Miss Grantley's Girls, and the Stories She Told Them

by Thomas Archer

"But you are deceiving me; this is no retouching; it is clumsy—coarse; and, except in the evidence that the face itself must have been beautiful, not a good likeness. You wonder I can talk so calmly of this, a poor resemblance of the bright fair girl—of my Sara—mine although—Dobree, tell me how you came by this."

"I will tell you to-night," muttered the old man; "I swear to you that I will tell you to-night."

"And to-night I will show you a portrait on ivory, one that will make you think you see her as you once knew her, Pierre: a picture I keep among some relics, and look at often—oftener than you think, or anyone in the world could guess. Good-bye—or rather till nine—no, ten to-night, au revoir."

When his grandfather had left the house, Antoine, who was restless, unhappy, and full of vague surmises, sat for some time with his head in his hands, and at last only roused himself with an effort. It was growing dusk already, for autumn had given place to winter, and the days were short. There was still light enough, however, for him to see to write a letter, and in a few lines he told his grandfather that he should be with him at nine o'clock, and would then ask him to give him back the confidence that once existed between them, or to charge him with the fault that he had committed. He felt how vague this was, and almost hesitated; but he carried the letter to the sitting-room, nevertheless, and opening the door gently advanced towards the table.

It was a large barely furnished room, and yet not without evidence of luxury, or at all events of ornament. The great carved chimney-piece was surmounted by an old mirror with sconces containing candles; a leathern chair was drawn up to the hearth; on the table itself was a silver standish with writing materials, and a tall goblet of Venetian glass, while some rare china stood on a cabinet near the window.

Antoine so rarely entered this room except at night, and to bear his grandfather company for an hour or two before bed-time, that he involuntarily glanced round it now in the fast-fading twilight. In that moment he remarked that the door of the cabinet was unlocked—a circumstance so unusual that he went towards it and looked inside to note what might be the reason of such carelessness. Then seeing this silver cup on the shelf, he carried it to the window, and looked curiously at its contents. There was some reason for his doing so. In that dim silent room—where only its master came daily, and the one domestic who, with an old housekeeper, attended to the wants of Dormeur and his grandson, and did a little dusting once a week—the silver cup had become the receptacle of small trinkets, of coins, and quaint pieces of jewellery.

It was a common custom for the old man to take it out of the cabinet when his eyes were tired with reading, and to turn over these tarnished treasures, some of which were in small morocco cases. To one of the latter Antoine's attention was directed, for it lay open as though it had been hastily placed there, and covered with a piece of torn point-lace. Removing this the young man saw a portrait, the picture of a face so sweet, and eyes so penetrating, that he uttered an involuntary cry. It was a deeper feeling than mere surprise or admiration that prompted it, however. His hand trembled as he replaced the miniature, after gazing at it with an expression of mingled wonder and terror. At that instant the watchman passed crying the first hour after dark; and, carefully replacing the cup, he turned the key in the cabinet door and hurried from the room.

Now all of my story that remains to tell took place in the next three hours, after Antoine left the house with a strange sense of wonder and confusion in his mind; so I must explain a little the situation of the young man—the enmity of Bashley.

It had happened, then, some months before, that Bashley being away for a day's holiday, Antoine took his place at the scale; for it was a slack time, and few workpeople were there to be served. He believed he had given out the last skein of silk, and had weighed the last bobbin, so shutting the slide, and putting up the bar, he unlocked an inner door, and went into the house and up the stairs. Pausing on the first landing, as he frequently did, to look thoughtfully over the balustrade and down the well-staircase, he became aware that one person yet remained quietly seated on the bench below. As he uttered some slight exclamation at his own negligence, a face was turned upward towards his own—a face of such sweet, pure, girlish beauty that he held his breath lest it should be bent from his searching gaze—as indeed it was, but not before the plain straw bonnet had fallen backward and left a wealth of sunny hair glowing beneath the light that shone down upon it. A confused sense of some picture of an angel upon Jacob's ladder that he had seen in an old family Bible came into Antoine's thoughts as he stood and looked; but in another moment the girl had replaced her bonnet, and with her face bent down sat waiting as before.

In a minute he was beside her.