CHAPTER XIX.
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 to
Cornelius.
"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 great na?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 a
Baronet."
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."