Is it Mary Blyth?
Some years ago, an extraordinary adventure happened to Valentine in the circus of an itinerant Equestrian Company. In that adventure, and in the strange results attending it, the clue lies hidden, which leads to the Mystery of the painter"s fireside, and reveals the story of this book.
CHAPTER III. MADONNA"S CHILDHOOD.
In the autumn of 1838, Mrs. Blyth"s malady had for some time past a.s.sumed the permanent form from which it seldom afterwards varied. She now suffered little actual pain, except when she quitted a rec.u.mbent posture. But the general disorganization produced by almost exclusive confinement to one position, had, even at this early period, begun to work sad changes in her personal appearance. She suffered that mortifying misfortune just as bravely and resignedly as she had suffered the first great calamity of her incurable disorder. Valentine never showed that he thought her altered; Valentine"s kindness was just as affectionate and as constant as it had ever been in the happier days of their marriage. So encouraged, Lavinia had the heart to bear all burdens patiently; and could find sources of happiness for herself, where others could discover nothing but causes for grief.
The room she inhabited was already, through Valentine"s self-denying industry, better furnished than any other room in the house; but was far from presenting the same appearance of luxury and completeness to which it attained in the course of after-years.
The charming maple-wood and ivory bookcase, with the prettily-bound volumes ranged in such bright regularity along its shelves, was there certainly, as early as the autumn of 1838. It would not, however, at that time have formed part of the furniture of Mrs. Blyth"s room, if her husband had not provided himself with the means of paying for it, by accepting a certain professional invitation to the country, which he knew before, and would enable him to face the terrors of the upholsterer"s bill.
The invitation in question had been sent to him by a clerical friend, the Reverend Doctor Joyce, Rector of St. Judy"s, in the large agricultural town of Rubbleford. Valentine had produced a water-color drawing of one of the Doctor"s babies, when the family at the Rectory were in London for a season, and this drawing had been shown to all the neighbors by the worthy clergyman on his return. Now, although Mr. Blyth was not over-successful in the adult department of portrait-art, he was invariably victorious in the infant department. He painted all babies on one ingenious plan; giving them the roundest eyes, the chubbiest red cheeks, the most serenely good-humored smiles, and the neatest and whitest caps ever seen on paper. If fathers and their male friends rarely appreciated the fidelity of his likenesses, mothers and nurses invariably made amends for their want of taste. It followed, therefore, almost as a matter of course, that the local exhibition of the Doctor"s drawing must bring offers of long-clothes-portrait employment to Valentine. Three resident families decided immediately to have portraits of their babies, if the painter would only travel to their houses to take the likenesses. A bachelor sporting squire in the neighborhood also volunteered a commission of another sort. This gentleman arrived (by a logical process which it is hopeless to think of tracing) at the conclusion, that a man who was great at babies, must necessarily be marvelous at horses; and determined, in consequence, that Valentine should paint his celebrated cover-hack. In writing to inform his friend of these offers, Doctor Joyce added another professional order on his own account, by way of appropriate conclusion to his letter. Here, then, were five commissions, which would produce enough--cheaply as Valentine worked--to pay, not only for the new bookcase, but for the books to put in it when it came home.
Having left his wife in charge of two of her sisters, who were forbidden to leave the house till his return, Mr. Blyth started for the rectory; and once there, set to work on the babies with a zeal and good-humor which straightway won the hearts of mothers and nurses, and made him a great Rubbleford reputation in the course of a few days. Having done the babies to admiration, he next undertook the bachelor squire"s hack. Here he had some trouble. The sporting gentleman would look over him while he painted; would bewilder him with the pedigree of the horse; would have the animal done in the most unpicturesque view; and sternly forbade all introduction of "tone," "light and shade," or purely artistic embellishment of any kind, in any part of the canvas. In short, the squire wanted a sign-board instead of a picture, and he at last got what he wanted to his heart"s content.
One evening, while Valentine--still deeply immersed in the difficulties of depicting the cover-hack--was returning to the Rectory, after a day"s work at the Squire"s house, his attention was suddenly attracted in the high street of Rubbleford, by a flaming placard pasted up on a dead wall opposite the market-house.
He immediately joined the crowd of rustics congregated round the many-colored and magnificent sheet of paper, and read at the top of it, in huge blue letters:--"JUBBER"S CIRCUS. THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD." After this came some small print, which n.o.body lost any time in noticing. But below the small print appeared a perfect galaxy of fancifully shaped scarlet letters, which fascinated all eyes, and informed the public that the equestrian company included "MISS FLORINDA BEVERLEY, known," (here the letters turned suddenly green) "wherever the English language was known, as The Amazonian Empress of Equitation."
This announcement was followed by the names of inferior members of the Company; by a program of the evening"s entertainments; by testimonials extracted from the provincial press; by ill.u.s.trations of gentlemen with l.u.s.ty calves and spangled drawers, and of ladies with smiling faces, shameless petticoats, and pirouetting legs. These ill.u.s.trations, and the particulars which preceded them were carefully digested by all Mr.
Blyth"s neighbors; but Mr. Blyth himself pa.s.sed them over unnoticed.
His eye had been caught by something at the bottom of the placard, which instantly absorbed his whole attention.
In this place the red letters appeared again, and formed the following words and marks of admiration:--
THE MYSTERIOUS FOUNDLING!
AGED TEN YEARS!!
TOTALLY DEAF AND DUMB!!!
Underneath came an explanation of what the red letters referred to, occupying no less than three paragraphs of stumpy small print, every word of which Valentine eagerly devoured. This is what he read:--
"Mr. Jubber, as proprietor of the renowned Circus, has the honor of informing the n.o.bility, gentry, and public, that the above wonderful Deaf and Dumb Female Child will appear between the first and second parts of the evening"s performances. Mr. J. has taken the liberty of ent.i.tling this Marvel of Nature, The Mysterious Foundling; no one knowing who her father is, and her mother having died soon after her birth, leaving her in charge of the Equestrian Company, who have been fond parents and careful guardians to her ever since.
"She was originally celebrated in the annals of Jubber"s Circus, or Eighth Wonder of the World, as The Hurricane Child of the Desert; having appeared in that character, whirled aloft at the age of seven years in the hand of Muley Ben Ha.s.san, the renowned Scourer of Sahara, in his daring act of Equitation, as exhibited to the terror of all England, in Jubber"s Circus. At that time she had her hearing and speech quite perfect. But Mr. J. deeply regrets to state that a terrific accident happened to her soon afterwards. Through no fault on the part of The Scourer (who, overcome by his feelings at the result of the above-mentioned frightful accident, has gone back to his native wilds a moody and broken-hearted man), she slipped from his hand while the three horses bestrode by the fiery but humane Arab were going at a gallop, and fell, shocking to relate, outside the Ring, on the boarded floor of the Circus. She was supposed to be dead. Mr. Jubber instantly secured the inestimable a.s.sistance of the Faculty, who found that she was still alive, and set her arm, which had been broken. It was only afterwards discovered that she had utterly lost her sense of hearing. To use the emphatic language of the medical gentlemen (who all spoke with tears in their eyes), she had been struck stone deaf by the shock. Under these melancholy circ.u.mstances, it was found that the faculty of speech soon failed her altogether; and she is now therefore Totally Deaf AND Dumb--but Mr. J. rejoices to say, quite cheerful and in good health notwithstanding.
"Mr. Jubber being himself the father of a family, ventures to think that these little particulars may prove of some interest to an Intelligent, a Sympathetic, and a Benevolent Public. He will simply allude, in conclusion, to the performances of the Mysterious Foundling, as exhibiting perfection hitherto unparalleled in the Art of Legerdemain, with wonders of untraceable intricacy on the cards, originally the result of abstruse calculations made by that renowned Algebraist, Mohammed Engedi, extending over a period of ten years, dating from the year 1215 of the Arab Chronology. More than this Mr. Jubber will not venture to mention, for "Seeing is Believing," and the Mysterious Foundling must be seen to be believed. For prices of admission consult bottom of bill."
Mr. Blyth read this grotesquely shocking narrative with sentiments which were anything rather than complimentary to the taste, the delicacy, and the humanity of the fluent Mr. Jubber. He consulted the bottom of the bill, however, as requested; and ascertained what were the prices of admission--then glanced at the top, and observed that the first performance was fixed for that very evening--looked about him absently for a minute or two--and resolved to be present at it.
Most a.s.suredly, Valentine"s resolution did not proceed from that dastard insensibility to all decent respect for human suffering which could feast itself on the spectacle of calamity paraded for hire, in the person of a deaf and dumb child of ten years old. His motives for going to the circus were stained by no trace of such degradation as this. But what were they then? That question he himself could not have answered: it was a common predicament with him not to know his own motives, generally from not inquiring into them. There are men who run breathlessly--men who walk cautiously--and men who saunter easily through the journey of life. Valentine belonged to the latter cla.s.s; and, like the rest of his order, often strayed down a new turning, without being able to realize at the time what purpose it was which first took him that way. Our destinies shape the future for us out of strange materials: a traveling circus sufficed them, in the first instance, to shape a new future for Mr. Blyth.
He first went on to the Rectory to tell them where he was going, and to get a cup of tea, and then hurried off to the circus, in a field outside the town.
The performance had begun some time when he got in. The Amazonian Empress (known otherwise as Miss Florinda Beverley) was dancing voluptuously on the back of a cantering piebald horse with a Roman nose.
Round and round careered the Empress, beating time on the saddle with her imperial legs to the tune of "Let the Toast be Dear Woman," played with intense feeling by the band. Suddenly the melody changed to "See the Conquering Hero Comes;" the piebald horse increased his speed; the Empress raised a flag in one hand, and a javelin in the other, and began slaying invisible enemies in the empty air, at full (circus) gallop. The result on the audience was prodigious; Mr. Blyth alone sat unmoved. Miss Florinda Beverley was not even a good model to draw legs from, in the estimation of this anti-Amazonian painter!
When the Empress was succeeded by a Spanish Guerilla, who robbed, murdered, danced, caroused, and made love on the back of a cream-colored horse--and when the Guerilla was followed by a clown who performed superhuman contortions, and made jokes by the yard, without the slightest appearance of intellectual effort--still Mr. Blyth exhibited no demonstration of astonishment or pleasure. It was only when a bell rang between the first and second parts of the performance, and the band struck up "Gentle Zitella," that he showed any symptoms of animation.
Then he suddenly rose; and, moving down to a bench close against the low part.i.tion which separated the ring from the audience, fixed his eyes intently on a doorway opposite to him, overhung by a frowzy red curtain with a tinsel border.
From this doorway there now appeared Mr. Jubber himself, clothed in white trousers with a gold stripe, and a green jacket with military epaulettes. He had big, bold eyes, a dyed mustache, great fat, flabby cheeks, long hair parted in the middle, a turn-down collar with a rose-colored handkerchief; and was, in every respect, the most atrocious looking stage vagabond that ever painted a blackguard face. He led with him, holding her hand, the little deaf and dumb girl, whose misfortune he had advertised to the whole population of Rubbleford.
The face and manner of the child, as she walked into the center of the circus, and made her innocent curtsey and kissed her hand, went to the hearts of the whole audience in an instant. They greeted her with such a burst of applause as might have frightened a grown actress. But not a note from those cheering voices, not a breath of sound from those loudly clapping hands could reach her; she could see that they were welcoming her kindly, and that was all!
When the applause had subsided, Mr. Jubber asked for the loan of a handkerchief from one of the ladies present, and ostentatiously bandaged the child"s eyes. He then lifted her upon the broad low wall which encircled the ring, and walked her round a little way (beginning from the door through which he had entered), inviting the spectators to test her total deafness by clapping their hands, shouting, or making any loud noise they pleased close at her ear. "You might fire off a cannon, ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Jubber, "and it wouldn"t make her start till after she"d smelt the smoke!"
To the credit of the Rubbleford audience, the majority of them declined making any practical experiments to test the poor child"s utter deafness. The women set the example of forbearance, by entreating that the handkerchief might be taken off so that they might see her pretty eyes again. This was done at once, and she began to perform her conjuring tricks with Mr. Jubber and one of the ring-keepers on either side of her, officiating as a.s.sistants. These tricks, in themselves, were of the simplest and commonest kind; and derived all their attraction from the child"s innocently earnest manner of exhibiting them, and from the novelty to the audience of communicating with her only by writing on a slate. They never tired of scrawling questions, of saying "poor little thing!" and of kissing her whenever they could get the opportunity, while she slowly went round the circus. "Deaf and dumb!
ah, dear, dear, deaf and dumb!" was the general murmur of sympathy which greeted her from each new group, as she advanced; Mr. Jubber invariably adding with a smile: "And as you see, ladies and gentlemen, in excellent health and spirits, notwithstanding: as hearty and happy, I pledge you my sacred word of honor, as the very best of us!"
While she was thus delighting the spectators on one side of the circus, how were the spectators on the other side, whose places she had not yet reached, contriving to amuse themselves?
From the moment of the little girl"s first appearance, ample recreation had been unconsciously provided for them by a tall, stout, and florid stranger, who appeared suddenly to lose his senses the moment he set eyes on the deaf and dumb child. This gentleman jumped up and sat down again excitably a dozen times in a minute; constantly apologizing on being called to order, and constantly repeating the offense the moment afterwards. Mad and mysterious words, never heard before in Rubbleford, poured from his lips. "Devotional beauty," "Fra Angelico"s angels,"
"Giotto and the cherubs," "Enough to bring the divine Raphael down from heaven to paint her." Such were a few fragments of the mad gentleman"s incoherent mutterings, as they reached his neighbors" ears. The amus.e.m.e.nt they yielded was soon wrought to its climax by a joke from an attorney"s clerk, who suggested that this queer man, with the rosy face, must certainly be the long-lost father of the "Mysterious Foundling!"
Great gratification was consequently antic.i.p.ated from what might take place when the child arrived opposite the bench occupied by the excitable stranger.
Slowly, slowly, the little light figure went round upon the broad part.i.tion wall of the ring, until it came near, very near, to the place where Valentine was sitting.
Ah, woeful sight! so lovely, yet so piteous to look on! Shall she never hear kindly human voices, the song of birds, the pleasant murmur of the trees again? Are all the sweet sounds that sing of happiness to childhood, silent for ever to _her?_ From those fresh, rosy lips shall no glad words pour forth, when she runs and plays in the suns.h.i.+ne? Shall the clear, laughing tones be hushed always? the young, tender life be for ever a speechless thing, shut up in dumbness from the free world of voices? Oh! Angel of judgment! hast thou s.n.a.t.c.hed her hearing and her speech from this little child, to abandon her in helpless affliction to such profanation as she now undergoes? Oh, Spirit of mercy! how long thy white-winged feet have tarried on their way to this innocent sufferer, to this lost lamb that cannot cry to the fold for help! Lead, ah, lead her tenderly to such shelter as she has never yet found for herself!
Guide her, pure as she is now, from this tainted place to pleasant pastures, where the suns.h.i.+ne of human kindness shall be clouded no more, and Love and Pity shall temper every wind that blows over her with the gentleness of perpetual spring!
Slowly, slowly, the light figure went round the great circle of gazers, ministering obediently to their pleasure, waiting patiently till their curiosity was satisfied. And now, her weary pilgrimage was well nigh over for the night. She had arrived at the last group of spectators who had yet to see what she looked like close, and what tricks she could exhibit with her cards.
She stopped exactly opposite to Valentine; and when she looked up, she looked on him alone.
Was there something in the eager sympathy of his eyes as they met hers, which spoke to the little lonely heart in the sole language that could ever reach it? Did the child, with the quick instinct of the deaf and dumb, read his compa.s.sionate disposition, his pity and longing to help her, in his expression at that moment? It might have been so. Her pretty lips smiled on him as they had smiled on no one else that night; and when she held out some cards to be chosen from, she left unnoticed the eager hands extended on either side of her, and presented them to Valentine only.
He saw the small fingers trembling as they held the cards; he saw the delicate little shoulders and the poor frail neck and chest bedizened with tawdry mock jewelry and spangles; he saw the innocent young face, whose pure beauty no soil of stage paint could disfigure, with the smile still on the parted lips, but with a patient forlornness in the sad blue eyes, as if the seeing-sense that was left, mourned always for the hearing and speaking senses that were gone--he marked all these things in an instant, and felt that his heart was sinking as he looked. A dimness stole over his sight; a suffocating sensation oppressed his breathing; the lights in the circus danced and mingled together; he bent down over the child"s hand, and took it in his own; twice kissed it fervently; then, to the utter amazement of the laughing crowd about him, rose up suddenly, and forced his way out as if he had been flying for his life.
There was a momentary confusion among the audience. But Mr. Jubber was too old an adept in stage-business of all kinds not to know how to stop the growing tumult directly, and turn it into universal applause.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he cried, with a deep theatrical quiver in his voice--"I implore you to be seated, and to excuse the conduct of the party who has just absented himself. The talent of the Mysterious Foundling has overcome people in that way in every town of England. Do I err in believing that a Rubbleford audience can make kind allowances for their weaker fellow-creatures? Thanks, a thousand thanks in the name of this darling and talented child, for your cordial, your generous, your affectionate, your inestimable reception of her exertions to-night!"
With this peroration Mr. Jubber took his pupil out of the ring, amid the most vehement cheering and waving of hats and handkerchiefs. He was too much excited by his triumph to notice that the child, as she walked after him, looked wistfully to the last in the direction by which Valentine had gone out.
"The public like excitement," soliloquized Mr. Jubber, as he disappeared behind the red curtain. "I must have all this in the bills to-morrow.
It"s safe to draw at least thirty s.h.i.+llings extra into the house at night."
In the meantime, Valentine, after some blundering at wrong doors, at last found his way out of the circus, and stood alone on the cool gra.s.s, in the cloudless autumn moonlight. He struck his stick violently on the ground, which at that moment represented to him the head of Mr. Jubber; and was about to return straight to the rectory, when he heard a breathless voice behind him, calling:--"Stop, sir! oh, do please stop for one minute!"
He turned round. A buxom woman in a tawdry and tattered gown was running towards him as fast as her natural impediments to quick progression would permit.
"Please, sir," she cried--"Please, sir, wasn"t you the gentleman that was taken queer at seeing our little Foundling? I was peeping through the red curtain, sir, just at the time."
Instead of answering the question, Valentine instantly began to rhapsodize about the child"s face.
"Oh, sir! if you know anything about her," interposed the woman, "for G.o.d"s sake don"t scruple to tell it to me! I"m only Mrs. Peckover, sir, the wife of Jemmy Peckover, the clown, that you saw in the circus to-night. But I took and nursed the little thing by her poor mother"s own wish; and ever since that time--"