CHAPTER VIII.
THE SON OF THE HONORABLE CRAVEN BLACK.
Upon the morning of the day on which Neva Wynde and Lord Towyn so strangely encountered each other upon the dingy packet-boat—an encounter that was destined to be fateful—a scene transpired in one of the London suburbs to which we would call the attention of the reader.
In an upper room, in one of the dingiest houses of one of the dingiest crescents at New Brompton, a young man, a mere youth, was engaged in painting a picture. The room was bare and comfortless, with threadbare carpet, decrepit and worn-out furniture, and springless sofa-bed—one of the poorest rooms, in fact, a lodging-house of the fourth rate can furnish. There were two windows without curtains, and provided only with torn and faded blue paper shades, rolled up and confined with cotton cord. A few ashes were in the grate, showing that although the season was summer, a fire had lately burned there.
The picture which the youth was painting stood upon an easel before one of the windows, and was but little better than a daub. It had been sketched by a bold and vigorous hand, but was faulty in conception and ill-colored. The light upon it was bad, and the hand that wielded the brush was trembling and impatient, weakened by fasting and emotions.
The painter looked a mere boy, although he was full twenty years of age. His complexion was florid, his eyes hazel in hue, and he wore his brown hair long, artist fashion, and tossed back from his high white forehead. He was handsome, with an honest look in his eyes, and a pleasant mouth, but his chin was short, and weak in its expression, and his countenance betrayed a character full of good and noble impulses, yet with a weakness, indecision, and irresolution that might yet prove fatal to him.
He was dressed in a shabby velveteen jacket, daubed with paints and out at the elbows. His garments, like his lodging, betrayed poverty of the most unmitigated description.
This young man was Rufus Black, the only son of Craven Black who was Lady Wynde’s lover. And it was Rufus Black whom his father and Lady Wynde had planned should marry Neva Wynde, and thus play into their hands, enabling them to possess themselves of a portion of Neva’s noble fortune.
As Mr. Black had said, he had quarrelled with his son some weeks before, and cast him off, penniless and destitute of friends, to shift for himself. He had drifted to his present lodgings, and was trying to keep soul and body together by painting wretched pictures, which he sold to a general dealer for wretched pay.
“The picture don’t suit me,” he said, pushing back his chair, that he might get a better view of the painting. “It’s only a daub, but it’s as good as the pay. I’ve been three days at it, and it won’t bring me in even the fifteen shillings I got for the last. It will do to stop up a chimney-place, I suppose—and I had such grand ideas of my art, and of my talents! I meant to achieve fame and fortune, and here I am without food or fuel, with the rent due, and with my soul so fettered by these cares, so borne down by despair and remorse, that I am incapable of work. I am gone to the dogs, as my father told me to go—but, oh, why did I not travel the downward road alone? Why must I drag her down with me?”
A despairing look gathered on his face; the tears filled his eyes; a sob escaped him. He looked haggard, worn and despairing. He was in no condition for work, yet he resumed his task with blinded eyes, and painted on at random with feverish haste.