Then, without heeding my thanks, he devoted all his attention to the delightful task of fastening on the beautiful wrist of his mistress the bracelet she had accepted. He was a long time about it. The clasp, he said, was not good: she allowed him to do and undo it as often as he pleased. When he had at length succeeded, she looked down at her arm and said, indolently, "How very pretty it is!"
"The hand, or the bracelet?" he asked, smiling.
"The bracelet, of course."
"Do you really think so?" he exclaimed, looking much pleased; "I was afraid you did not like it: it is of little value, you know."
"It is very pretty," she said again.
"Do you like jewelry?" he inquired, eagerly.
"In a general way, no."
He looked disappointed.
"Why don"t you like diamonds, pearls, and rubies?" he observed, with smiling reproach, "that I might have the pleasure of thinking--cannot give them to her now, but I shall earn them for her some day."
"Yes, it is a pity," she replied, with gentle irony, "but I have a quarrel with you: why have you forgotten your sister?"
"Forgotten Kate! she never wears jewels, Miriam."
She did not reply. He remained by her awhile longer, then set to work.
It was very kind of Cornelius to have made me this present, and yet it only irritated the secret jealousy it was meant to soothe. He had given the two bracelets so differently. They were of equal value, perhaps of equal beauty; but she had had the choice of the two; the rejected one had been for me. He had scarcely placed mine before me, and fastened hers on himself with lingering tenderness. He had carelessly heard or heeded my murmured thanks; she had not thanked him, yet he had looked charmed because she negligently approved his gift. In short, in the very thing which he had intended to please me, Cornelius had unconsciously betrayed the strong and natural preference that was my sole, my only true torment.
His gift had lost its grace. I put on the bracelet, looked at it on my arm, then put it away again in its case, and read whilst she sat and he painted.
Towards noon she left us for an hour. Cornelius followed her out on the landing; he had left the door ajar, and, involuntarily. I overheard the close of their whispered conference. It referred to me. Cornelius was asking if I did not look very pale. I had been rather poorly of late, and he was kindly anxious about me.
"To me she looks the same as usual," quietly answered Miriam: "she always is sallow, and being so plain makes her look ill."
"Why, that is true," replied Cornelius, seemingly comforted by this reasoning.
What more they said I heard not; my blood flowed like fire. I was plain, I knew it well enough, but was he, of all others, to be told of it daily, until at length I heard it, an acknowledged fact falling from his lips?
Was it something so unusual to be plain? Was I the first plain girl there had ever been? Should I leave none of the race after me? I felt the more exasperated that the tone of Miriam"s voice told me she had not meant to be overheard by me. She had not spoken to taunt me: she had simply stated a fact that could not, it seemed, be disputed. Such reflections are pleasant at no age, but in youth, with its want of independence, of self- reliance, with its sensitive and fastidious self-love, they are insupportable.
Cornelius, unconscious of the storm that was brooding within me, had re- entered the studio and resumed his work. He seemed in a mood as pleased and happy as mine was bitter and discontented. He worked for some time in total silence, then suddenly called me to his side. I left the table, went up to him and stood by him with my book in my hand, waiting for what he had to say. He laid his hand on my shoulder, and, with his eyes intently fixed on Medora, "How is it getting on?" he asked.
"It will soon be finished, Cornelius," I replied, and I wanted to go back to my place, but he detained me.
"You need not be in such a hurry. Look at that face--is it not beautiful?"
He could not have put a more unfortunate question. He looked at the picture, but I knew he thought of the woman. I did not answer. He turned round, surprised at my silence.
"Don"t you think it beautiful?" he asked incredulously.
"No, Cornelius, I do not," I answered, going back to my place as I spoke.
I only spoke as I thought; I had long ceased to think Miss Russell handsome. Cornelius became scarlet, and said, rather indignantly, "It would be more frank to say you dislike her, Daisy."
"I never said I liked her," I answered, stung at this reproach of insincerity, when my great fault was being too sincere.
I said this, though I fully expected it would make him very angry, but he only looked down at me with a smile of pity.
"So you are still jealous," he observed quietly; "poor child! if you knew how foolish, how ridiculous such jealousy seems to those who see it!"
I would rather Cornelius had struck me than that he had said this; I could not bear it, and burying my face in my hands, I burst into tears.
He composedly resumed his work, and said in his calmest tones--
"If I were you, Daisy, I would not cry in that pettish way, but I would give up a foolish feeling, and try and mend. Think of it, my poor child; it is an awful thing to hate."
My tears ceased; I looked up, and for once I turned round and retaliated the accusation.
"Cornelius," I said, "I do not hate Miss Russell half as much as she hates me."
"She hate you!" he exclaimed, with indignant pity, "poor child!"
"And if she does not hate me," I cried, giving free vent to the gathered resentment of weeks and months,--"if she does not hate me, Cornelius, why was she so glad when she thought me disfigured with the small-pox, that she should come up to look at me? Why did she give me a dress in which I looked so ill, that you know Kate has never allowed me to wear it? Why did she make you send me to school? Why did she come back from Hastings and make you leave by the Stolen Child? Why did she want you to discontinue teaching me? Why is there never a day but she reminds you that I am sickly, plain, and sallow?"
I rose as I enumerated my wrongs; Cornelius looked at me like one utterly confounded.
"You say I am jealous of her," I continued, gazing at him through gathering tears; "I am, Cornelius, but I am not half so jealous as she is, and yet I love you twice as well as she does. For your sake I would not vex her, and she does all she can to make mc wretched. I could bear your liking her much and me a little; but if she could she would not let you like me at all. If you say a kind word to me or kiss me, she looks as if it made her sick; she hates me, Cornelius, she hates me with her whole heart." Tears choked my utterance. Cornelius sighed profoundly.
"Poor child," he said, with a look of great pity, "how can you labour under such strange delusions?"
I looked at him; he did not seem angry, very far from it. Alas! it was but too plain; every word I had uttered had pa.s.sed for the ravings of an insane jealousy. Cornelius sat down and called me to his side.
"Come here," he said kindly, "and let us reason together."
"If you knew." he continued taking both my hands in his, "how thoroughly blind you are, you would regret speaking thus. How can you imagine that Miriam, who is so good, so kind, should--hate you? Promise me that you will dismiss the idea."
"I cannot--I know better--there is not a day but she torments me."
"Poor child! you are your own tormentor. She torment you! look at that beautiful face, and ask yourself, is it possible?"
"Beautiful!" I echoed, "I don"t think she is beautiful, Cornelius."
"Yes, I know," he composedly replied, "but that is because you don"t like her."
"No more I do," I exclaimed pa.s.sionately, "nor anything of or about her: no--not even your picture, Cornelius!"
He dropped my hands; rose and looked down at me, flushed and angry.
"You need not tell me that," he said indignantly, "the look of aversion and hate you have just cast at that picture, shows sufficiently that though the power to do the original some evil and injury may be wanting, the will is not."
He turned away from me, then came back.
"But remember this," he said severely, and laying his hand on my shoulder as he spoke, "that though you have presumed to reveal to me a feeling of which you should blush to acknowledge the existence, I will not allow that feeling to betray itself in any manner, however slight. Do you hear?"
"Yes, Cornelius," I replied, stung at the unmerited accusation and uncalled-for prohibition; "but if I am so wicked, can you prevent me from showing it?"