He took two or three turns around the room, then observed cheerfully—
"She will understand and excuse it when I explain the case—eh, Kate?"
"Humph!" was her doubtful reply.
"Yes she will," he confidently rejoined, and went out to smoke his cigar.
I suppose the letter was duly posted on the following day. Cornelius went out early and did not return until evening. He had been disappointed in obtaining the work he hoped for; he had lost his day in looking for it, and came home in all the heat of his indignation.
"I give it up!" he exclaimed a little passionately, after relating his disappointment to Kate; "and Mr. Redmond too, the Laban father of an unsightly Leah, without even the prospect of a Rachel after the seven years' bondage. Better live on bread and water than on the money which costs so dear. There is no sweetness in that labour—I hate it—and Miriam may say what she likes, there is no life like an artist's!"
"What does she say?" asked Kate, laying down her work, and looking up at him.
"Not much, but I can see she thinks like you. I do not blame her or you.What have I done to justify confidence? Only a foolish little thing, likeDaisy, could take me at my word, and have any faith in me."
"What other profession does she wish you to follow?" inquired Kate.
"None; but she thinks me too enthusiastic."
"A man can't be too enthusiastic about his profession," warmly respondedKate.
"Indeed then you never said a truer thing."
"If you think it is your vocation to paint pictures, paint pictures with all your might."
"Won't I, that's all?" he replied, throwing back his head, and looking as if, in vulgar parlance, he longed to be at it.
"Ay, but the means?" emphatically said Kate.
"Have I not got money?"
"Which was to set up Hymen: well, no matter, it is not much, and cannot last for ever. What will you do when it is out?"
"Borrow from you, Kitty," he replied, laying his hand on her shoulder with a smile; "won't you lend to me?"
"Not a shilling," she answered, looking him full in the face, "unless you give me your word of honour not to go back to Laban and Leah."
"'Faith, she is not such a beauty that I cannot keep the vow of inconstancy to her," he said, rather saucily, "you have my word, Kate. Well, what do you look so grave about?"
"I am thinking, Cornelius, that I am meddling as I never meant to meddle; that I am perhaps aiding to delay your marriage."
Her look was bent attentively on his face.
"Not a bit," he promptly replied; "I consider every picture I paint as a step taken to the altar. Besides," he philosophically added, "I was only twenty-three the other day. There is no time lost."
"They are all alike," indignantly said Kate: "two weeks ago you were half mad because your marriage was delayed, now you talk of there being no time lost."
"Since I am to wait," coolly replied Cornelius, "I confess the more or less does not make so great a difference. I was rather indignant at first, but since then I have thanked Miriam."
"You have?" said Kate.
"Indeed I have. It would have spoiled my prospects, and though she did not say so, that I am sure was her reason for disappointing me. She shall not again complain of my unreasonable impatience. I am quite resolved not to think of Hymen until, love apart, a woman may take some pride in me."
"They are all alike, all alike," again said Kate; "love for a bit, ambition for life."
Cornelius laughed.
"Miriam would despise me," he observed, "if I could sit down in idleness.Besides, love is a feeling, not a task: it may pervade a lifetime; I defyit to fill an entire day without something of weariness creeping in.There is nothing like work in this world,—nothing, Kate."
"When do you mean to begin?"
"To-morrow, of course."
"What becomes of your letter?"
"I shall write it this evening. And now, Daisy," he added, turning to me, "let us see how you have studied."
I brought my books, and the lessons filled—how pleasantly for me!—the greater part of the evening, which Cornelius closed, as he said, by writing his letter. I was scarcely dressed on the following morning, when his voice summoned me from above. I ran up hastily; he was standing on the landing, at the door of the studio, evidently waiting for me, and evidently too in one of his impatient fits.
"Loiterer!" was his greeting, "after such a sleep as you had yesterday, could you not get up earlier?—two hours of broad daylight actually gone!"
"Did I know you wanted me, Cornelius?"
"Did I know it myself? Now come in—look here—give me your opinion, your candid opinion."
When Cornelius asked for an opinion it was all very well, but when he asked for a candid opinion he would never tolerate any save that which he himself favoured. He was now in one of his most positive moods, so I prepared for submission—an easy task, for I always thought him in the right, and whatever my original opinion might have been, I invariably came back to his in the end, as to the only true one. He led me to his easel, on which I saw the long neglected Stolen Child.
"I had forgotten all about it," said Cornelius, "but finding this morning that I could not get on with Medora in the absence of Miriam, I looked amongst the old things, whence I fished out this. Now, admitting that it will not do for a picture, I think it will at least make an excellent study—eh?"
"Yes, Cornelius, a very good study indeed."
"Why not a picture?" he asked, frowning.
"It is not good enough," I replied, confidently.
"You silly little thing, you must have forgotten all about pictures and painting, to say so," rather hotly answered Cornelius. "Why a baby could tell you I never began anything that promised better. Oh, Daisy! what am I to think of your judgment? At all events," he added, softening down, "if you are not yet a first-rate critic, you are a first-rate sitter. So get ready. You need not mind about your Gipsy attire; all I want is the face and attitude."
I looked at the picture, drew back a few steps, and placed myself in the old position.
"The very thing," cried Cornelius, delighted. "Oh, Daisy, you are invaluable to me."
He began at once, and worked hard until breakfast, during which he could speak of nothing but his Stolen Child.
"A much better subject than Medora," he said, decisively; "there has been too much of Byron's heroines."
"Do you mean to throw it of one side?" asked Kate.
"Oh no, I hope to have both pictures ready for next year's Academy; pressed for time, I shall work all the harder and the better, Kate."
"Which will you finish first?"
"The Stolen Child."
"Well," said Kate, very quietly, "I have a fancy that it will be Medora."
"How can it? Miriam is away for two months, you know."
"Yes, but I have a fancy the sea-air will not agree with her," continuedKate, in the same quiet way.
Cornelius looked at his sister with a somewhat perplexed air.
"I don't know anything about that," he said, at length; "but I can go on with the Stolen Child, and I hope to go on quickly too, Daisy sits so well, you know."
"I know she is as bad as you are; look at her swallowing down her tea as fast as she can, to be in time."
"She is a good little thing," he replied, patting my neck, "though I cannot say she yet thoroughly knows what constitutes a good picture. Don't hurry, Daisy; there is plenty of time."
"But I am quite ready," I replied eagerly.
"So am I; let us see who shall be upstairs first."
"Cornelius, how can you be such a boy?" began Kate; I lost the rest, I had started up, and was hastening upstairs all out of breath. Cornelius, who could have outstripped me with ease, followed with pretended eagerness, and laughed at my triumph.
"I was first," I cried from the landing, and flushed and breathless I looked round at him, as he stood on the staircase a few steps below me: he gave me a pleased and surprised look.
"Why, that child would be quite pretty if she had a colour," he observed to himself; "poor little thing!" he added as he came up and stood by me, "I wish I could keep that bloom on your little pale face: but it is already going—the more's the pity!"
"Indeed," I replied, "it is no pity at all, for the pale face is much the best for the picture."
This disinterested sentiment did not in the least surprise Cornelius, who was too much devoted to his painting to think anything too good for it, or any sacrifice too great. He confessed the pale face would make the picture more pathetic, and was not astonished at my preferring it on that account.
We remained in the studio nearly the whole day. Kate, who did not seem much pleased at this return to our old habits, significantly inquired in the evening how much I had learned.
"Nothing." replied Cornelius; "but to make up for it, I will help her; we shall study together, so she will learn her lessons and repeat them at the same time."
"That will be tedious, Cornelius."
"She gives me her days; I may well give her my evenings."
"And your letter?"
"I shall sit up."
"Poor fellow!" compassionately said Kate, "what between painting, teaching, and love, your hands are full."
For three months and more, Cornelius had neglected painting; he now returned to it with tenfold ardour. I have often, since then, wondered at the strange mistake Miriam committed in leaving him, and thinking she had weaned him from his art; his passion for it was a part of his nature, and not to be taken up or laid down at will.
She was as much deceived with regard to me. Cornelius was too fond of me in his heart, to give me up so readily as she had imagined. He liked me, but besides this I think he also felt unwilling to lose my deep and ardent love for himself. He knew better than any one its force and sincerity, and it is dangerously sweet to tenderness, pride, and self- love, to be master of another creature's heart, as he was of mine. It was when I had least chance of winning him back, when I was removed from his sight, when he appeared to neglect me, when he might be supposed to have forgotten me, and he seemed no longer called upon to trouble himself with me, that he humbled his pride before my grandfather, to obtain again the child he had slighted. I doubt if anything ever cost him more; I know that this proof of faithful affection effaced every past unkindness.
It was thus, when Miriam no doubt thought my day over, that unexpectedly, and as the most natural tiling, he fetched and brought me home. His temper, though yielding and easy in appearance, was in reality most obstinate and pertinacious. He seemed to give in, but he ever came back to his old feeling or opinion, and that too with an unconsciousness of his offence which must have been most irritating. In spite of the hints of Kate, I am sure he had not the faintest suspicion that, in devoting himself to painting or in bringing me home, he had done that which could annoy Miriam. Her letters, of course, expressed nothing but approbation of the changes that had taken place in her absence. In order, I suppose, to breed in me a kindly feeling towards his mistress, Cornelius took care to read to me every passage in which I was mentioned as "the dear child," and all such sentiments as "I am charmed to think dear little Daisy is again with you," etc.
In one sense, this was useless; in the other it was unnecessary. It was useless, because my feelings towards Miss Russell could not change on account of a few kind words in which I had no faith. It was unnecessary, because not hatred, but jealousy, was what I felt against her; nothing could and did mollify me so much as her absence. So long as she stayed away, I did not envy her in the least the acknowledged preference of Cornelius. Every evening when he sat down to write, I brought him of my own accord pen, ink, and paper, and in the morning I ran unbidden to fetch him his letter. I could even, when I saw him read it with evident delight, participate in his pleasure, little as I loved her from whom it came. My love was very ardent, but it was very pure; from my dawning youth it caught perhaps something of passion, but it also kept all the innocence of my childhood, scarcely left behind.
Cornelius, I believe, felt this, and as there is nothing more delightful than to inspire or feel a pure affection, I can now understand why he found a charm which Kate could not feel, in yielding to this. Often in our moments of relaxation when I sat by him on the couch, he would turn to me with a smile, and, stooping, leave on my brow a kiss as innocent as it was light, feeling, perhaps,—what I never felt, for I never thought of it—that he was now receiving the purest affection he could ever hope to inspire, and feeling the most disinterested tenderness he ever could hope to feel for child or maiden not of his blood. I was growing older, more able to understand him, more fit to be his companion, and this might be the reason that he now became more kind and friendly than ever he had been. Nothing could exceed his care of me: absorbed in his picture though he might seem, he was quick to detect in me the least sign of weariness, and imperative in exacting the rest I was loath to take. For the sate of the air he made me go down to the garden and often accompanied me.
I remember well one August afternoon, warm and breezy, when sitting together on the bench that stood by the porch, we looked from within the cool shadow of the house and through the air quivering with heat, on the ardent sunshine that seemed to vivify every object on which it touched. The garden flowers around us had that vivid brilliancy of hue of which the shade deprives them, to lend them, it is true, a more pensive grace; even the old sun-dial wore a gay look, and seemed to mark the hour as if it cared not for the passing of time. Every glittering leaf of the two poplars lightly trembled and appeared instinct with being; the garden- door stood open, and gave a bright though narrow glimpse of the lane, with its yellow path, its low green hedge, and beyond it a blue line of horizon. There was no scenery, no landscape, scarcely even that picturesque grace which every-day objects sometimes wear, but with that warm sunshine, that dazzling light and air so transparently clear, none could look and say that there was not beauty. For if Summer possesses not the green hope of Spring, the brown, meditative loveliness of Autumn, it has a glow, a fullness, a superabundance of life quite its own. Earth is truly living and animate then; she and the sun have it all their way, and seem to rejoice—he in his power and strength—she in her life and beauty.
"'Faith, this is pleasant!" observed Cornelius, throwing himself back on the bench, "a summer's day never can be too hot or too long—eh, Daisy?"
"I suppose not, Cornelius, but I hope it is not for me you are staying here, because I am quite rested."
"So you want me to go up and work."
"You know, Cornelius, you often say there is nothing like painting pictures."
"No more there is; and you must learn and paint pictures too. Well, you do not look transported."
Nor was I. My few attempts at drawing had convinced me that Nature had not intended me to shine in Art.
"What do I want to paint pictures for?" I asked. "You do; that is enough."
"But to be my pupil?"
"Yes, that would be pleasant."
"To work in the same studio; have an easel—"
"Near yours. Yes, Cornelius, I should like that."
"Yes," said a very sweet, but very cold voice, "the artist is loved better than his art."
We both looked up to the back-parlour window above us, whence the voice proceeded. Miriam was standing there in the half-shadow of the room; her fair head was bare; her cashmere scarf fell back from her graceful shoulders; one hand held the light lace bonnet which she had taken off, the other, ungloved and as transparently fair as alabaster, rested on the dark iron bar of the balcony. She looked down at us, smiling from above, calm, like a beautiful image in her frame. Cornelius looked up, gave a short joyous laugh, and lightly bounding over the three stone steps, he vanished under the ivied porch, and was by her side in a minute.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, and the very sound of his voice betrayed his delight,"I did not expect you for weeks yet."
"My aunt is still at Hastings; but I was obliged to leave, the air made me so unwell."
"And you never told me."
"Why alarm you?"
I waited to hear no more I had seen Cornelius leading her away from the window into the back part of the room, and Miriam with a half-smile yielding. I had no wish to be a check upon them, so I rose and slipped upstairs to the studio.
I sat down on the couch, trembling with emotion. She was come back, and with her, alas! as the evil train of some dark sorceress, came back all my old feelings. The very sound of her voice had roused them every one. I heard them and listened with terror, for, taught by bitter experience, I knew that, evil in themselves, they could work me nothing but evil. I remembered with a sickening heart all the bitterness which had been raised between Cornelius and me,—his angry looks, his chiding, our separation. I remembered also his goodness in bringing me back, his generosity in asking me for no promise of amendment, but in trusting to my good feeling and good sense, and throwing myself on God, as on Him who alone could assist me in this extremity of human weakness, I felt rather than uttered a passionate prayer for aid,—a cry for strength to resist temptation.
I had not long been in the studio, when the door opened and the lovers entered. I believe Cornelius was a little apprehensive as to how I might behave to Miriam, for rather hurriedly leading her to the easel, "See how hard I have been working," he said: "in the absence of Medora, I took to the Gipsy Family."
"You mean to the Stolen Child: where is she?"
"Here I am, Miss Russell." I replied in a low tone.
I was now standing by her, and as I spoke I slipped my hand into hers. She started as if some noxious insect had touched her; but as Cornelius had seen this action of mine, she smiled and said—
"Do you really give me your hand? The next thing will be a kiss, I suppose."
I thought she was asking me to kiss her. I conquered my repugnance, and raised my face; she hesitated, then stooped, but her lips never touched my cheek.
"Daisy and I are quite friends now, you see," she observed, turning toCornelius.
"Yes, I see," he replied, looking charmed.
"I always told you these childish feelings would pass away," she continued, laying her hand on my head.
He smiled in her face, a happy, admiring smile.
"Resume your work," she said, sitting down; "Miss O'Reilly has asked me to spend the day."
"But not here, Miriam; think of the smell of the paint."
"I do not feel it yet, so pray go on with that Stolen Child. What wonderful sweetness and pathos you have put in her face!"
"Do you think so? I mean, do you really think so?" cried Cornelius quite delighted; "well, Daisy has a very sweet face, I mean in expression, and to tell you the truth," he added in the simplicity of his heart, "I have done my best to improve it; I am glad you noticed that."
"Then resume your work; you know I like to look on."
He said, "Not yet," and as he sat down by her with the evident intention of lingering away a few hours, I left them. I was neither detained nor recalled.
I behaved with sufficient fortitude. Unbidden, I gave up to Miriam my place at table, and in the evening, of my own accord, I went to Kate for my lessons, whilst Cornelius and his betrothed walked up and down in the garden. I saw him once more engrossed with her, and, whatever I felt, I betrayed no sign of pettish jealousy. When she left us, I was the first to bid her good-night. Cornelius, without knowing how much these trifles cost me, looked pleased and approving. He also looked—but with this I had nothing to do—very happy.
Miriam had left us, and previous to going to bed we sat all three in the parlour by the open window, through which fell on the floor a soft streak of pale moonlight; I had silently resumed my place by Cornelius, who had laid his hand caressingly on my head, when Kate suddenly observed—
"You see the sea-air did not agree with Miss Russell."
"True, and yet she looks so well; more beautiful than ever."
"I suppose you will be able to get on with Medora."
"Not if the paint continues to affect Miriam."
"Perhaps it will not," quietly answered Kate; "it did not give her those dreadful nervous headaches before Daisy went to Miss Clapperton's; she does not seem to have suffered today; ay, ay, Medora will soon be on the easel."
"I don't want her to be," rather hastily replied Cornelius, "I want to go on with my Stolen Child. I was looking at Medora the other day, and, spite of all the labour it cost me, I found something unnatural about it."
"Well, I cannot agree with you there," replied Kate; "I think the way in which Medora's look seems to pierce the horizon for the faintest sign of her lover's ship, is painfully natural."
Cornelius did not answer. There was a change in his face—of what nature no one perhaps could have told; but he suddenly turned to me and said—
"Why did you not bring your books to me this evening? Mind, I will not have more infidelities of that nature."
He laughed, but the jest was forced; the laugh was not real. He looked like one who vainly seeks to brave the sting of some secret pain, and as I sat by him he bent on me a dreary, vacant look, that saw me not; but in a few minutes, almost a few seconds, he was himself again.
"No," he observed in his usual tone, "the other picture is much the best, and with it I must now go on."
In that opinion and decision Miriam fully concurred. Every day she came up to the studio for awhile, and she never left without having admired the Stolen Child, and, though very gently, depreciated Medora. One day in the week that followed her return, as she stood behind Cornelius looking at him painting, she was more than usually eloquent.
"There is so much thought, sadness, and poetry about that figure," she said,—"it expresses so well civilized intelligence captive amongst those half-savage Gipsies, that I never look at it without a new feeling of admiration."
I detected the ill-repressed smile of proud pleasure which lit up the whole countenance of Cornelius, but he carelessly replied—
"I am glad you think so."
Miriam continued.
"The difference between this and Medora is even to me quite astonishing."
Cornelius reddened; she resumed—
"One is as earnest as the other is indifferent."
"Indifferent!" he interrupted; "well, you know I do not think so highly of Medora as of this; yet Kate, who is no partial judge, confesses that there is earnestness in the look and attitude of the figure."
"Yes, but rather cold, that is to say, calm," quietly replied Miriam; "do you not yourself think so?"
He said, "Yes," and smiled a somewhat forced abstracted smile, continued his work for some time without speaking, then suddenly leaving it by, he went and fetched Medora.
"Come, where is that great difference?" he asked resolutely.
"I feel it," was her quiet answer.
He looked at her, and, without insisting, put away the painting.
The matter seemed dismissed from his mind, but the next morning, when I went up to the studio a little after breakfast, I found Medora on the easel and Cornelius looking at it intently. Without turning to me, he called me to his side.
"Now Daisy," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, "tell me frankly, candidly, if you think Medora so very inferior to the other one."
"No, indeed, Cornelius," I replied eagerly.
"She is always abusing it." he continued in an annoyed tone; "yesterday evening in the garden she hoped I would not think of finishing and exhibiting it."
"What a shame!" I exclaimed indignantly.
"No, my dear; Miriam does well to give me her candid opinion; I hope it is what you will always do."
"But, Cornelius," I ventured to object, "do you think Miss Russell knows much about painting?"
"To tell you the truth," confidently answered Cornelius, "I do not think she does. She has natural taste, but no experience. Now you," he added, turning to me with a smile, "you, my pet, though such a child, know of painting about ten times as much as she does, and, although it would not do to say so to her, I could trust to your opinion ten times sooner than to hers."
I was foolish enough to be pleased with this.
"I hope," continued Cornelius, "to be able to improve her taste; in the meanwhile, I think, like you, Daisy, that Medora is almost equal to the Stolen Child."
I had never said anything of the kind, but Cornelius was evidently convinced I had, and I knew not how to set him right.
"Yes," he resumed, looking at the picture, "it improves as you look at it. That little bit of rock-work in the foreground is not amiss, is it, Daisy?"
"It is just like the rocks at Leigh," I replied.
"Is it though?" exclaimed Cornelius, chucking my chin, a sign of great pleasure, "I am glad of it; not that I care about the rocks, not a pin; but it is always satisfactory to know that one is true to nature, even in minor points. And so there were some like them at Leigh! Well, no matter; I gave of course my chief attention to the figure, and that I think is pretty well."
He looked me in the face with the simplicity of a child; listened to my enthusiastic praise with evident gratification, and, with greatna?vet?, confessed "that was just his own opinion." We were interrupted by the unexpected entrance of Miriam, who came earlier than usual.
"There!" triumphantly exclaimed Cornelius, "the case is decided against you; I have appealed to Daisy, and like me she does not see so very great a difference between Medora and the Stolen Child."
"Does she not?" carelessly replied Miriam, as she sat down without looking at the picture.
"I see what it is," he said in a piqued tone, "you think I have not done you justice."
"Nothing of the kind," she answered smiling.
"Ah! if I did not fear to injure your health," reproachfully continued Cornelius, "I would soon show you that Medora could be made not quite unworthy of Miriam."
"But really," she replied in her indolent way, "I only said it was a little calm."
"Cold, Miriam. Ah! if you would only give me as a sitting the hour you spend here daily, how soon I could improve that cold Medora."
She flatly refused; she could not think of letting him lay by his Stolen Child, that promised so well for so inferior a production as Medora. It was only after half an hours hard begging and praying, that Cornelius at length obtained her consent. He set to work that very instant,—she sat not one hour, but two; I looked on with the vague presentiment that Cornelius and I were very simple.
Of course, though not at once, the Stolen Child was again laid aside for Medora. Cornelius said it made no difference, since he could finish the two pictures with ease for the ensuing year's Exhibition. Kate made no comment, but quietly asked if the smell of the paint had ceased to affect Miss Russell.
"Oh dear, yes, quite," replied her brother with great candour.
Cornelius was both good and great enough to afford a few unheroic weaknesses, such as paternal fondness for his pictures, and too generous a trust in the woman he loved, for him to suspect her of seeking to influence him by unworthy arts. I believe it was this simple and ingenuous disposition that made him be so much loved, and rendered those who loved him so lenient to his faults. He had his share of human frailties, but he yielded to them so naturally, that he never seemed degraded as are the would-be angels in their fall. Even then, and though youth is prompt and severe to judge those whom it sees imposed upon, I never could respect Cornelius less, for knowing him to be deceived.
My old life now began anew in many of its trials, though not perhaps in all its bitterness. Miriam tried to deprive me of the teaching of Cornelius, and he, without even suspecting her intention, resisted it with the most provoking simplicity and unconsciousness. In vain she came in evening after evening as we sat down to the lessons, spoke to him, or disturbed me with her fixed look; the studies were not interrupted. One evening, as we sat by the open window of the front parlour, engaged as usual, Miriam, who had sat listening to us with great patience, observed, a little after Kate had left the room—
"How good and kind of you, Cornelius, to teach that child so devotedly!Many men would disdain the task, you know."
"Think it foolish, perhaps?" he suggested.
"I fear they would."
"What fools they must be, Miriam!" he replied, smiling in her face.
"You are wise to put yourself above their opinion."
"As if I thought of their opinion!" he answered gaily. "Come, Daisy, parse me this: 'A certain great, unknown artist, once had a little girl. He was not ashamed to unbend his mighty mind by teaching her every evening. On one occasion, it is said, he actually disgraced himself so far as to kiss her.'"
I was listening with upraised face. I got the kiss before I knew what he meant. But I was not going to be discomposed by such a trifle, and I parsed as if nothing had occurred.
"Isn't she cool?" he said, turning to Miriam.
"She improves wonderfully," replied his betrothed.
"Does she not?" exclaimed Cornelius, who took a very innocent vanity in my progress; "I am quite proud of my pupil; and I have a system of my own—did you notice?"
"Oh yes, in the parsing."
"I don't mean that," he answered, reddening a little; "I mean a general system, a method,—the want of all education, you know."
"Yes, very true."
"Well," continued Cornelius, looking at me thoughtfully, and laying his hand on my head as he spoke; "I think that, thanks to this method, I shall, four or five years hence, be able to boast that I have helped to form the mind and character of an intellectual, sensible, and accomplished girl."
"Four or five years hence!" sighed Miriam.
Cornelius perhaps remembered the threat of death suspended over my whole youth, for he observed uneasily—
"Yes—I trust—I hope—Daisy, you must not learn so much!"
He drew me nearer to him with a look and motion kinder than a caress, then said to Miriam—
"She looks pale."
"It is only excitement; she is so anxious to please you. When she is near committing a mistake, she is quite agitated, poor child!"
Miriam had struck the right chord at last. There was some truth in what she said. My desire to please Cornelius did agitate me a little, and this he knew.
"She must go back to Kate," he hastily observed; "I won't have her so pale as that; and she must not study so much," he added, with increased anxiety, "she can always make up for lost time."
In vain I endeavoured to keep my teacher, he was resolute; it was some comfort that the change sprang from no unkindness, and had been effected only by working on his affection for me. But even that change, such as it was, did not last for more than a week. One evening, after listening to Kate and me with evident impatience, Cornelius swept away the books from before her, sat down between us, and, informing his sister that her method was no good, he announced his intention of taking me once more under his own exclusive care.
"My method is as good as any," tartly replied Kate, "but the pupil who frets for her first teacher cannot make much progress under the second."
"Have you been fretting, Daisy?" asked Cornelius.
I could not deny it; he smiled and caressed me.
"If it were any use remonstrating," said Kate, who looked half pleased, half dissatisfied, "I should tell you, Cornelius, that you are very foolish; not to lose time, I simply say this—you have taken Daisy from me a second time, you may keep her."
"I mean it," he answered gaily.
At once he resumed his office. We had scarcely begun when Miriam entered. She came almost every evening, for as her aunt was still at Hastings, Cornelius never visited her. From the door I saw her look at us, as we sat at the table, his arm on the back of my chair, his bent face close to mine, with a mute, expressive glance.
"Yes," said Cornelius, smiling, as he smoothed my hair, "I have got my pupil back again. The remedy was found worse than the disease."
Miriam smiled too. She gave up the point and attempted no more to deprive me of my teacher, but I had to pay dear in the daytime for what I received in the evening.
Whilst she sat for Medora, I studied or sewed. She said little to me, but every word bore its sting. Cornelius never detected the irony that lurked beneath the seeming praise and apparent kindness. She tormented me with impunity. There were so many points in which she could irritate my secret wound; for I was still intensely jealous of her, and though Cornelius and Kate thought me cured, she knew better.
But suffering gives premature wisdom.
I had entered my fourteenth year—I was no longer quite a child. When she made me feel, as she did almost daily, that I was plain, sallow, and sickly, my vanity smarted, but I reflected that Cornelius liked me in spite of these disadvantages, and I bore the insult silently; when however she made me see that Cornelius was devoted to her, that my place in his heart was as far removed from hers, as she was above me in years, beauty, and many gifts, I could scarcely bear it. That it should be so was bad enough, but to be taunted with it by the intruder who had come between him and me, wakened within me every emotion of anger and jealous grief; yet I had sufficient power over myself to control the outward manifestations of these feelings. Taught by the past, I mistrusted her. Weeks elapsed, and she could not make me fall into my old errors, or betray me into any outbreak of temper. But alas! even whilst I governed myself externally, I sought not to rule my heart, which daily grew more embittered against her. To this, and this only, I recognize it—I owed what happened. But before proceeding further, I cannot help recording a little incident which surprised me then, and which, when I look back on those times, still gives me food for thought.
The blind nurse of Miriam had returned with her from Hastings. I believe Miss Russell never moved without this old woman, to whom she was devotedly kind: she humoured her as she would have humoured a child, and, amongst other things, indulged her in the homely fashion of sitting at the front door of the house, in the narrow strip of garden that divided it from the Grove. It had been a favourite habit of hers to sit thus years back at the door of her cottage home; sightless though she was, she liked to sit so still; in the absence of old Miss Russell she did so freely. We too had a little front garden, divided from that of our neighbours by a low trellis. I was seldom in it, unless to water the few flowers it contained. I was thus engaged one calm evening, when the old woman sat alone at her door. She was wrinkled and aged; yet she had a happy, childish face, as if in feelings as well as in years she had gently returned to a second infancy. I noticed that as I moved about she bent her head and listened attentively.
"Do you want anything?" I asked, going up to the partition near which she sat.
Her face brightened; she stretched out her hand, felt me, and smiled.
"You are the little girl," she said eagerly.
"Yes," I replied, "I am."
"Is my blessed young lady with you?"
"Miss Russell is in our garden with Cornelius."
"I shall never see him," she sighed, "but I like his voice; he is very handsome, isn't he?"
"Kate says so, but I don't know anything about it."
"Is he kind to you?"
"He is very good to me and every one."
"That's right;" she said eagerly; "better goodness than gold any day."
"Cornelius will have gold too," I observed, piqued that he should be thought poor; "he will earn a great deal of money and will be quite rich."
The old woman looked delighted and astonished.
"I always said my blessed young lady would make a grand match," she said; "and so he is to be rich! God bless the good young gentleman!"
"He will be quite a great man," I resumed, "a Knight perhaps, or aBaronet."
She raised her hands.
"Ah well!" she sighed, after brooding for a few moments over my words, "he will have a blessed young lady for his wife, as good as she's handsome; and," she added, turning towards me her sightless eyes and gently laying her hand on my head, "and happy's the little girl that'll be with my dear young lady."
Matters had gone on thus for about a month, when Cornelius sold his Happy Time. Kate made him promise not to be extravagant; the only act of folly of which he rendered himself guilty was not a very expensive one.
One morning, when Miriam came to the studio, to sit as usual, Cornelius produced a pair of morocco cases; each contained a silver filagree bracelet: he asked her to choose one, and accept it. She was sitting in the attire and attitude of Medora; he stood by her, his present in his hand.
"Must I really choose?" she said. "What will Miss O'Reilly say?"
"Oh! the other is not for Kate, but for Daisy," he quietly answered.
I saw a scarcely perceptible change on her face, but she abstained from comment, gave an indifferent look to the two bracelets, and chose one, saying briefly—
"That one."
Cornelius placed the rejected bracelet on the table before me, with a careless—
"There, my dear, that is for you."
Then, without heeding my thanks, he devoted all his attention to the delightful task of fastening on the beautiful wrist of his mistress the bracelet she had accepted. He was a long time about it. The clasp, he said, was not good: she allowed him to do and undo it as often as he pleased. When he had at length succeeded, she looked down at her arm and said, indolently, "How very pretty it is!"
"The hand, or the bracelet?" he asked, smiling.
"The bracelet, of course."
"Do you really think so?" he exclaimed, looking much pleased; "I was afraid you did not like it: it is of little value, you know."
"It is very pretty," she said again.
"Do you like jewelry?" he inquired, eagerly.
"In a general way, no."
He looked disappointed.
"Why don't you like diamonds, pearls, and rubies?" he observed, with smiling reproach, "that I might have the pleasure of thinking—cannot give them to her now, but I shall earn them for her some day."
"Yes, it is a pity," she replied, with gentle irony, "but I have a quarrel with you: why have you forgotten your sister?"
"Forgotten Kate! she never wears jewels, Miriam."
She did not reply. He remained by her awhile longer, then set to work.
It was very kind of Cornelius to have made me this present, and yet it only irritated the secret jealousy it was meant to soothe. He had given the two bracelets so differently. They were of equal value, perhaps of equal beauty; but she had had the choice of the two; the rejected one had been for me. He had scarcely placed mine before me, and fastened hers on himself with lingering tenderness. He had carelessly heard or heeded my murmured thanks; she had not thanked him, yet he had looked charmed because she negligently approved his gift. In short, in the very thing which he had intended to please me, Cornelius had unconsciously betrayed the strong and natural preference that was my sole, my only true torment. His gift had lost its grace. I put on the bracelet, looked at it on my arm, then put it away again in its case, and read whilst she sat and he painted.
Towards noon she left us for an hour. Cornelius followed her out on the landing; he had left the door ajar, and, involuntarily. I overheard the close of their whispered conference. It referred to me. Cornelius was asking if I did not look very pale. I had been rather poorly of late, and he was kindly anxious about me.
"To me she looks the same as usual," quietly answered Miriam: "she always is sallow, and being so plain makes her look ill."
"Why, that is true," replied Cornelius, seemingly comforted by this reasoning.
What more they said I heard not; my blood flowed like fire. I was plain, I knew it well enough, but was he, of all others, to be told of it daily, until at length I heard it, an acknowledged fact falling from his lips? Was it something so unusual to be plain? Was I the first plain girl there had ever been? Should I leave none of the race after me? I felt the more exasperated that the tone of Miriam's voice told me she had not meant to be overheard by me. She had not spoken to taunt me: she had simply stated a fact that could not, it seemed, be disputed. Such reflections are pleasant at no age, but in youth, with its want of independence, of self- reliance, with its sensitive and fastidious self-love, they are insupportable.
Cornelius, unconscious of the storm that was brooding within me, had re- entered the studio and resumed his work. He seemed in a mood as pleased and happy as mine was bitter and discontented. He worked for some time in total silence, then suddenly called me to his side. I left the table, went up to him and stood by him with my book in my hand, waiting for what he had to say. He laid his hand on my shoulder, and, with his eyes intently fixed on Medora, "How is it getting on?" he asked.
"It will soon be finished, Cornelius," I replied, and I wanted to go back to my place, but he detained me.
"You need not be in such a hurry. Look at that face—is it not beautiful?"
He could not have put a more unfortunate question. He looked at the picture, but I knew he thought of the woman. I did not answer. He turned round, surprised at my silence.
"Don't you think it beautiful?" he asked incredulously.
"No, Cornelius, I do not," I answered, going back to my place as I spoke.
I only spoke as I thought; I had long ceased to think Miss Russell handsome. Cornelius became scarlet, and said, rather indignantly, "It would be more frank to say you dislike her, Daisy."
"I never said I liked her," I answered, stung at this reproach of insincerity, when my great fault was being too sincere.
I said this, though I fully expected it would make him very angry, but he only looked down at me with a smile of pity.
"So you are still jealous," he observed quietly; "poor child! if you knew how foolish, how ridiculous such jealousy seems to those who see it!"
I would rather Cornelius had struck me than that he had said this; I could not bear it, and burying my face in my hands, I burst into tears. He composedly resumed his work, and said in his calmest tones—
"If I were you, Daisy, I would not cry in that pettish way, but I would give up a foolish feeling, and try and mend. Think of it, my poor child; it is an awful thing to hate."
My tears ceased; I looked up, and for once I turned round and retaliated the accusation.
"Cornelius," I said, "I do not hate Miss Russell half as much as she hates me."
"She hate you!" he exclaimed, with indignant pity, "poor child!"
"And if she does not hate me," I cried, giving free vent to the gathered resentment of weeks and months,—"if she does not hate me, Cornelius, why was she so glad when she thought me disfigured with the small-pox, that she should come up to look at me? Why did she give me a dress in which I looked so ill, that you know Kate has never allowed me to wear it? Why did she make you send me to school? Why did she come back from Hastings and make you leave by the Stolen Child? Why did she want you to discontinue teaching me? Why is there never a day but she reminds you that I am sickly, plain, and sallow?"
I rose as I enumerated my wrongs; Cornelius looked at me like one utterly confounded.
"You say I am jealous of her," I continued, gazing at him through gathering tears; "I am, Cornelius, but I am not half so jealous as she is, and yet I love you twice as well as she does. For your sake I would not vex her, and she does all she can to make mc wretched. I could bear your liking her much and me a little; but if she could she would not let you like me at all. If you say a kind word to me or kiss me, she looks as if it made her sick; she hates me, Cornelius, she hates me with her whole heart." Tears choked my utterance. Cornelius sighed profoundly.
"Poor child," he said, with a look of great pity, "how can you labour under such strange delusions?"
I looked at him; he did not seem angry, very far from it. Alas! it was but too plain; every word I had uttered had passed for the ravings of an insane jealousy. Cornelius sat down and called me to his side.
"Come here," he said kindly, "and let us reason together."
"If you knew." he continued taking both my hands in his, "how thoroughly blind you are, you would regret speaking thus. How can you imagine that Miriam, who is so good, so kind, should—hate you? Promise me that you will dismiss the idea."
"I cannot—I know better—there is not a day but she torments me."
"Poor child! you are your own tormentor. She torment you! look at that beautiful face, and ask yourself, is it possible?"
"Beautiful!" I echoed, "I don't think she is beautiful, Cornelius."
"Yes, I know," he composedly replied, "but that is because you don't like her."
"No more I do," I exclaimed passionately, "nor anything of or about her: no—not even your picture, Cornelius!"
He dropped my hands; rose and looked down at me, flushed and angry.
"You need not tell me that," he said indignantly, "the look of aversion and hate you have just cast at that picture, shows sufficiently that though the power to do the original some evil and injury may be wanting, the will is not."
He turned away from me, then came back.
"But remember this," he said severely, and laying his hand on my shoulder as he spoke, "that though you have presumed to reveal to me a feeling of which you should blush to acknowledge the existence, I will not allow that feeling to betray itself in any manner, however slight. Do you hear?"
"Yes, Cornelius," I replied, stung at the unmerited accusation and uncalled-for prohibition; "but if I am so wicked, can you prevent me from showing it?"
I did not mean that I would show it; but he took my words in their worst sense, for his eyes lit as he answered—
"I shall see if I cannot prevent it."
I was too proud and too much hurt to enter on a justification. I left the room; at the door I met Miriam, who gave me a covert look as she entered the studio. I went to my room and remained there until dinner-time. Cornelius took no notice of me; Miriam, who often dined with us, was, on the other hand, very kind and attentive. I saw she had got it all out from him. Kate behaved like one who knew and suspected nothing; admired the bracelets, and seeing that I wanted to linger with her in the parlour after the two had left it, she gaily told me to be off, for that she wanted none of my company, as she was going out. I obeyed so far as leaving the parlour went, but I did not enter the studio. I took refuge in my own room, there to lament my sin and imprudence. I knew well enough how wrong were the feelings I had expressed to Cornelius, and better still how a few passionate words had undone a month's patience and silent endurance. I stayed in my room until dusk; as daylight waned, I heard Miriam leave and go down. I waited for awhile, then softly stole up to the studio. I entered it with a beating heart, thinking to make my peace with Cornelius. The room was vacant. I sat down by the table, hoping he might return, but he did not. I lingered there, that if he called me down to tea, he might thus give me an opportunity of speaking to him. He did call me, but from the first floor.
"What are you doing in the studio?" he asked, rather sharply when I went down.
"I went up to speak to you, Cornelius."
"And you therefore looked for me in a place where I never am at this hour! Say you went up there to indulge in a fit of sulkiness, and do not equivocate."
I could not answer, I was too much hurt by his unkind tone and manner. Of course I ventured no attempt at reconciliation.
It was Miriam who made the tea.
The meal was silent and soon over. The lovers went out in the garden. I remained alone. Ere long Deborah looked in.
"I am going out, Miss," she said, "is there anything wanted?"
I replied that she had better ask her master.
The back-parlour door and window stood open. I heard her question and his answer, "Nothing;" then she left, and I saw her go down the Grove.
It was getting quite dark, yet Cornelius and Miriam lingered out together. I fancied they were taking a walk in the lanes; but on going to the back-parlour window, I saw them both standing by the sun-dial. The moon shone full upon them, on her especially; and even I, seeing her thus, was bitterly obliged to confess the beauty I had vainly denied in the morning. She still wore the white robe of Medora, and, standing by the sun-dial with her magnificent bare arm resting upon it, she looked like a beautiful statue of repose and silence.
Cornelius stood by her, holding her other hand clasped in his, but silent too. "You have lost it again," he said at length.
"Look for it," was her careless reply.
He stooped, picked up something from the grass; she held out her arm to him with indolent grace. I suppose it was the bracelet he fastened on. In the act, he raised unchecked, that fair arm to his lips.
I had not come there to watch them; besides, my heart was swelling fast within me. I turned away and again went to the front parlour. I sat by the windows. Ere long I heard some one in the passage; then the front door was opened; I saw Miriam pass slowly through the front garden, gather a rose, open the gate, and turn to her own door. Now at length I could speak to Cornelius. I ran out eagerly to the garden; he was not there. I called him; he did not answer. I went up-stairs and knocked at his room door; not there either was he; I sought the studio and peeped in with the same result. It was plain too he was gone out, and that I was alone in the house. I was not afraid, but felt the disappointment, and I sat down at the head of the staircase in a dreary, desolate mood. I had not been there more than a few minutes, when I heard a step coming up which I recognized as that of Cornelius.
"Is that you, Daisy?" he asked, stopping short and speaking sharply.
"Yes, Cornelius."
"What are you doing here?"
"I thought you were here, Cornelius."
"You knew I was out."
"No, Cornelius, I did not."
"It is very odd; Miriam heard you answering me when I asked you from the garden if Deborah was come back."
"Miss Russell must have been mistaken, Cornelius. I did not hear you, andI did not answer. I came here to look for you; indeed I did."
"Very well," he replied, carelessly, "let me pass; I want to go up."
I rose, but as I did so, I said again, "It was to look for you I came up here, Cornelius."
I hoped he would ask me what I wanted with him, but he only replied, very coldly, "I never said the contrary," and he passed by me to enter the studio, where he began seeking for something.
"What have you done with the matchbox?" he at length asked impatiently.
"I never touched it. Cornelius: but if you want anything, you know I can find it for you without a light."
He did not answer, but continued searching up and down. I pressed my services.
"Let me look for it, Cornelius, I do not want a light, you know."
"Thank you," he drily replied, "I have what I want now; but I must request you no longer to meddle with my books. I have just found on the floor the volume I left on the table. It puzzles me to understand what you can want in the studio at this hour."
Thus speaking, he shut the door, locked it, and, putting the key in his pocket, he went downstairs without addressing another word to me. I felt so disconcerted, that every wish for explanation vanished; but even had it remained, the opportunity was not mine. When I followed him downstairs, I found him in the parlour with Kate, who was wondering "where Deborah could be?"
"How is it you said Deborah was in?" asked Cornelius, turning to me.
"I never said so, Cornelius."
"Miss Russell heard you."
"She cannot have heard me," I replied, indignantly; "I don't know why you will not believe me as well as her."
Cornelius gave me a severe look.
"You were not accused," he said, "and need not have justified yourself in that tone."
Kate gave us a quick glance, and said abruptly—
"I am astonished at Deborah; you might have wanted to go out."
"I did go out," replied Cornelius, "thinking she was in; but I only stayed out a few minutes."
"Did Daisy remain alone?"
"I suppose so, for as I went out by the back door, Miriam left by the front; but the neighbourhood is safe, and Daisy is surely not so silly as to be afraid."
"She looks very pale," observed Kate: "what have you been doing to her?"
"What has she been doing to me?" he coldly answered.
Kate sighed, and laying her hand on my shoulder, she looked down at me compassionately.
"Go to bed, child," she said kindly.
I did not ask better. She kissed me, and again said I was very pale; her brother never raised his eyes from his book. I thought him unkind and myself ill-used. I was proud, even with him; I left the room without bidding him good-night, and went to bed without seeking a reconciliation.
I awoke the next morning in a miserable, unhappy mood. Kate noticed my downcast looks and sullen replies at breakfast, and said, rather sharply—
"I should like to know what is the matter with you, child."
I did not answer, but looked sulkily down at my cup; when I chanced to raise my eyes, they met the gaze of Cornelius fastened intently on my face. I felt my colour come and go. With a sense of pain I averted my look from his. Immediately after breakfast, and without asking me to accompany him, he went up to his studio; he had not been there long, and I was still listening to the lecture of Kate, who reproved me for being so ill-tempered, when we heard the voice of her brother, calling out from above in a tone that sounded strange—
"Daisy!"
I obeyed the summons. Cornelius stood on the landing waiting for me. He made me enter the studio, then followed me in and closed the door. I looked at him and stood still; his brow was pale and contracted; his brown eyes, so pleasant and good-humoured, burned with a lurid light; his lips were white and thin, and quivered slightly. Never had I seen him so. He took me by the hand—he led me to his easel.
"Look!" he said, in a low tone.
But I could not take my eyes from his face.
"Look!" he said again.
I obeyed mechanically, and started back with dismay. Where the fair, intent face of Medora had once looked towards the blue horizon, now appeared an unsightly blotch. I looked incredulously at first; at length I said—
"How did it happen, Cornelius?"
"You mean, who did it?" he replied.
"Did any one do it, then?" I asked, looking up in his face.
He folded his arms across his breast, and looked down at me.
"You ask if any one did it!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, Cornelius, for who could do it, when you know there was no one in the house but ourselves?"
"Very true, no one but ourselves," he answered, with a smile of which I did not understand the full meaning. "It could not be Kate, for she was out?"
"And so was Deborah," I quickly suggested.
"Ay, and Miss Russell left at the same time with me."
"And I am quite sure no one entered the studio whilst you were out,Cornelius, for I was sitting at the head of the staircase."
"And I am quite as sure no one entered it at night, for I had the key in my pocket."
"Then you see that no one did it," I replied, looking up at him.
"I see," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, and bending his look on mine,—"I see no such thing, Daisy. I see that only two persons can have done the deed—you or I—I'll leave you to guess which it was."
"And did you really do it, Cornelius?" I exclaimed, quite bewildered.
The eyes of Cornelius kindled, his lip trembled, but turning away from me as if in scorn of wrath—
"Leave the room," he said almost calmly.
I looked at him—the truth flashed across me—Cornelius accused me of having done it. I felt stunned, far more with wonder than with indignation.
"Did you hear me?" he asked, with the same dead calmness in his tone."Leave the room!" and his extended hand pointed to the door.
But I did not move.
"Cornelius," I said, "do you mean that I did it?"
"Leave the room," was his only answer, and he turned from me.
"Cornelius," I repeated, following him, "do you mean that I did it?"
"Leave the room," he said, without looking at me.
"Cornelius, did you say I did it?" I asked a third time, and I placed myself before him, so as to make him stop short. I was not angry—I was scarcely moved—I spoke quietly, but I felt that were he to kill me the next minute, I should and would compel a reply, and I did compel one.
"Yes," he answered, with a sort of astonished wrath at my hardihood; "yes, I do say you did it."
I drew back a step or two from him, so that my upraised look met his.
"Cornelius," I said, very earnestly, "I did not do it."
"Ah! you did not," he exclaimed.
"Oh no," I replied, and I shook my head and smiled at so strange a mistake.
"Ah!" echoed Cornelius in the same tone, "you did not—who did, then?"
"I do not know, Cornelius, how should I?"
"How should you? Was it not proved awhile back only two persons could have done it, you or I, and since it so chances that I am not the person, does it not follow that you are?"
I looked at him incredulously: it seemed to me that I had but to deny to be acquitted. I fancied he had not understood me.
"Cornelius," I objected, "did you not hear me say it was not I?"
"I heard you—what about it?"
"Why that it cannot be me."
"Who else?"
"I do not know."
"Was not the picture safe when I left it here?"
"Yes, Cornelius, for I was here after you left, and I saw it."
"You confess it?"
"Why not, Cornelius?"
"You confess that you were up here after I went down with Miriam, and that you remained here until tea-time, when I called you down myself."
"Yes, Cornelius, I was up here."
"Did you not remain alone in the house when every one else was out of the way?"
"Yes, Cornelius, I did."
"When I came back did I not find you at the door of this room?"
"Yes, Cornelius; sitting at the head of the staircase."
"Did you not endeavour to prevent me from getting a light?"
"I said, Cornelius, I could find what you were looking for, without one."
"And you said so twice—twice."
"I believe I did, twice, as you say."
"I did, scarce knowing why, an unusual thing—I locked the door, I took the key. Do you grant that whatever was done must have been done before then?"
"Yes, Cornelius."
I spoke and felt like one in a dream. Each answer fell mechanically from my lips; and yet I knew that with every word of assent, the net of evidence I could not so much as attempt to disprove, drew closer around me.
"Well," said Cornelius, in the voice of a judge sitting over a criminal, "what have you to say against facts proved by your own confession?"