CHAPTER VII. A PORTRAIT.
“Mother—mother, who was the idiot that said riches don’t bring happiness?”
It was two days after the interview Chris had had with Mr. Bradfield in the drawing-room, and the new music had come. Mr. Bradfield, who had on several occasions during the past two days caught sight of Chris, but failed to get a word with her, had sent up a message to the effect that if Mrs. and Miss Abercarne would go down to the drawing-room, they would find something there which would interest one of them.
So they went down to the great room, which was cold, with a recently-lighted fire in each of the two grates, and dimly lighted, for there was no gas, and the illumination consisted of a dozen wax candles. Chris, who had put on a dress square in the neck, in honour of the occasion, in spite of her mother’s warnings, shivered, but the sight of the great pile of music on two tables in the middle of the room made her forget the cold.
Mrs. Abercarne sighed at her daughter’s exclamations. She felt very much inclined to echo the sentiment. Certainly her own happiness had belonged to the time when she had been well off, before frocks had to be turned, and last year’s bonnets furbished up.
Mr. Bradfield had not yet come in from the dining-room, so Chris could chatter on at her ease.
“To think of being able to get everything one wanted, just by sending to town for it. No question whether it costs sixpence or ten pounds. To be able to look into the windows without considering that four and elevenpence three farthings is five shillings. Oh! mother,” and she pounced upon a waltz, and a song, and a gavotte, which she felt sure she should like, “I feel as if I were living in an enchanted palace, and as if Mr. Bradfield were the good fairy.”
“Mr. Bradfield is very much obliged to you, I’m sure,” said the owner of the house, who had come in very quietly, attracted by the sound of her bright voice from the adjoining room, “It’s a more flattering comparison than you made to me at first, if I remember rightly.”
But Chris was too happy to be troubled by this reminiscence.
“That was nothing to what you may expect if you come upon me without warning when I don’t feel very good,” said she.
“Let us hear some of the music, Chris,” said her mother, afraid that the girl’s sauciness might offend the great man.
But Mr. Bradfield was inclined to take everything the young girl said in good part. He even offered to turn the leaves of her music, with apologies for his clumsiness, which was indeed extreme. Chris, who, although not a performer of special excellence, read music well and with spirit, was in an ecstasy of girlish enjoyment, and she communicated the contagion to her older companions. Mr. Bradfield was good humour itself; Mrs. Abercarne was the perfection of graciousness. He hunted out some old photographic albums, the portraits of which she inspected minutely through her double eye-glasses, with the most flattering comments imagination could suggest.
“You needn’t be so polite unless you really like it,” he said, drily, when she had just found the word “intellectual” to describe a very grim female face; “they’re only relations.”
Mrs. Abercarne looked up in astonishment.
“All these are your relations? You must have a great many, then?”
“Swarms of ’em.”
Mrs. Abercarne looked through her eyeglasses, no longer at the photographs, but at him.
“I should have thought among so many you might have found someone to manage your establishment without having to advertise,” she suggested.
Mr. Bradfield laughed.
“So I could. I could have found a hundred. Some to manage my establishment, some to manage me, some to do both. And then all those whom I had not selected would have come down upon me in a body, and my life wouldn’t have been worth a year’s purchase among them. It won’t be worth much when they find you are here, you and Miss Christina. I shouldn’t be surprised if they were to set fire to the house and burn us all up together.”
Mrs. Abercarne began to look frightened, while Chris was immensely amused.
“Even money, you see, Miss Christina,” he went on, turning to the girl, who indeed engrossed most of his attention, “doesn’t keep you free from all worries.”
“It does from the worst of them, though,” said Chris, sagely. “It saves you from all the little ones, which are much worse to bear every day than one big one now and then. Who wouldn’t rather have one bad attack of typhoid fever and have done with it than have, say toothache, every day? You can’t understand how much worse it is to deny yourself every day things which cost a penny, than to resist, once in a way, the temptation to spend a sovereign.”
Mr. Bradfield was looking at her intently.
“At any rate,” said he, with some wrath in his tone, “as long as you remain here, the sovereigns as well as the pennies will be forthcoming as often as they are wanted.”
Here Mrs. Abercarne thought fit to interpose majestically:
“My daughter was only using those particular terms as an illustration,” she said, in a suave manner; “as a matter of fact, neither the pennies nor the sovereigns are matters that concern her.”
Both Mr. Bradfield and Chris accepted this rebuke in silence; but they exchanged a look, and poor Chris could not help remembering Mr. Bradfield’s remark that her mother was a joke.
“At the same time,” went on Mrs. Abercarne, conscious that she had somewhat checked the evening’s pleasure, “I must confess that whatever cares one may have seem lighter when borne in a mansion like this, surrounded by treasures of art, and evidences of high culture.”
Mr. Bradfield tried to look as if he appreciated the compliment, and Chris, feeling that the atmosphere was growing frigid again, made a diversion.
“Indeed, Mr. Bradfield,” said she, “we’re never tired of looking at your beautiful things. Only all the cabinets and cupboards are always locked up, and it is very tantalising not to know what’s inside.”
“Well, here are my keys,” said he, as he took from his pocket a large bunch of various sizes. “Open anything you like; there is no Blue Beard’s chamber here.”
Perhaps they thought this remark rather unfortunate, with the knowledge they all had of the locked rooms in the east wing. At any rate, there was an awkward pause as Chris took the keys. He hastened to add:
“There are no rooms in this house, except, of course, poor Dick’s, which you may not ransack as much as you like.”
“Thank you,” said Chris, as she ran to a handsome inlaid cabinet, with a locked cupboard in the centre; “I’m going to take you at your word, and begin here.”
She opened the carved doors, and found a collection of rare coins, which excited in her only a languid interest. Then she examined the contents of a pair of engraved caskets which stood on a side table. Lastly, the shelves of a locked cupboard under a rosewood book-case engaged her attention.
Here she found something more attractive to her frivolous mind. Hidden away at the back of the bottom shelf was an old cardboard box, containing a miscellaneous collection of portraits, pencil-sketches, faded daguerreotypes, and a few miniatures on ivory.
One of these last attracted her at once in a very strong degree. It was the portrait of a young man, fair, clean-shaven and strikingly handsome, with features slightly aquiline, blue eyes, and an expression which seemed to Chris to denote sweet temper and refinement in equal degrees. She was a long way from her two companions when she discovered the portrait; for the bookcase under which the cupboard was occupied a remote corner of the back drawing-room, while her mother and Mr. Bradfield were sitting by the fire in the front room.
She sat so long quietly looking at the miniature, that Mr. Bradfield’s attention was attracted.
“Our flibbertigibbet has grown very quiet,” said he at last. “I wonder what mischief she is up to!”
As he spoke, he rose softly from his chair, walked on tip-toe to the other end of the room, and peeped round the partition, part of which still remained between the front and the back room. Chris saw him, and started.
“We’ve caught her in the very act, Mrs. Abercarne!” he cried. “Guilt on every feature!”
Indeed, Chris had blushed a little, and thrust the portrait quickly back on the shelf.
“I was only looking at a picture,” she explained quickly. And the next moment, seized by an idea, she snatched up the miniature and held it towards Mr. Bradfield.
“It looks like a portrait,” said she. “Do you know who it is?”
As she held up the picture, she saw a change in Mr. Bradfield’s face. It was too dark in this back room to see whether he lost colour; but an expression of what was certainly annoyance, mingled with something that looked like terror, passed over his face. It was gone in a moment, and he answered her calmly enough.
“No,” said he, “I don’t know who he is. I daresay I bought it in a collection of miniatures.”
Chris turned it over in her hand.
“Oh! here’s the name, I suppose,” she said; “‘Gilbert Wryde, 1847.’”
Again, as she glanced up quickly, and rather curiously, she saw the same sort of look for a couple of seconds on Mr. Bradfield’s face. But he answered in a tone just as unmoved as before.
“Perhaps it’s only the name of the artist who painted it. I should think the date was right, by the costume. Are you fond of miniatures? I have a splendid collection in one of the rooms upstairs. I will show you them to-morrow, if you like.”
“Thank you. I don’t know that I do care for them so very much. But I like that one. The face is an interesting one.”
“I think they used to flatter the sitter a little in the days when people had themselves painted like that,” said Mr. Bradfield. “I daresay, now, an artist of those days would have done the fairy’s trick, and transformed the beast into a prince. And now, will you let us have that song from ‘Utopia’ once more before Mrs. Abercarne carries you off?”
Chris rose at once, returned him his keys, and went to the piano. She sang the song he had asked for, received Mr. Bradfield’s enthusiastic thanks, and noticed that he seemed in higher spirits than he had been all the evening. He gave Mrs. Abercarne her candle, bowed her out of the room, and contrived to detain Chris a moment longer.
“We must absolutely find you that sweetheart,” said he, in a low voice, and in rather wistful tones. “You will be dull in this outlandish place without one.”
“You must absolutely leave me to do as I like about that, Mr. Bradfield,” replied Chris, saucily. “And I am never dull anywhere.”
“I wish I could say the same of myself,” said he, heartily.
And then he let her go, wishing her good-night with some constraint, which she, used to admiration from young and old, did not fail to notice.
She ran upstairs, and joined her mother at the door of their room. Mrs. Abercarne looked at the girl as soon as they got inside the door.
“What was Mr. Bradfield saying to you, Chris?” she asked, with apparent indifference, as she took from her head the scrap of old point lace which she thought proper to wear by way of a cap.
“Oh, he said he must get me a sweetheart, and I told him he might save himself the trouble,” said she, lightly. “Don’t you think it very silly of him to say those things to me, mother?”
Mrs. Abercarne paused a moment, and then answered, thoughtfully:
“I think he means to be kind. He always speaks as if he took an interest in you—a great interest.”
Chris glanced quickly at her mother.
“An interest! Oh, yes,” said she.
Then there was another short silence, during which Chris knelt in front of the fireplace and stared intently at the red coals.
“You don’t seem very grateful, dear!”
The girl started.
“Grateful! I? What for?” she asked stupidly.
“Why, Chris, you are in the clouds! What, were you thinking about Mr. Bradfield?”
“Mr. Bradfield!” echoed the young girl, with a laugh of derision. “No, mother; I was thinking about that face in the miniature.”
Her mother laughed, rather contemptuously.
“I shouldn’t waste many thoughts upon a portrait painted forty years ago!” she said somewhat scornfully. “Why, child, the idea of growing sentimental about a man who, if he is still alive, must be seventy if he is a day!”
“Sentimental!” echoed Chris. “Did I speak sentimentally? I did not know it. But—I should like to know something about the man whose portrait it was. It was an interesting face, mother. I will show it you to-morrow, and you shall judge for yourself whether I am not right.”
Mrs. Abercarne, seeing that the girl was too much occupied in thinking of the picture to give her attention to anything else, gave up her attempt to sound her on another subject, and talked about the music until they both went to sleep.
On the following day, when Chris was in the drawing-room with her duster, she remembered the fascinating miniature, and thought she would like to have another look at it by daylight. So she went into the back drawing-room, remembering that she had forgotten to lock the cupboard door when she handed back his keys to Mr. Bradfield.
Someone had been there before her, however, for the door was now securely locked. Chris was vexed at this, and gave the door an impatient little shake. The cupboard was old, and the bolt gave way under this rough handling. She had not expected this, but, as it had happened, she felt justified in taking advantage of the occurrence, for Mr. Bradfield had given her permission to examine what she pleased.
Opening the door, therefore, she took out the box, which had been replaced at the back of its shelf, and turned out the contents in search of the miniature. She took out every separate thing, she thoroughly examined not only that shelf but the others; and then she shut the cupboard, disappointed and puzzled.
The miniature was no longer there.