sepia found herself in consequence
less necessary to Hesper. Hitherto Hesper had never been
satisfied without Sepia's opinion and final approval in that
weightiest of affairs, the matter of dress; but she found in Mary
such a faculty as rendered appeal to Sepia unnecessary; for she
not only satisfied her idea of herself, and how she would choose
to look, but showed her taste as much surer than Sepia's as
Sepia's was readier than Hesper's own. Sepia was equal to the
dressing of herself--she never blundered there; but there was
little dependence to be placed upon her in dressing another. She
cared for herself, not for another; and to dress another, love is
needful--love, the only true artist--love, the only opener of
eyes. She cared nothing to minister to the comfort or
beautification of her cousin, and her displeasure did not arise
from the jealousy that is born of affection. So far as Hesper's
self was concerned, Sepia did not care a straw whether she was
well or ill dressed; but, if the link between them of dress was
severed, what other so strong would be left? And to find herself
in any way a less object in Hesper's eyes, would be to find
herself on the inclined plane of loss, and probable ruin.
Another, though a smaller, point was, that hitherto she had
generally been able so to dress Hesper as to make of her more or
less a foil to herself. My reader may remember that there was
between Hesper and Sepia, if not a resemblance, yet a relation of
appearance, like, vaguely, that between the twilight and the
night; seen in certain positions and circumstances, the one would
recall the other; and it was therefore a matter of no small
consequence to Sepia that the relation of her dress to Hesper's
should be such as to give herself any advantage to be derived in
it from the relation of their looks. This was far more difficult,
of course, when she had no longer a voice in the matter of
Hesper's dress, and when the loving skill of the new maid
presented her rival to her individual best. Mary would have been
glad to help her as well, but Sepia drew back as from a hostile
nature, and they made no approximation. This was more loss to
Sepia than she knew, for Mary would have assisted her in doing
the best when she had no money, a condition which often made it
the more trying that she had now so little influence over her
cousin's adornment. To dress was a far more difficult, though not
more important, affair with Sepia than with Hesper, for she had
nothing of her own, and from, her cousin no fixed allowance. Any
arrangement of the kind had been impossible at Durnmelling, where
there was no money; and here, where it would have been easy
enough, she judged it better to give no hint in its direction,
although plainly it had never suggested itself to Hesper. There
was nothing of the money-mean in her, any more than in her
husband. They were of course, as became people of fashion,
regular and unwearied attendants of the church of Mammon,
ordering all their judgments and ways in accordance with the
precepts there delivered; but they were none of Mammon's priests
or pew-openers, money-grubs, or accumulators. They gave liberally
where they gave, and scraped no inferior to spend either on
themselves or their charities. They had plenty, it is true; but
so have many who withhold more than is meet, and take the ewe-
lamb to add to their flock. For one thing, they had no time for
that sort of wickedness, and took no interest in it. So Hesper,
although it had not come into her mind to give her the ease of a
stated allowance, behaved generously to Sepia--when she thought
of it; but she did not love her enough to be love-watchful, and
seldom thought how her money must be going, or questioned whether
she might not at the moment be in want of more. There are many
who will give freely, who do not care to understand need and
anticipate want. Hence at times Sepia's purse would be long empty
before the giving-thought would wake in the mind of Hesper. When
it woke, it was gracious and free.
Had Sepia ventured to run up bills with the tradespeople, Hesper
would have taken it as a thing of course, and settled them with
her own. But Sepia had a certain politic pride in spending only
what was given her; also she saw or thought she saw serious
reason for avoiding all appearances of taking liberties; from the
first of Mr. Redmain's visits to Durnmelling, she had been aware,
with an instinct keen in respect of its objects, though blind as
to its own nature, that he did not like her, and soon satisfied
herself that any overt attempt to please him would but ripen his
dislike to repugnance; and her dread was that he might make it a
condition with Mr. Mortimer that Hesper's intimacy with her
should cease; whereas, if once they were married, the husband's
disfavor would, she believed, only strengthen the wife's
predilection. Having so far gained her end, it remained, however,
almost as desirable as before that she should do nothing to fix
or increase his dislike--nay, that, if within the possible, she
should become pleasing to him. Did not even hate turn sometimes
to its mighty opposite? But she understood so little of the man
with whom she had to deal that her calculations were ill-founded.
She was right in believing that Mr. Redmain disliked her, but she
was wrong in imagining that he had therefore any objection to her
being for the present in the house. He certainly did not relish
the idea of her continuing to be his wife's inseparable
companion, but there would be time enough to get rid of her after
he had found her out. For she had not long been one of his
family, before he knew, with insight unerring, that she
had to be found out, and was therefore an interesting subject for
the exercise of his faculty of moral analysis. He was certain her
history was composed mainly of secrets. As yet, however, he had
discovered nothing.
I must just remind my reader of the intellectual passion I have
already mentioned as characterizing Mr. Redmain's mental
constitution. His faults and vices were by no means peculiar; but
the bent to which I refer, certainly no virtue, and springing
originally from predominant evil, was in no small degree
peculiar, especially in the degree to which, derived as it was
from his father, he had in his own being developed it. Most men,
he judged with himself, were such fools as well as rogues, that
there was not the least occasion to ask what they were after:
they did but turn themselves inside out before you! But, on the
other hand, there were not a few who took pains, more or less
successful, to conceal their game of life; and such it was the
delight of his being to lay bare to his own eyes-not to those of
other people; that, he said, would be to spoil his game! Men were
his library, he said-his history, his novels, his sermons, his
philosophy, his poetry, his whole literature--and he did not like
to have his books thumbed by other people. Human nature, in its
countless aspects, was all about him, he said, every mask crying
to him to take it off. Unhappily, it was but the morbid anatomy
of human nature he cared to study. For all his abuse of it, he
did not yet recognize it as morbid, but took it as normal, and
the best to be had. No doubt, he therein judged and condemned
himself, but that he never thought of--nor, perceived, would it
have been a point of any consequence to him.
From the first, he saw through Mr. Mortimer, and all belonging to
him, except Miss Yolland: she soon began to puzzle--and, so far,
to please him, though, as I have said, he did not like her. Had
he been a younger man, she would have captivated him; as it was,
she would have repelled him entirely, but that she offered him a
good subject. He said to himself that she was a bad lot, but what
sort of a bad lot was not so clear as to make her devoid of
interest to him; he must discover how she played her life-game;
she had a history, and he would fain know it. As I have said,
however, so far it had come to nothing, for, upon the surface,
Sepia showed herself merely like any other worldly girl who knows
"on which side her bread is buttered."
The moment he had found, or believed he had found, what there was
to know about her, he was sure to hate her heartily. For some
time after his marriage, he appeared at his wife's parties
oftener than he otherwise would have done, just for the sake of
having an eye upon Sepia; but had seen nothing, nor the shadow of
anything--until one night, by the merest chance, happening to
enter his wife's drawing-room, he caught a peculiar glance
between Sepia and a young man--not very young--who had just
entered, and whom he had not seen before.
To not a few it seemed strange that, with her unquestioned powers
of fascination, she had not yet married; but London is not the
only place in which poverty is as repellent as beauty is
attractive. At the same time it must be confessed there was
something about her which made not a few men shy of her. Some
found that, if her eyes drew them within a certain distance,
there they began to repel them, they could not tell why. Others
felt strangely uncomfortable in her presence from the first. Not
only much that a person has done, but much of what a person is
capable of, is, I suspect, written on the bodily presence; and,
although no human eye is capable of reading more than here and
there a scattered hint of the twilight of history, which is the
aurora of prophecy, the soul may yet shudder with an instinctive
foreboding it can not explain, and feel the presence, without
recognizing the nature, of the hostile.
Sepia's eyes were her great power. She knew the laws of mortar-
practice in that kind as well as any officer of engineers those
of projectiles. There was something about her engines which it
were vain to attempt to describe. Their lightest glance was a
thing not to be trifled with, and their gaze a thing hardly to be
withstood. Sustained and without hurt defied, it could hardly be
by man of woman born. They were large, but no fool would be taken
with mere size. They were as dark as ever eyes of woman, but our
older poets delighted in eyes as gray as glass: certainly not in
their darkness lay their peculiar witchery. They were grandly
proportioned, neither almond-shaped nor round, neither prominent
nor deep-set; but even shape by itself is not much. If I go on to
say they were luminous, plainly there the danger begins. Sepia's
eyes, I confess, were not lords of the deepest light--for she was
not true; but neither was theirs a surface light, generated of
merely physical causes: through them, concentrating her will upon
their utterance, she could establish a psychical contact with
almost any man she chose. Their power was an evil, selfish
shadow of original, universal love. By them she could produce at
once, in the man on whom she turned their play, a sense as it
were of some primordial, fatal affinity between her and him--of
an aboriginal understanding, the rare possession of but a few of
the pairs made male and female. Into those eyes she would call up
her soul, and there make it sit, flashing light, in gleams and
sparkles, shoots and coruscations--not from great, black pupils
alone--to whose size there were who said the suicidal belladonna
lent its aid--but from great, dark irids as well--nay, from
eyeballs, eyelashes, and eyelids, as from spiritual catapult or
culverin, would she dart the lightnings of her present soul,
invading with influence as irresistible as subtile the soul of
the man she chose to assail, who, thenceforward, for a season, if
he were such as she took him for, scarce had choice but be her
slave. She seldom exerted their full force, however, without some
further motive than mere desire to captivate. There are women who
fly their falcons at any game, little birds and all; but Sepia
did not so waste herself: her quarry must be worth her hunt: she
must either love him or need him. Love! did I say? Alas! if
ever holy word was put to unholy use, love is that word!
When Diana goes to hell, her name changes to Hecate, but love
among the devils is called love still!
In more than one other country, whatever might be the cause,
Sepia had found the men less shy of her than here; and she
had almost begun to think her style was not generally pleasing to
English eyes. Whether this had anything to do with the fact that
now in London she began to amuse herself with Tom Helmer, I can
not say with certainty; but almost if not quite the first time
they met, that morning, namely, when first he called, and they
sat in the bay-window of the drawing-room in Glammis Square, she
brought her eyes to play upon him; and, although he addressed
"The Firefly" poem to Hesper in the hope of pleasing her, it was
for the sake of Sepia chiefly that he desired the door of her
house to be an open one to him. Whether at that time she knew he
was a married man, it is hardly necessary to inquire, seeing it
would have made no difference whatever to one like her, whose
design was only to amuse herself with the youth, and possibly to
make of him a screen. She went so far, however, as to allow him,
when there was opportunity, to draw her into quiet corners, and
even to linger when the other guests were gone, and he had had
his full share of champagne. Once, indeed, they remained together
so long in the little conservatory, lighted only by an alabaster
lamp, pale as the moon in the dawning, that she had to unbolt the
door to let him out. This did not take place without coming to
the knowledge of both Mr. and Mrs. Redmain; but the former was
only afraid there was nothing in it, and was far from any wish to
control her; and Sepia herself was the in-formant of the latter.
To her she would make game of her foolish admirer, telling how,
on this and that occasion, it was all she could do to get rid of
him.
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