She had this comfort. She did not understand from Lance that he had accepted, and he certainly did not join Edgar that night in the kitchen, but, saying he was tired out, he went at once to bed.
On Saturday she had not one private moment with him, but on the other hand, neither she hoped had Edgar; for the work both of the press and of the shop happened to be unusually heavy, and neither he nor Felix had a moment to spare; and Edgar spent the evening with some friends in the town.
Sunday afternoon, the family hour for walks and talks, poured with rain, and thereby was favourable to letters to Fulbert. Indeed, Angela's commencement of some sacred music was stopped, by the general voice entreating her to wait till the letters were finished. Lance, who never wrote to anybody but Fulbert, had resumed the practice ever since he had received an affectionate letter called forth by his illness, and was now busy with his little blotty portfolio; while Robina, having no Sunday correspondent, was half reading, half watching Stella explaining pictures to Theodore.
Presently Lance stretched across, and silently put a sheet of note-paper into her lap, hushing her by a sign. It had been begun in his best hand, and it must be confessed that that hand was at present a scratchy one, and there were various erasures.
DEAR SIR,I have done my best to consider your kind and flattering proposal, and have come to the conclusion that for the present it will be better for me to continue where I am. There will thus be no need to apply to my eldest brother.With my respectful thanks,Yours faithfully,LANCELOT O. UNDERWOOD.
DEAR SIR,
I have done my best to consider your kind and flattering proposal, and have come to the conclusion that for the present it will be better for me to continue where I am. There will thus be no need to apply to my eldest brother.
With my respectful thanks,Yours faithfully,LANCELOT O. UNDERWOOD.
Robina made a little pantomime of clapping her hands, for which Lance did not appear to thank her, but still in dumb show required her judgment on the choice of several words. She mutely marked her preference, and he returned to his place and copied it. Still he had not addressed the letter. He put it into his pocket, with a significant smile at his sister. Evening came, late service, supper; still it was in his pocket till the moment of bed-time, and then it was that Robina saw him linger with Edgar, and went to her room with a heart full of trembling prayer.
'Edgar,' as his brother arrived in the kitchen, and prepared his pipe, 'how shall I address this?'
'Eh! you needn't be in too great a haste. We had better break it to poor old Blunderbore first.'
'There's no breaking in the case. I'm not going.'
'Ah! I knew how it would be when you began running about to all the womankind in the house.'
'I've not spoken to a soul but Bobbie,' said Lance rather hotly, as Edgar laughed.
'Then one was enough to do your business?'
'I only spoke to her to clear my own mind.'
'Ay, to get someone to contemplate Hercules between Vice and Virtue; but it won't do, my boy. Little Allen is as virtuous as Felix himself, and the choice is simply between the thing you can do and the thing you can't.'
'I can do my duty here,' said Lance bluntly.
'You've tried, my boy; you made a gallant effort, and I let you alone while you had a head to be spared, but 'tis no good trying to force the course of the stream, and you had better break loose, before you get too old for the real thing that you are made for.'
'No, Edgar, I've thought it over, and found out how things stand. Here will Felix begin now to have more on his hands, and can manage to shell out less than ever while he had Froggy to fall back on. Now, not only is my nominal salary much less than he could offer a stranger, but half of it goes back into the housekeeping, while I'mdone forat home, and I don't see how he could meet the difference just now.'
'Whew! that's the blind way you all go on, putting the present before the future. If Felix had a grain of spirit, he would revolt at preying on your flesh and blood. Flesh and blood—why, its genius and spirit crushed up in this hole!'
'It is no more than all of us have done by him, ever since he was of my size.'
'But it is so short-sighted, Lance. You could make it up to him so soon. Five pounds for certain the week—and possibilities, remember. You'll lodge with me—that's nothing; and for the rest, you'll soon live as we do—like the birds of the air.'
'I couldn't make it up to him, and save for Italy; besides I should be earning nothing there.'
'But I should! Copying is a certain trade. Come now, Lance, you've taken some panic. Tell me what is at the bottom of it! Have they been warning you against us wicked Bohemians?'
'They? Nonsense!'
'She, then?'
'It is nothing at all that Robina said.'
'Come, make a clean breast. What lies at the bottom of this absurd rejection of the best offer you'll ever have in your life?'
Edgar took the pipe out of his mouth, that the smoke might not obscure his view of the young face whose brow was resting on an arm leant on the mantel-piece, and the eyes far away. 'What's the bugbear? and I'll clear it up.'
'No bugbear.'
'You don't trust me. Eh? Is that it? Have they told you I mean to prey on your innocence?'
'No, indeed, Edgar!'
'Are you afraid of the great and wicked world? I thought you'd more spirit than that; and I've always told you, you might run after as many churches as you chose. I'd never hinder you. Come, have it out, Lance, you think me a corrupter of your artless youth?'
'No!'
'Come, out with it. What has turned you?'
The answer came at last in his low clear voice, speaking more into the fire than to Edgar, the eyes still fixed and far away—'"And here we offer and present unto Thee ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice."'
'What do you mean? what's that?' said Edgar, half startled, half angry.
'It comes after the Holy Communion,' said Lance, quite as much shocked by the novelty with which the familiar sound struck on his brother's ears.
'Oh! a pious utterance that only atête exaltéetakes literally.'
'I should not join in it if I didn't mean it,' muttered Lance, in the most brief matter-of-fact way.
'Then why aren't you living barefoot on bread and water in a hermitage?'
'Because that's not my duty. It would not be reasonable.'
'There's great force in that word,' began Edgar, with a little scoff in his tone, but altering it into one of more earnestness. 'Now, Lance, I want to understand your point of view. How does that formula hinder you?'
'Because,' said Lance, much against his will, 'it wouldn't be making my soul and body a reasonable sacrifice, to turn the training I had for God's praise into singing love songs to get money and fame.'
'Why do you assume that beauty and delight of any sort is not just as pleasing to God as your chants and anthems?'
'No. One is offered to Him, the other is mere entertainment.'
'So is the first to most folks. Now, you boy, honestly, do you mean that it is not much of a muchness with sacred and profane, so far as motive goes?'
'It is what I am always trying that it should be,' said Lance.
'Only trying?'
'Only trying.'
'And you consider yourself to be this sacrifice, this victim, by singing in a surplice for ladies to whisper about, instead of getting trained to interpret—nay, what I do say! maybe, compose—the grandest human music. You've got it in you, my boy.'
'You may say what you please,' said Lance, turning away to the fire.
'I don't want to vex you, boy, I only want to make it out. I see thesacrifice.'
'It was my own fault for saying a word about it to you,' muttered Lance.
'But I don't see the sense of it,' proceeded Edgar, 'or what it is but your own fancy that puts the one thing up in the heights, the other down in the depths.'
'You must know that,' said Lance, 'the fever and transport that comes of one kind of music has nothing good in it.'
'That's the question.'
'I know it has not for me.'
'And has the other?'
'Of course it has! Besides, I don't do it for myself. Come, Edgar, tell me how to direct that letter, and let me go.'
'You may leave it till I go to town.'
'That would not be fair. He will want to look out for someone else. Tell me!'
'Not I! I'm not going to let you make a fool of yourself in a fit of religious excitement.'
Lance smiled. 'Much excitement in a cold dark church in a wet morning, with not twenty people there.'
'That's as you work yourself up. Here, sit down and take the other pipe.'
'I can't; I can hardly stand yours, my head is raging!'
'Oh! that accounts for it! Go off to bed, and wake in week-day senses.'
'I wish you'd let me have done with it,' sighed Lance; but Edgar shook his head with, 'All for your good, my dear fellow!'
'If Balak's messengerswillstay the night, it is not my doing,' said Lance to himself, as he wearily mounted the stairs to his sleepless bed in the barrack; for though his headaches had become much less frequent and disabling, still his constitution was so sensitive, that a course of disturbed nights always followed any excitement; and thus the morrow found him dull and confused enough to render his attempts at diligence so far from successful, that he was more than once sharply called to order; and Felix came in at dinner-time, exclaiming, 'I can't think what's the matter with that boy. He seems as if he would never do any good again!'
'Précisément!' muttered Edgar. 'You had better give him up with a good grace, as I told you before.'
And being at the moment alone in the room with Felix and Geraldine, he not only detailed his plans for Lance, but eagerly counselled Felix to invest at least half Thomas Underwood's legacy in the National Minstrelsy.
'Really!' said Felix, in a tone of irony, 'this is nearly coming to the old plan of setting up a family circus! Then it is this that has so entirely unsettled him?'
'That the old must pass away is not sufficiently appreciated here.'
Then Edgar appealed to Cherry for the charms of artist society, and the confutation of the delusions respecting it held by Philistines at home, a conversation only interrupted by the arrival of dinner, and the rest of the population.
Felix as usual had to go down after a few mouthfuls; Edgar followed him to say on the stairs, 'I've one piece of advice to give. Remember that you are an old Philistine giant, and act with due humility.'
'Is he set upon it?'
'I cannot say heart and soul, for heart and what he thinks soul are pulling opposite ways. I say, Felix, you should take into consideration the effect on me. I haven't sat still to listen to so much piety since my father's time; it is a caution to see a little chap so simply literal.'
Felix could wait no longer. He found Lance alone in the office, resting his head on his desk. 'You'll be in time for dinner, Lance!'
'Thank you, I'd rather not. Send Stubbs home.'
'Head-ache?'
'Not much now!'
'I'm sorry I was sharp with you this morning, Lance. You should have told me!'
'It was not worth while, but I did mean to have done better to-day, Felix!'
'I believe you did. If you think it will set you to rights, I would let you off this afternoon.'
'No, thank you; it is getting better.'
Felix looked at him a moment or two, then said, 'Edgar tells me he has been talking to you.'
'Yes. I hope you have given him a settler, Felix.'
'Have you?'
'I tried, but he would not take it. He thought it was only Sunday.'
'Only Sunday!'
'That made me sure it would not do.'
'You are quite right, Lance. So far as it depends on me, I should have done all in my power to keep you from what cannot but be a life of much temptation, and I am thankful that you have decided it for yourself. You are really content to stay here with me?'
'Content—well, not just now; but I shall be again when all the remains of the bear-fight have subsided,' said Lance. 'I ought and I must, and that's enough.'
With which words he ran out as some one was heard entering the shop; and Felix stood for a few moments over the fire, musing on the brave way in which his young brother had met the enticement, and on the danger into which his own reproofs, however well-merited, had driven him.
Lance's other occupation that evening did not make him better pleased with Edgar's friends. Wilmet had decreed—and he had submitted half ruefully, half-merrily—that what remained of his salary after his contribution to the house expenses, should be guarded by her for his wardrobe, only half-a-crown a week being put into his own hands; and as this always managed to disappear without much to show for it, she viewed it as quite enough for waste; and indeed, out of what was in her keeping she had managed to provide him with a watch.
With his Monday half-crown, and sixpence besides, he repaired to the Fortinbras Arms to pay for his share of the notable breakfast; but he found some demur; Mr. Jones was aghast at his own bill, and really unwilling to send it in. The private supper, the next day's breakfast, and all that the party had called for, amounted to what would make a terrible hole in the receipts of the concert.
As to Lance's paying the fifth part of thedéjeûner, the landlord thought it was impossible, and though his three shillings might perhaps represent the cost of what he had individually consumed, to offer or accept that was not according to rules. Mr. Jones would gladly have made this bill his subscription to the organ, if he could but have afforded the loss; but this, as he told Lance, he could not do. He listened, however, with a smile of some pity, when Lance assured him that his own and his brother's shares should be made up; and Lance picked out the charge, and carried it off to Edgar.
There again he met with no success. Edgar laughed at him, and told him he did not know the privileges of the artiste; and when Lance waxed hot, and declared that if the concert paid the expenses of the two stars themselves, it was a wicked exaction to make it defray the expenses of either Mr. Allen or their guests, he was answered coolly that expensive articles must be taken on their own terms, and that spoiling the Philistines was always fair.
'Then don't you mean to pay, Edgar?'
Edgar gave his foreign shrug, and made a gesture of incapability. He was vexed with Lance, and at no pains to soften matters.
'Now,' said Lance, with a sort of grave simplicity, 'I understand what living like birds of the air means.'
Lance went back to Mr. Jones, and told him that the two-fifths of the breakfast should be paid. And in twelve weeks it was done, But by this specimen it may be guessed that the new organ was not exactly purchased by the concert.
'Oft with anxious straining eyesWe watch the coming of some joy long hoped for;And now 'tis near. But at its side a darkAnd stealthy thing, that we should fly like deathDid we but see it, is advancing on us,Yes, step by step with those of its bright compeer.'King Henry II., a Drama.(Quoted in Helps' Casimir Maremma.)
'Which is to have the precedence, Alda's child or ours?'
'Alda's child is not likely to be ready for inspection as early as ours.'
'Oh! I thought you would vote it treason to babydom not to begin with Lowndes Square.'
'My maternal feelings draw me the other way, you see.'
'You won't confess it to Wilmet!'
'It is of no use to go to Alda before twelve,' put in Marilda. 'Cherry had better go to the Royal Academy before it gets full.'
It was May, and the catalogue of the Royal Academy bore—
and a good way further on, among the water-colours,
'But abruptly turning,Hied he to the choir,Touched the Altar tapersWith a flake of fire.'(The Three Crowns.)
So, these having been accepted, Geraldine had come up to town to see them in their place. The undertaking was far less formidable than it had been a year ago, for Cherry was now much more at home with her cousins.
She understood Marilda better now, and reproached herself for having taken for worldliness what was really acquiescence rather than cause any disturbance in the family such as could worry her father, of whose state she had been aware all that last summer. Cherry respected her now, though they had little in common. Marilda had become too much acclimatized to London to like country life. She made some awkward attempts at squiress duty, but was far more in her element in her office, where she took on herself to attend to business so vigorously, that no one would have known there had been any change but by the initials. Felix had been of much use to her, and had certainly gained a good deal in consideration by the manifest reliance placed on him; and his position among the citizens of Bexley was now a fixed and settled thing.
Mrs. Underwood, in the inertness of grief, did not move from Centry until she was carried up to town by her strong desire to preside at Lady Vanderkist's confinement. She was, however, disappointed, for Lady Mary undertook the care of her daughter-in-law; but she made up for it as well as she could by permitting all the assiduities from the good lady that Alda would endure, and being herself extremely friendly and good-natured.
The first proposal had been that Cherry should go up with them and see the pictures on the private day, but the east wind and flying threats of rheumatism had prevented this, till Marilda, running down to inspect her works at Centry, carried her off, undertaking, with better knowledge than before, that she should be well cared for.
So here was the carriage at the door, and Edgar come to escort her to the realization of the almost incredible fact that she, as well as himself, was an artist and exhibitor. She had heard favourable opinions, but none the less did her heart palpitate with far more of distress than of exultation as at a strange presumptuous unnatural position—she, who, while striving to be satisfied with faithfully doing her best, had so much wished for success as to make it a continual prayer, that the works of their hands might be prospered upon both, and to feel it an effort honestly to add the clause, 'If it be thy will—if Thou see it good for us.'
She had not seen Edgar's picture, nor himself since the concert, and there had been some breaths of rumour which took form in the saying that the absence of the family from Kensington Palace Gardens had been a sad thing for him.
However that might be, he was as much at his 'Chérie's' service as ever, though with something of the forced manner she had known in him at moments of crisis, and which betrayed much anxiety. He repeated to her many times on the way that Brynhild had been unfairly dealt with in the hanging, and related anecdotes of injustice suffered by whoever did not belong to favoured cliques, all which made her uneasy. Of hers he said little. She knew that water-colours at the Royal Academy exhibition received little notice, but had obediently followed some crotchet of Mr. Renville's which had taken her thither. Trafalgar Square was then still the locality, and when the steps had been surmounted, and they stood between the two doors leading to the water-colours, it was straight on that they went, for the sight of Brynhild was the triumph and delight that Geraldine had figured to herself for months past.
It was, as she already knew, in the second room, rather below the privileged line; and at this early hour, the numbers of visitors were so scanty that she could see the cocoon shaped glow of yellow flame across the room.
'Oh! there she is! She is smaller than I thought.'
'Just what Polly said. All ladies go in for 'igh hart on the Zam zummin scale.'
She must have hurt his feelings, she saw, or he would not have compared her criticism with Marilda's; and as she felt that he was watching her countenance as he led her forward and lodged her opposite. From eager expectation her look became constrained, as it shot through her that this was not the Brynhild of the sketch and of her imagination. She was disappointed!
'Well, what?' asked Edgar impatiently, reading the countenance in spite of all endeavours.
'How like Marilda!'
'What, Brynhild, the toad! So she would be. I suppose the caricature demoralized me, and the family features are the same.'
'And Sigurd is Ferdinand.'
'Nature created him for a model.'
It was not the likeness to Marilda which gave Cherry the sense of unfulfilled expectation and dissatisfaction. The lofty expression, the deep awe, the weird cloud-land grandeur that she had connected either with the sketch or her memory of it, had passed away from the finished oil-painting; and when she had called it small, it was not because it was cabinet sized, but because it was wanting in the sense of majesty that can be conveyed in a gem as well as in a colossus. What was to have been a wild scene of terror in the world of mistswouldlook extravagant, and neither the pose of Brynhild's limbs nor the position of Sigurd's sword, approved themselves to her eye as correct drawing.
Brother and sister were both far too acute, and too well used to read each other's looks and tones, for fencing or disguise to be possible.
'You don't like it.'
'O Edgar!' much distressed, 'indeed there is a great deal very beautiful, but somehow I had imagined it different.'
'Oh, if you came with a preconceived notion.'
'Perhaps that's it,' said Cherry, peeping through her eye-lashes, as long ago at the great Achilles, and making them a sieve to divest the image before her of all that her eye would condemn in spite of herself.
'I see a great deal of beauty, but somehow I thought the whole would have been more finished,' she said.
'Not possible. A rude half developed myth is not in keeping with the precision of a miniature. Besides, the finish of Sigurd's armour throws back the vague beyond.'
Her feeling had been that the Pre-Raphaelitism of the hauberk was too like worsted stockings, and not in keeping with the Turneresque whirl of flame and smoke around the sleeping Valkyr; but the disloyalty of not admiring Edgar's picture was impossible to her loving spirit; she listened and looked through her eye-lashes, till though Brynhild's limbs were to her unassisted sense almost as uncomfortable as those of Achilles had been, he imparted a glamour, so that she thought she beheld it as it ought to have been, and believed it to be so great and deep a work of art that study alone could appreciate it.
'Yes, I see—I see it now—I could not before—but that is all the better!'
The room was filling and they were jostled by a group diligently working their way with their catalogue from No. 1 to No. 1200.
'What's that glaring red and yellow thing?'
'260, Brynhild. Who was she, Flo?'
'Don't you know, Mamma? That French queen who was torn to pieces by wild horses.'
'I don't see any horses. She is all on fire.'
'I suppose she was burnt afterwards. And that's the king who did it.'
'What a horrid picture!'
'There's the intelligent public one works for,' said Edgar. 'Come and try your luck.'
He paused, however, to show her the difference a foot's elevation would have made to his painting; and she, with a mind more at leisure from itself, waited not only to sympathize but to be fascinated with the loveliness or power of more than one picture past which he would have hurried her, with murmurs at the R.A. who had secured the best situation.
Here they were in the water-colour room, obliged to wait, to penetrate the throng round the lesser ones, which were so close together that there was no distinct appropriation of the remarks.
'What a dear little thing!' 'Is it all the same child?' 'It can't be portrait, she is so pretty.'
Edgar smiled at her, and she whispered, with great inconsistency, 'No, it can't be that. Besides, childish prettiness always pleases more people than anything high and ideal.'
She tried to turn to the Acolyte, and two or three gentlemen yielded place to the lame girl. 'Geraldine Underwood,' said one, making her start, till she saw he was reading from his catalogue. 'I don't remember her name before.'
'No, and there's so much power as well as good drawing and expression, that I should not have thought it a woman's work.'
This, the most ambitioned praise a woman can receive, made her indeed Cherry-red, and Edgar's beaming glance of congratulation was most delightful.
Certainly, whatever his faults, among them was neither jealousy nor want of affectionateness; and Cherry's success gave him unqualified pleasure, both agreeing in the belief that she was on a level with the public taste, while he soared too high beyond it.
Her paintings had a strength of colouring unusual in inexperienced artists, perhaps owing to the depth of hue she had grown accustomed to when painting for her old woman, and thus they asserted themselves, and were not killed by their neighbours, but rather, as Edgar said, committed slaughter all round.
Yet 'The Acolyte' was on the whole a dark picture: the Church was in a brown dim shade, within which, however, its perspective vaultings, arches, and tracery, were perfectly drawn, knowing where they were going and what they meant, yet not obtruded; and the Altar hangings, richly patterned in olive green and brown gold, were kept back in spite of all their detail, throwing out the 'flake of fire' and the glitter reflected on the gold ornaments, which had been drawn with due deference to Clement's minute information, while in the fragment of the east window just seen above, glittered a few jewels of stained glass touched by the rising sun, and to which the subdued colouring of the rest gave wonderful glory; and the server himself was so tinted with grey that even his white dress did not glare, while his face was the face of Lance, as it had been a few years back, boyish and mirthful through all its dutiful reverence. Of course it was not new to Edgar, but he owned that he was always struck by it whenever he came that way; and Cherry heaved a little sigh of parental pride and delight as she owned that her little 'server' did look better than she had expected.
Then Edgar elbowed her to what was called at home her 'Constellation,' where she had caught Stella's sweet little head four times over—in the seriousness of lesson-learning, with eager parted smiling lips with which she listened to a story, with her tender caressing expression towards the kitten she was nursing, and with the rapt dreamy gaze that her brother's music would bring over her countenance. All had the merit of being caught—in the first sketch—entirely without consciousness on Stella's part; and though she had been nailed to the positions afterwards, it had been possible to preserve the unstudied expression that was one great charm of the drawings, much more sketchy and suggestive than was their companion.
It was not easy to maintain a stand before the frame that held the four, for people must have told one another of it, and squeezed their way to it; till the poor little artist, growing nervous at the press, was grasping her brother tight to make him take her away. Just then there was a kind eager greeting, 'Good morning; I am delighted to meet you here. You must allow me to congratulate you.'
It was Mr. Grinstead, too considerate to utter a name that would instantly have brought all eyes upon the little lame girl, whom the gazers were almost sweeping away. He was full of that gracious fatherly kindness that elderly men were prone to show her, and solicitously asked where she was staying, and whether he might call upon her; and then, taking advantage of an interval of people, he brought her again in front of her pictures. With him on Lord Gerald's side of her, and Edgar on the other, she felt safe enough to enter into his kind critique, so discriminating as to gratify, improve, and stimulate her far more than if it had been all compliment. By the time this was over, Cherry could stand no longer, and it was time for her visit to her sister, so the sculptor did Ferdinand's old part by taking care of her while Edgar hunted up their cousin's brougham.
'O Edgar, aren't you coming?'
'Well! I can't say the Mynheer'sménagelikes me better than I like it.'
'Oh, Eddie, dear,do. How shall I ever get in among all those dreadful strange servants?'
'What, the crack exhibitor, whose pictures transcend woman's genius, afraid of a flunky or two!'
Nevertheless, he let her pull him into the carriage, laughing, and demanding whether she could not have opposed coachman and footman to their congeners; but he recollected the stair-case, and was all the more amenable that in her he had the only perfectly willing auditor of all his whys and wherefores of all Brynhild's characteristics, all his hopes of purchasers and plans built upon her, and (now that Brynhild was out of sight) the most profound believer in her beauties and sublimities.
The arrival was impressive. The vista of liveries, flowers, and marble, was so alarming, that Cherry could hardly have found courage to make her way through them with no support but Lord Gerald's; but when she entered the drawing-room the grandeur was instantly mitigated by the plainly attired, gentle, motherly lady who came forward to greet her with a kiss. 'So you are Geraldine, the only sister I have never seen. Alda will be delighted.'
Lady Mary Murray must have been rather surprised by the sight of 'the little deformed one,' with her sweet pensive face of sunshine and shade, and the small slender form, as shapely as that of her sister, though leaning a little forward when walking. So kind was she, that Cherry felt that she could quite spare Edgar when he made his retreat, and never observed that he was not pressed to stay to see Alda, who had a dress-maker with her, and would send down when ready.
This gave Cherry time to become at home with Lady Mary, and to receive some gratifying compliments upon her Constellation, united with a little caution on the danger of making the little girl vain. 'I hope not,' said Cherry much in earnest; 'indeed, I think Edgar and I are mere terrors to all our pretty ones, we tease them so with sitting.'
'The little boy in a surplice is another brother, I think I heard.'
'Yes, my brother Lance. He is gone into the business now. He was in the Cathedral choir at Minsterham.'
'Oh! I understood that it was a portrait of the one who was in the St. Matthew's brotherhood, in his ornaments.'
'Oh no. That was Clement; and I am sure neither of them wore anything like that! I made out the ornaments from a book.'
'I am glad to hear it,' said Lady Mary, a little less cordially; and when Cherry, recollecting her views, proceeded to lead away by speaking of Brynhild, it was to be met with a kind smile and avowal that Mr. Underwood's picture was not so easy to understand.
Then came the summons to Lady Vanderkist's room. It seemed chiefly addressed to her mother-in-law, who, however, extended it to Cherry, and proffered a soft, comfortable, substantial arm to help her up the stairs.
There sat Alda, beautiful to behold in white and bright blue ribbons, thinner than formerly, but exquisitely and delicately pretty, and so eager in her conference with her milliner, that she could only give Geraldine a hasty kiss, and sign her to a seat, before appealing to Lady Mary on some point of clashing taste respecting her court dress, which was the present subject of engrossing interest to the younger lady, while the elder evidently did not feel greatly at home or interested in a subject which she said had not come before her since the maiden days of Queen Victoria. Indeed, when Alda became excited in maintaining her own opinion, she put an end to it with gentle but irresistible authority, dismissed the milliner, and insisted upon the repose that Alda was inclined to laugh to scorn.
After an exhibition of the little four weeks daughter, a pretty creature, in whom mother as well as grandmother showed plenty of pride, the two sisters were left to atête à tête, Cherry feeling almost hypocritical when Lady Mary supposed them to be so eager for it.
Rather languidly Alda inquired after everyone at home, chiefly after Wilmet and Captain Harewood, where he was, and what chance there was of his return. Then Cherry talked of the great home subject of interest, namely that the organ was actually ordered; but Lady Vanderkist attended little, and it was safer as well as more entertaining to let her talk of herself; and she seemed to have had a very gay winter, to have been recognized as the great lady of her neighbourhood as well as bride and beauty, and to have had much sporting society at home and abroad, while now she looked forward to a season among the circles which had always been the object of her ambition. No wonder that the cares and joys of Bexley occupied her but little, and that it was not much to her whether Felix was to be a town-councillor. However, she was now among people who considered it an honour to have a sister exhibiting at the Academy, and she professed much eagerness to see the Constellation. 'But what could have induced Edgar to send such a picture?' she added; 'Adrian says it is the maddest thing he ever saw in his life.'
'It takes some study,' said Cherry, subduing her indignation.
'I should think it had taken very little study.'
'You have not seen it?'
'No of course not yet. I shall go as soon as I can, it is so stupid not to be able to talk of the Exhibition; but I don't look forward to Edgar's picture at all, I hear the drawing and painting are so disgraceful.'
'There is an apparent carelessness that enhances effect.'
'Standing up for Edgar as usual, Cherry! But if you still have any influence with him, this is the time to use it. Adrian hears that he has taken up with a lot of tremendous scamps. Indeed, he saw him on the Derby day betting away with all his might. Now he cannot stand that long, and Adrian says I must let him know that when he gets into difficulties, he need not expect to fall back upon us.'
'The last thing he is likely to do,' said Cherry, burning with suppressed wrath.
'Well, give him a warning, and tell him to be careful how he comes in Adrian's way. It upsets me so when he comes in and asks where I think he has met my precious brother.'
'I don't see,' cried Geraldine, breaking out, 'why a place should be worse for one than for the other.'
Alda drew up her head with a little contempt, but instead of flying out as when they were on an equality, she merely said, 'Don't you?'
Then Geraldine recollected herself, and tried to say meekly something about the difference made by being able to afford it; but though Alda was kinder than usual, and changed the subject, there was no more real comfort throughout the visit, and she went home to be unhappy. Here it was as hard as ever to behave properly to Alda. Her presence seemed always to rouse the spitfire propensities, of which Cherry would otherwise have been unconscious; and what was far worse was the misgiving that she had only spoken too truly. Cherry's heart sank, scold it as she would for sinking. Herwillmight adore Brynhild, but her sense assured her of grievous carelessness in the execution; and when she recalled Edgar himself, she knew there was something indefinable about him that confirmed Alda's suspicions.
Her own success had been real and brilliant, but through it all her heart ached with apprehension as she became more conscious of the difference with which her doings and his were regarded, and could not always succeed in attributing everything to personal politeness to herself. She was staying on to take a few more studies, and to collect materials for the illustrations of a serial tale, an order for which Mr. Renville had procured her; and she found herself quite at home at those pleasant little parties at his house, treated as one of the confraternity who had won her standing, and with new comers begging to be introduced. Mr. Grinstead was always there, and a real friend and protector among strangers; and all was delightful except the reserve about Brynhild, and the frequent absence of Edgar, who used once to be always welcome, and like a son of the house.
Even at Lady Vanderkist's, Geraldine found herself a mild sort of lion, when Alda came out into the world and found that her sister was viewed as having done something remarkable.
Not that there was much intercourse. Therewasan invitation to the christening, extended even to Edgar and the school girls; but Lady Mary was more the mover in this than Alda herself. Edgar excused himself, and it was not a very brilliant festivity. Indeed, one anxiety on Geraldine's part was lest Lady Mary's engaging kindness should embolden Angela to break out aloud in the wrath and indignation that stiffened her neck and shone in her eyes at the bare dull christening on a week-day—standing all alone—in an ugly 'pewy' church. A luncheon, at which the health of Mary Alda Vanderkist was drunk, was the only honour to the occasion; and Sir Adrian, though not actually uncivil, looked as usual bored, and left the amiable and gracious to his wife and mother.
Mrs. Underwood was indignant, and abused him all the way home. All Lady Mary's kindness had not hidden from her the fact that Alda was ready to spurn aside the scaffolding by which she had mounted to her present elevation, and was only withheld from so doing in consideration of Marilda's wealth; while Marilda, with her unfailing good nature and instinct of defence towards Alda, declared that all arose out of anxiety lest Sir Adrian should be wearied with them, and bluntly declared, 'You know, Mamma, we are very tiresome people; not like Cherry here, who always has something to say.'
'Oh! Cherry is a genius, but without that people needn't be tiresome, as you call it, to those that brought them up, and made them what they are.'
'We didn't bring up Sir Adrian, Mamma.'
'I'm not talking of Sir Adrian. One expects nothing from a fine young man about town; but, Alda, that was like my own child to me, never so much as asking us to see her in her court dress!'
'She ought to have done that,' said Cherry, who had been reckoning the quantity of pleasure that could have been so cheaply given.
'Now depend on it, Sir Adrian doesn't like his wife to make a show of herself,' cried Marilda, hitting on a subtly delicate motive rather than have no weapon of defence for this favourite cousin. Certainly there never had been a fuller adoption as sister and brother than hers had been of Alda and Edgar from the moment they had been given to her. She respected and trusted Felix, and was free and kind with Cherry and all the rest; but her affection for these two was quite a different thing, and resolutely blind; and this—just as last year with Wilmet—made her comfortable to Cherry, since she too ignored all that could be against Edgar, and fought his battles fiercely when mother or grandmother picked up reports of his idleness, of the ill success of the National Minstrelsy, in which he was somehow concerned, and of the unsatisfactory habits into which he was falling.
Very dull were the evenings when he did not come, and only worn through by reading aloud. No doubt the house in its quiet widowed condition was far less attractive than of old, and that the lively young man should neglect it, even with his favourite sister there, was more to be regretted than wondered at; but whenever he did come, he was greeted with delight, petted and made much of, as if with the desire to secure that presence, though it was not always as much of a sunbeam as of old.
One afternoon, however, he hurried in in a state of ecstasy. A wealthy manufacturer, noted as a purchaser of modern pictures, was in treaty for Brynhild; and Edgar looked on his fame and fortune as made. Three days ago the taste of the cotton-spinner had been denounced as dependant on fashion and notoriety. Now his discernment had gone up to the skies, and Edgar was wandering about the room in his exultation, talking to Cherry of a winter trip to Rome, and ready to promise everything to everybody. Only the next day, however, came out the principal art journal, containing the long expected mention of Brynhild.
Alas! No. 260 was disposed of in two lines as 'the flaming production of a tyro in suspense between the Pre-Raphaelite and the Turneresque, who in the meantime had better study the primary rules of drawing.'
Poor Geraldine! She shed a great many bitter tears over the cruel verdict, while Marilda characterised it as wicked, ill-natured, and spiteful; and when Edgar came to them they received him with tenderness and sympathy that would have befitted his sentence in his own proper person.
He was crushed as he had never been before. He did not abuse his critic. Indeed, he had candour enough to tell Cherry that her editorial experience might have taught her the need of shedding a little life-blood now and then for the public to slake their thirst upon, but this very charitableness almost proved it to be his life-blood.
The intended purchaser had not gone so far but that he could draw back, and this breath of hostility had effectually blown him away. He had broken off his treaty and declined Brynhild.
'I don't blame him,' dejectedly said Edgar; 'all the other critics will yelp in suit, and he would be the laughing-stock of his fellow cotton-lords; but he has done for me. The very sight of "Sold" upon my picture would have saved me.'
'Shall you be worse off than before?' asked Marilda.
'Of course one is, for having been led to make engagements under a deception. But there—never mind. Don't vex yourselves about me. I'm the most miserable dog in the world, and that's all about it.'
'Dear Edgar,' said Cherry, smoothing his hand, 'maybe the opposition paper will take up another line.'
'Not a hope, Cherry. That demolished me long ago, only they were all too merciful to show it to you. This was my last chance.'
He lay back in a sort of collapse of complete depression.
Marilda, meanwhile, sat writing at her davenport, and presently rising, came towards him with a closed envelope. 'There, Edgar,' she said. 'Now put "Sold" on your picture.'
'Polly, Polly, you're a girl of gold!' cried Edgar, starting to his feet. 'You've made a man of me. I must give you a kiss.'
To Cherry's amazement, a little to her horror, the kiss was given; Marilda only bluntly and gruffly saying, 'There then, only take warning, and don't be a fool again.'
'Your warning comes sweetened, my dear,' said Edgar, 'and it ought to save me. I don't mind confessing that I was in a most awful fix. Well, you have Brynhild, and we'll hang her over the drawing-room door for a scare-crow, only don't let in any Sigurds who won't be as good as you are to art out at elbows!—Good-bye, my Cherry ripe. I must betake me to shaking off the toils of the hunter, now that this good mouse has nibbled them through.'
Cherry had not spirit to rally him on his quiet assumption of the lion's part. And her acceptance of his embrace was not warm. To the delicate sense nurtured under Felix, the whole proceeding was as painful as it was strange; and she was longing to have sold her pictures so as to relieve him herself. True, she had many visions, but she would much have preferred freeing her brother herself to seeing Marilda make a purchase to which she was indifferent, palpably for the sake of assisting him.
Maybe he saw the questioning look in her face, and therefore hurried away so fast that Marilda broke out in regret at having failed to secure him for an intended visit to Sydenham the next day, when part of the day would be spent with friends and the rest in the Crystal Palace. It was the sort of expedition Edgar hated, and Cherry's pride rose enough against the notion of his being purchased to be dragged at Marilda's chariot wheels to prevent her from seconding the proposal to write and ask for his company.
She would have been glad enough of his arm through the long galleries. The heartless glare and plaster showiness tired her to death; nor were Mrs. Underwood's friends particularly restful.
When she came home late in the evening, she had hardly energy to open a note that lay on the table; but when she had wearily unfolded it, she screamed with amazement and delight. Mr. Renville wrote to tell her of an offer for the Acolyte, and to propose to her to meet the intending purchaser at his studio on the second day ensuing, at twelve o'clock, to consult about an order for a companion water-colour, the subject likewise taken from the Silver Store, the price of the two together to be £150. Here opened the fulfilment of the longing of her heart, the lightening of Felix's burthen! Her dreams were a strange maze of beautiful forms to be drawn, and of benefits to be heaped on all the world; and her first measure in the morning was to write a dispatch to Edgar, begging him to come and support her at the interview, and almost laying her gains at his feet.
All day she expected him to show himself, full of advice, joy, and congratulation; but he came not. Her note must have missed him, she supposed; and she had to experience the lack of sympathy, for Spooner had come almost before breakfast was over, and Marilda had immediately gone back with him into the City; and Mrs. Underwood was not sure whether it werecomifoto be elated about selling a picture, and had no council to give between Cherry's sketches of the robin with the wheat-ear, the monk and his olive tree, the blessing of the swallows, or the widow Euphrasia and her straw.
When Marilda did come home, she was more glum than Cherry had ever seen her. She would not even guess why Edgar made no answer, but advised that no one should think about it. Man could not be always dancing after woman. She was in no better humour in the morning, when Cherry expressed her security that though he might have come home too late to answer her note, he would not fail her at the appointment.
No such thing, he did not come for her; nor did she find him at the studio, where Mr. Renville was however a perfectly kind and sufficient protector, in the arrangements with the courteous and gracious old nobleman who viewed it as a duty to encourage art, and intended the pictures to adorn his daughter's drawing-room. The choice fell on Cherry's favourite, the red-breast, and altogether the interview would have filled her with transport if only Edgar had been there to share it. She could not believe him to be so changed as to neglect her out of mortification at the contrast between her success and his own; but the bare idea poisoned the laudatory critique in the Times of her two productions.
It was Mrs Kedge's birthday, when her family always dined with her at her old-fashioned hour of five. When they set off, Cherry faltered an entreaty that they might call and inquire for her brother at his lodgings, but this was so curtly, almost harshly, negatived, that she feared that she had unwittingly proposed something improper. Still there remained the chance of his coming to the festival, where he was certain of a welcome. It would be so like his good nature, that Cherry never relinquished the hope through the hot stuffy dinner, when, after the two elder ladies had sighed, shed a few natural tears, but wiped them soon, over the absence of poor Mr. Underwood, they took to City gossip, occasionally rallying the two young ladies on their silence and abstraction; Mrs. Kedge contriving to joke at her grand-daughter's supposed loss of her 'eart, and at Cherry for having made such a conquest with her hart.
Just as dessert came in, and Geraldine was reflecting with a sort of dreamy despair that it was the hour for driving in the park, there came a thundering knock, and Cherry bounded on her chair, exclaiming, 'There's Edgar!' while Mrs. Kedge cried out, laughing, 'Just like him! I knew he'd be in time for my preserved ginger. Ah! Mr. Hedgar, trust to—What! isn't it him? Who is it, Mary?' handing the card to her.
'Mr. Travis!' Marilda and the maid exclaimed at the same time; and the next moment he stood before the quartette, receiving a cordial welcome from all; for though Mrs. Underwood might bridle a little, she remembered that Alda was safely disposed of, and that he was now an undoubted millionaire depending on no one's good-will. Geraldine was flushed, and quivering between pleasure, shame, and the moment's disappointment; and Marilda's broad face flashed for a moment with a look of indescribable illumination and relief, then subsided into its usual almost stolid calm.
For himself, he looked more like what he had been as Peter Brown's clerk than the Life-guardsman, for he had outgrown the boyish display of ornament, though he had never lost the fine military bearing that so well became his figure; but he now had a grand black beard, which made him more romantic-looking than ever. His countenance was as usual grave, but not so depressed or languid as formerly, and indeed it lighted into glad animation at the unexpected sight of Geraldine, as he wrung her hand with the fervour of a brother. He sat down; but except to drink Mrs. Kedge's health he accepted none of the eager offers of hospitality, but said he was to dine with Mr. Brown at eight o'clock. He had come home on business, and not being able to wind up his uncle's affairs quickly, thought he should have to spend his time between England and America for a good while to come; but he hoped to run down and see Felix, 'and to hear about the organ.' Cherry had so much to tell him about the building of it, and of Lance's delight in the prospect, that she forgot her anxieties for the moment, till he asked after the success of the concert, and she had to tell him of Edgar and his stars. He looked at his watch, and said he should have time to see after Edgar before dinner. 'Ah, do!' said Cherry; 'and find out whether he got my note, I haven't seen him these four days!'
There was a break-up from the dining-room; and Ferdinand, smiling a sort of apology to Mrs. Kedge, offered his arm to Cherry to take her up to the drawing-room, where except on these great occasions no one ever sat; Marilda managed to linger on the stairs, so as to intercept him on his way down.
'Mr. Travis,' she said, 'you will do me a great favour, if you will call on me at our office between ten and twelve to-morrow. Can you?'
'Certainly,' he replied, much surprised; but she flew up the stairs before any more could be said.
She was at her counting-house in full time, sitting at the library-table in the private room, just like her father, opening letters and jotting on them the replies to be made by her clerks, without often needing to take counsel with Spooner.
At ten o'clock a clerk brought up Mr. Travis, and he was soon seated opposite to her, not quite so unprepared as on the previous day.
'Thank you for coming,' she said; 'I knew you were the only person whom I could trust in for help.'
'I shall be very happy,' he began. 'Is it about Edgar Underwood?'
'Do you know anything?'
'Only that no one at his rooms seems to know where he is.'
'Ah!' (as if expecting this). 'Now, I know you would do anything for Felix Underwood and the rest, and can keep silence. To speak would be worse than anything.' He bent his head: and she went on, 'Read that. No, you won't understand it;' then collecting herself, 'Poor Edgar! you know what he is, and how he can't help running into debt. We gave him his tastes, and it is our fault. This year he managed to do a picture, an odd red and yellow looking thing, but very fine, with a lady fast asleep in the middle of a fire. Well, he thought he had sold it, and made sure of the price, when some spiteful newspaper abused it, and the shabby man was off his bargain, and left the picture on his hands. He was so frightfully downcast, and I had reason to think him so hard up, that I thought I'd take the picture off his hands; and so I popped a cheque for a hundred, done up in an envelope, into his hand, not telling him what it was—more's the pity. We were out all the next day, and he called and wanted to find out where we were gone, but the footman is stupidity itself, and could not tell him. He came three times; but we were racketting at that miserable Sydenham, and did not get home till eleven. If he had only come in and waited! The next day came Spooner to me in a terrible rage. Now, promise, Mr. Travis, that this is never mentioned. On your honour!'
'On my honour. Never!'
'My cheque had been presented with the one hundred changed into four. The clerk at the bank doubted it, and had come here, and Spooner came to Kensington about it. I believe I went nearer to a lie than ever I did before; I said it was all right, and stood to it so that they both had to be pacified. You see,' as she saw how shocked Ferdinand was, 'he was in great difficulties, and he only meant it for a trick which would have been explained directly, if only I had not been so unfortunately out of reach.'
'You don't mean that you would overlook it?'
'Well, it seems that I was altogether wrong about the value, as pictures go. Of course I thought it rather too bad, and meant to give him a piece of my mind and frighten him thoroughly; but ever since poor Cherry has been pining, and wondering at his not coming; and yesterday I got this—addressed here, no doubt that Cherry might not see it, but marked private to keep Spooner's hands off.'
She thrust a sheet of paper into his hand.
DEAR MARILDA,Had I seen you yesterday, I should not be in my present plight. I rehearse continually in my own ears the assault I had in readiness for you for your ignorance of the market price of art. Brynhild may be worthless, but if she be worth a penny, she is worth £250, which was what that gay deceiver was to have given. I had liabilities which I had staved off; indeed, my villain of a landlord only refrained from seizing my goods and chattels on the promise of the cash instanter. Other debts I durst not face. All that was left of your father's bequest is gone in the smash of the National Minstrelsy. County courts yawned on me, and only promptitude could save me. But verily I would not have taken a sheep when a lamb would have sufficed the first wolf, ifonewould have lent itself to transformation into anything but a coolfour. Your round hand has been the ruin of me, Polly. It must have been the loop of yourethat undid me. Nevertheless, I had the odd £150 in my pocket to hand over as your rightful change, (and maybe have begged of you,) when thrice I failed in finding you; and as I was coming this very morning—or was it yesterday? I'm all in a maze—I saw Spooner dash by in a cab, and knew it was all up with me!Don't believe so badly of me as he has told you, dear old Poll. I have put myself out of his reach that he may have the less chance to break Felix's heart. For myself, I don't care a rap what becomes of me; but if it be not too late, I implore you to screen him and poor little Geraldine from the knowledge. Let them think it a simple flight from creditors—true enough in all conscience, as I fear they will soon find.If it have got wind, I need not beg you to spare them and let Lance know that I am thankful to the 'early piety' or whatever it was that kept him out of the scrape. Some day all shall be repaid; but until then you have seen and heard the last of—your not ungrateful in heart, however ungrateful in deed—the most miserable and unlucky of dogs,T.E.U.
DEAR MARILDA,
Had I seen you yesterday, I should not be in my present plight. I rehearse continually in my own ears the assault I had in readiness for you for your ignorance of the market price of art. Brynhild may be worthless, but if she be worth a penny, she is worth £250, which was what that gay deceiver was to have given. I had liabilities which I had staved off; indeed, my villain of a landlord only refrained from seizing my goods and chattels on the promise of the cash instanter. Other debts I durst not face. All that was left of your father's bequest is gone in the smash of the National Minstrelsy. County courts yawned on me, and only promptitude could save me. But verily I would not have taken a sheep when a lamb would have sufficed the first wolf, ifonewould have lent itself to transformation into anything but a coolfour. Your round hand has been the ruin of me, Polly. It must have been the loop of yourethat undid me. Nevertheless, I had the odd £150 in my pocket to hand over as your rightful change, (and maybe have begged of you,) when thrice I failed in finding you; and as I was coming this very morning—or was it yesterday? I'm all in a maze—I saw Spooner dash by in a cab, and knew it was all up with me!
Don't believe so badly of me as he has told you, dear old Poll. I have put myself out of his reach that he may have the less chance to break Felix's heart. For myself, I don't care a rap what becomes of me; but if it be not too late, I implore you to screen him and poor little Geraldine from the knowledge. Let them think it a simple flight from creditors—true enough in all conscience, as I fear they will soon find.
If it have got wind, I need not beg you to spare them and let Lance know that I am thankful to the 'early piety' or whatever it was that kept him out of the scrape. Some day all shall be repaid; but until then you have seen and heard the last of—your not ungrateful in heart, however ungrateful in deed—the most miserable and unlucky of dogs,
T.E.U.
'Where was this posted?' asked Ferdinand.
'At Ostend. Here's the post-mark.'
'Has he sent back the £150?'
'Oh no; of course he must have that to go on with.'
'It would have been more like repentance if he had sent it.'
'No, no; he couldn't. He would have had nothing to live on. Besides, it makes no real difference. Don't you turn against him, Mr. Travis, for I have no one else to trust to. I can't tell Felix; for it might do him serious harm in his business, and he might not consent to hush it up. Then Clement is a formal prig; and Lance is a boy, and couldn't get away. Nobody but you can do any good.'
'And what is it that you wish me to do?'
'I wanted your advice, first of all; I had no one I could venture to talk to, lest he might think some dreadful thing his duty, and go and tell!'
'There can be no palliating the criminality of the act,' said Ferdinand gravely; 'but for the sake of the—the innocent—' (his lip quivered at the word,) 'it may well be concealed, since you are so generous. Vanderkist might make a cruel use of it.'
'And I think it would kill Cherry. What I wished was—since one can't write with no address—if any one could go after him, and tell him that not a soul knows. I do believe now, after this shock, he might be sobered and make a new start; not here perhaps—'
'I'll go!' cried Ferdinand. 'I'll do my business with Brown, and start by to-night's steamer. Do you know where he is likely to be?'
'His wish has always been for Italy, but it is hardly the season; and my dread is of his going to Hesse Homburg, or Baden, or some of those places, hoping to retrieve this money.'
'I'll look, I'll make every inquiry. I'll never rest till I have found him!' said Ferdinand, with the earnestness of one delighted to have found the means of rendering an important service to his dearest friends.
'I felt sure that you could and would, from the moment I saw you,' said Marilda, 'When your card came in, there seemed to open a way out of this dreadful black misery.'
'Remember,' said Ferdinand, 'it would not be right to bring him home at once on the former terms. You forgive him, and for the sake of his family you do not expose him; but he ought not to be reinstated.'
'Not only for his family's sake—for his own!' cried Marilda. 'He is just like my brother—it was only between brother and sister. But you are right,' she added, as the man's grave look of severity recalled her from her sisterly championship; 'it would only be running him into danger again. He had much better go and study in Italy; and he can be helped there, if he will only keep out of mischief.'
She then mentioned all the haunts of his she knew of in Belgium and Germany; Geraldine might know more, but how was she to be told? Marilda had a perfect terror of renewing the condition into which she had last year been thrown, and besides feared her quickness of eye might discover the secret. She hoped to keep her in ignorance till Ferdinand could send home tidings, and make Edgar write what would be some comfort after the suspense; but when the time that, at the lowest computation, must elapse before anything could be heard was reckoned, they both felt that it was cruelty to keep Cherry in her present state. A week more would be enough to destroy her.
But Marilda, though a strong-minded woman enough ordinarily, shrunk with dismay from telling her. Should Felix be written to? There was no doubt that so soon as he heard the tidings from Cherry, or otherwise, he would hurry up to investigate and to take her home; so that to ask him to come and break it to her was hardly giving him unreasonable trouble. Besides the secret might be safer, so managed. Thus, the two generous spirits who sat in council first destroyed poor Edgar's letter, lest it should ever serve as evidence against him; and then Marilda wrote—
MY DEAR FELIX,Geraldine will have told you that we have not seen Edgar for some time. From a note received from him, I have reason to believe that debts are the cause of his flight. Mr. Travis is kind enough to follow and see what can be done; but I do not know how to tell poor Cherry, and if you will come up I will meet you at the station at 11.30.Your affectionate cousin,M.A. UNDERWOOD.
MY DEAR FELIX,
Geraldine will have told you that we have not seen Edgar for some time. From a note received from him, I have reason to believe that debts are the cause of his flight. Mr. Travis is kind enough to follow and see what can be done; but I do not know how to tell poor Cherry, and if you will come up I will meet you at the station at 11.30.
Your affectionate cousin,M.A. UNDERWOOD.
'Her heart, her life, her future,Her genius, only meantAnother thing to give him,And be therewith content.'A.A. Proctor.
By the time Felix could obey Marilda's missive, and entered Cherry's sitting-room, she had come to such a state of mind, that not even his pale, fixed, mournful face was needed to make her lie back in her chair, gazing piteously up at him, murmuring, 'O Felix, what can it be? What has become of him?'
'Marilda has heard from him,' said Felix, kneeling down by her, and holding her hands.
'Heard! Oh, why did she not tell me?'
'She feared to pain you. My poor Cherry, nothing has happened to him; but his debts have come to a crisis, and he is gone off to the Continent. That good fellow, Fernan, is gone after him, to see what can be done for him.'
'And he wrote toMarilda?' asked Cherry, greatly bewildered.
'Yes; from Ostend.'
'He wrote to her! Did you see the letter?'
'No, she had made away with it. She was so shy and short about it, that, Cherry, I suspect that distress had brought poor Edgar, as a last resource, to try whether she would accept him.'
'Oh!' cried Cherry, starting forward with conviction, 'that would account for it all!' And she told of all that had passed about Brynhild, now ten days ago—Edgar's despair, Marilda's ready assistance, and the manner of acknowledging it; and both agreed that there was strong presumption that he had taken her kindness as encouragement to venture on a proposal. This would fully account for her silence and ill humour; and the delusion, perfectly unsuspected by her, was the best possible auxiliary in guarding her secret, by preventing the brother and sister from pushing her hard with inquiries, and sufficiently explaining whatever was mysterious. Indeed, if Edgar had had the face to make the proposal, there was some grace in the shame that had caused his disappearance; and luckily for Marilda, Cherry was far too modest and shame-faced to allude to her own suspicions. She only longed exceedingly for home, and yet could not bear to leave the readiest place for receiving intelligence.
Felix could not of course rest without doing his part towards inquiring, and went off to Edgar's lodgings, and also in quest of the National Minstrelsy people, whom Lance had assured him to be the most likely to give him information. He came back depressed and jaded, and went straight to his sister's room. She could see in a moment that he had found out nothing.
'Nothing! The National Minstrelsy shut up a month ago. Allen and his family had left their lodgings, and given no address. I tried the post-office, but they grinned at me, and said many gentlemen came inquiring. I went to two or three music-shops, and asked after him and after the Hungarians, but with no better success; no one knew anything about them. Then I found my way to his lodgings.'
'Ah! I wanted so much to have called there, but Marilda would not let me.'
'As well you did not. Did you know that he had his rooms in partnership?'
'No—never!'
'Nor heard him speak of a man—an artist, named Malone?'
'Yes. I have heard of him. He has got two pictures in the British Institution. Poor Edgar wanted me to admire them, but I couldn't; they are Scripture subjects—Ruth and Rachel—made coarse and vulgar by being treated with vile reality—looking like Jewish women out of fruit-shops. He always said Tony Malone was the best fellow in the world, but he never told me he lived with him.'
'I was quite taken by surprise. The poor little miserable looking maid said Mr. Underwood had not been there for ten days; and when I said I was his brother and wanted to ask some questions, she fetched her mistress, who said he had paid up just before he went away, but that he had given no notice, so there was this ten days. Of course this was reasonable; besides, I wanted to bring home his things; so she took me up to his rooms while she went to make out his bill, and I thought entirely that I had come wrong, for I found myself in such a den as you can hardly conceive—light enough of course, but with the most wonderful medley of things imaginable, and in the midst a table with breakfast, and a brandy bottle; a great brawny sailor, half stripped, lying on the floor, a model for Samson, or Hercules, or somebody; and this man with a palette on his thumb, a tremendous red beard, and black elf locks sticking out all manner of ways. And that was the place he wanted to take Lance to!'
'He wouldn't have let it get bad if Lance had been with him. Besides, you old bachelor, don't you know that an artist must live in a mess and have models?'
'Of course, I know that, Cherry. I did not expect things to be what your friend Renville makes them for his young ladies; but the odour of spirits, the whole air and aspect of the place, had something that gave me a sense of hopelessness and dissipation, when I found that those really were Edgar's quarters, and that he had concealed his sharing them with this Malone ever since he left Renville. The man behaved very well to me, I will say that for him, as soon as we had made each other out, and seemed very fond and rather proud of Tom, as he chose to call Edgar; but he is a prodigious talker, and a rough coarse kind of fellow, exactly what I couldn't have fancied Edgar putting up with.'
'I dare say it was out of good nature.'
'Half of it, no doubt; indeed, he gave me to understand as much. Edgar can't but be kind wherever he goes; even that wretched little slavey cried when I gave her a shilling for helping his things into a cab, and she found he was never coming back! I should think he had spoken the only kind words she had ever heard in her life.'
'But this man must have told you something! Had he no notion where he is gone?'
'None at all! He knew thus much, that Edgar came into his room about ten o'clock in the morning—he couldn't tell what day, but we made it out it must have been on Thursday the 3rd—'
'The day after we went to Sydenham. Well!'
'—Looking pale and scared, and saying, "I'm done for, old fellow—I'm off!" That is all he is clear of, for he was just waked and fast asleep again directly.'
'At ten o'clock in the morning!'
'Well, Cherry, I'm afraid there had been a carouse the night before. Edgar had sold his picture, you see, and had cleared off old scores—a few of them, at least. He was restless—Malone said in and out—all the day before; he could not make him out. I fancy he had sent his letter to Marilda, and was awaiting a reply, which she must have sent, or he have called for, early the next morning; and after holding off all day from the jollification in honour of the sale of his picture, and deputing Malone and his other friends to hold it without him, he joined them at the theatre towards ten o'clock, and went to a cider cellar with them afterwards, where I should gather that he was in a state of reckless merriment, but quite sober—yes, Malone eagerly assured me of that, as if that were a merit to be proud of in my father's son! Well, poor fellow!' added Felix, his bitter tone changing to sorrow, 'he seems only to have thrown himself down on his bed without undressing; but Malone, who made no secret of having been "screwed" himself, only knew of his looking in in the morning. He had driven up, it seems, in a cab, which he kept waiting—not ten minutes, the landlady says—and he carried off his violin case and about as many clothes, I should imagine, as he could stuff into his portmanteau in the time—not by any means all; but one thing at least you will be glad to hear of, Cherry, the photograph of my father! Yes, I am quite certain of it; for when Malone was helping me to collect the other little matters out of his little hole of a bed-room, he said, when we came to the mantel-piece, "Yes, that's the only thing he has taken—the photo that stood there; a parson far gone in decline, the very moral of himself—your father, wasn't it?"'