She spoke with some solemnity. He laughed, and promised to amend, throwing the whole fault on "that dreadful indolence of his."
But he did not amend; for though the next morning was bright and sunny as an autumn morning can be, eight struck, and yet Cornelius did not come down, to the infinite detriment of tea and ham. This was but the repet.i.tion of a long-standing offence, until then patiently endured; but Miss O"Reilly now put by patience; she looked at the clock, gave the fire a good poke, and, knitting her smooth brow, exclaimed--
"I should like to know why it is that Cornelius will persist in getting up late!"
She was not addressing me; it was rather one of her peculiarities--and she had many--to soliloquize, and I was accustomed to it; but I now raised my eyes from the grammar I was studying, and, looking at her, I listened. She detected this.
"Did you ever see anything like it?" she emphatically observed, questioning that unknown individual with whom she often held a sort of interrogative discourse; "why, if that child were fast asleep, and you only whispered my brother"s name, she would wake up directly. Oh! Midge, Midge!" She shook her head as though scarcely approving a feeling so exclusive, and gave the fire a slow meditative thrust. The clock, by striking half-past eight, roused her from her abstraction.
"Daisy," she said very seriously, "go and knock at the door of Cornelius, and tell him the hour." I obeyed; that is to say, I went upstairs; but I found the door standing wide open, and the room vacant, so I proceeded to the little study, thinking Cornelius might perhaps be there. I knocked at the door and received no answer; I knocked again with the same result.
Then I perceived that the door was not quite shut, but stood ajar; I gently pushed it open and looked in. The little table was not in its usual place; it stood so as to receive the most favourable degree of light; before it sat Cornelius in a bending att.i.tude, and, as I saw at a glance, drawing from one of the plaster casts.
CHAPTER VIII
So intent was Cornelius on his occupation that he never heard or saw me, until I observed, somewhat timidly, "Cornelius, Kate sent me up to tell you that it is half-past eight o"clock."
He looked up with a sudden start that nearly upset the table, and sharply exclaimed, "Why did you come in without knocking?"
"I knocked twice, Cornelius, but you did not answer."
"If you had knocked ten times, you had no right to open that door and enter this room."
"Cornelius, the door was open," I said very earnestly, for he looked quite vexed, with his face flushed, and his brow knit.
"Oh, was it?" he replied, smoothing down. He looked hastily at the drawing on the table, then gave me a quick glance, read in my face that I had seen it, and, taking a sudden resolve, he said, "Come in, and shut the door."
I obeyed. When I stood by his side, Cornelius laid his hand on my head, and gazing very earnestly in my eyes, he said, "You look as if you could keep a secret. Do you know what a secret is?"
"Yes, Cornelius, I do."
"Then keep mine for me. You see I am drawing. I rise every morning with dawn, to draw; but I do not want Kate to know it just yet,--not until I have done something worth showing. This is the secret you will have to keep; do you understand?"
"Oh yes," I confidently answered.
"How will you manage?"
"I shall not tell her," was my prompt reply.
"Why, of course," he said, smiling; "but not to tell is only the first step in keeping a secret. The next, and far more difficult, is not to let it appear that there is a secret. This shall be the test of your discretion."
He removed every trace of his late occupation, and accompanied me downstairs. Miss O"Reilly was not in the parlour; but when she came in she gave her brother a good scolding, which he bore patiently. When he rose to go I handed him his hat as usual; as he took it from my hand, he stooped, and whispered, "Remember!"
He was no sooner gone than Kate, turning to me, said, with a puzzled smile, "Daisy! what was it Cornelius whispered so mysteriously?"
I hung down my head.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes, Kate."
"Then answer, child." Again I was mute. Kate laid down her work and beckoned me to her.
"Is it a secret?" she asked, gravely.
"I don"t say it is, Kate," I replied eagerly.
"Then answer." I was obstinately silent.
"Will you tell me?" she asked, much incensed.
"No," I resolutely replied.
She rose in great wrath, and consigned me to the back-parlour for the rest of the day. Never did punishment sit so lightly on me. Towards dusk Miss O"Reilly opened the door, that I might not feel quite alone.
Cornelius came home much later than usual; I sat in the dark, but I could see him; he had thrown himself down on the sofa; the light of the lamp fell full on his face; his look wandered around the room in search of me.
"She has been naughty," gravely said his sister; and she proceeded to relate my offence.
"She would not tell you?" he observed.
"No, indeed! I tried her again in the afternoon; but she stood before me, white with stubbornness, her lips quite closed, hanging down her head, and as mute as a stone."
"She is a peculiar child," quietly said Cornelius, and I could see his gaze seeking to pierce the gloom in which I had lingered.
"Peculiar! you had better call it originality."
Cornelius laughed; and half raising himself up on one elbow, summoned me in with a "Come here, Daisy!" that quickly brought me to his side. He pushed back the hair from my forehead, looked into my face, and said, gravely, "She looks stubborn; I see it in her eyes, and yet what wonderfully fine eyes they are, Kate!"
"Eyes, indeed!" was her indignant rejoinder. "Daisy, go back to your room."
I turned away to obey, but Cornelius called me back.
"Let me try my power," he said to his sister; then to me, "Daisy, tell Kate what I whispered to you."
"Remember!" was my ready reply.
"How can you call her stubborn?" asked Cornelius.
"Remember--what?" inquired Kate; "there, do you see how she won"t answer?"
"You obstinate child!" said Cornelius, smiling, "don"t you see I mean you to speak? Say all; tell Kate why I bade you remember."
"I was not to tell you that I had found him drawing," I said, turning to Miss O"Reilly.
Her work dropped on her knees; she turned very pale; her look, keen and troubled, at once sought the calm face of her brother, who had again sunk into his indolent att.i.tude, with his hand carelessly smoothing my hair.
Miss O"Reilly tried to look composed, and observed, in a voice which all her efforts could not prevent from being tremulous and low, "Oh! you were drawing, Cornelius, were you?"