But d.i.c.k was mute. Something in this picture woke up the pain of a recent wound festering in his heart, and yet through all the smart and tingling came a strange sensation of relief, like that with which a styptic salves a sore.
"What do you think of it?" asked the artist. "I want your candid opinion, Stanmore--impartial--unprejudiced, I tell you. I hope great things from it. I believe it far and away the best I"ve painted yet.
Look into the work. O, it will stand inspection. You might examine it with a microscope. Then, the conception, eh? And the drawing"s not amiss. A little more this way--you catch the outline of his eyebrow, with the turn of the Rhymer"s head."
"Hang the Rhymer"s head!" replied d.i.c.k, "I don"t care about it. I won"t look at it. I _can"t_ look at it, man, with such a woman as _that_ in the picture. Old boy, you"ve won immortality at last!"
But Simon"s face fell.
"That"s a great fault," he answered gravely. "The details, though kept down as accessories to the whole, should yet be worked out so carefully as to possess individual merit of their own. I see, though; I see how to remedy the defect you have suggested. I can easily bring him out by darkening the shadows of the background. Then, this fairy at his elbow is paltry, and too near him besides. I shall paint her out altogether. She takes the eye off my princ.i.p.al figures, and breaks that grand line of light pouring in from the morning sky. Don"t you think so?"
But d.i.c.k gave no answer. With feverish thirst and longing, he was drinking in the beauty of the Fairy Queen; and had not Simon Perkins been the dullest of observers, and the least conceited of painters, he must have felt intensely flattered by the effect of his work.
"So you like her," said he, after a pause, during which, in truth, he had been considering whether he should not paint out the intrusive fairy that very afternoon.
"Like her!" replied the other. "It"s the image of the most beautiful face I ever saw in my life; only it"s softer and even more beautiful.
I"ll tell you what, old fellow, put a price on that picture and I"ll have it, cost what it may! Only you must give me a little time," added d.i.c.k somewhat ruefully, reflecting that he had spent a good deal of money lately, and rent-day was still a long way off.
Simon smiled.
"I wonder what you"d think of the original," said he, "the model who sits to me for my Fairy Queen! I can tell you that face on the canvas is no more to be compared to hers than I am to Velasquez. And yet Velasquez must have been a beginner once."
"I don"t believe there"s such a woman--two such women--in London,"
replied his friend, correcting himself. "I can hardly imagine such eyes, such an expression. It"s what the fellows who write poetry call "the beauty of a dream," and I"ll never say poetry is nonsense again.
No, that"s neither more nor less than an imaginary angel, Simon.
Simply an impossible duck!"
"Would you like to see her?" asked the painter, laughing. "She"ll be here in five minutes. I do believe that"s her step on the stairs now."
A strange wild hope thrilled through d.i.c.k Stanmore"s heart. Could it be possible that Lady Bearwarden had employed his friend to paint her likeness in this fancy picture, perhaps under a feigned name, and was she coming to take her sitting now?
All his stoicism, all his philosophy, vanished on the instant. He would remain where he was though he should die for it. O, to see her, to be in the same room with her, to look in her eyes, and hear her voice once more!
A gown rustled, a light step was heard, the door opened, and a sweet laughing voice rung out its greeting to the painter from the threshold.
"So late, Simon! Shameful, isn"t it? But I"ve got all they wanted.
Such bargains! I suppose n.o.body ever did so much shopping in so short a--"
She caught sight of d.i.c.k, stopped, blushed, and made a very fascinating little curtsey, as they were formally introduced; but next time she spoke the merriment had gone out of her voice. It had become more staid, more formal, and its deeper, fuller tones reminded him painfully of Maud.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "She caught sight of d.i.c.k."]
Yes. Had he not known Lady Bearwarden so well, he thought it would have been quite possible for him to have mistaken this beautiful young lady for that faithless peeress. The likeness was extraordinary, ridiculous. Not that he felt the least inclined to laugh. The features were absolutely the same, and a certain backward gesture of the head, a certain trick of the mouth and chin were identical with the manner of Lady Bearwarden, in those merry days that seemed so long ago now, when she had been Maud Bruce. Only Miss Algernon"s face had a softness, a kindly trustful expression he never remembered on the other, and her large pleading eyes seemed as if they could neither kindle with anger nor harden to freezing glances of scorn.
As for the Fairy Queen, he looked from the picture to its original, and felt constrained to admit that, wondrously beautiful as he had thought its likeness on canvas, the face before him was infinitely superior to the painter"s fairest and most cherished work.
d.i.c.k went away of course almost immediately, though sorely against his will. Contrary to her wont, Miss Algernon, who was rather a mimic and full of fun, neither imitated the gestures nor ridiculed the bearing of this chance visitor. "She had not observed him much," she said, when taxed by Simon with this unusual forbearance. This was false. But "she might know him again, perhaps, if they met." This, I imagine, was true.
And d.i.c.k, wending his way back to his hotel buried in thought, pa.s.sed without recognising it the spot where he met Lady Bearwarden one short hour ago. He was pondering, no doubt, on the face he had just seen--on its truth, its purity, its fresh innocent mirth, its dazzling beauty, more, perhaps, than on its extraordinary likeness to hers who had brought him the one great misfortune of his life.
CHAPTER XIX
AN INCUBUS
It is not to be supposed that any gentleman can see a lady in the streets of London and remain himself unseen. In the human as in meaner races the female organ of perception is quicker, keener, and more accurate than the male. Therefore it is that a man bowing in Pall Mall or Piccadilly to some divinity in an open carriage, and failing to receive any return for his salute, sinks at once into a false position of awkwardness and discomfiture, _il a manque son coup_, and his face a.s.sumes incontinently the expression of one who has missed a woodc.o.c.k in the open, and has no second barrel with which to redeem his shot.
As d.i.c.k saw Lady Bearwarden in Oxford Street, we may be sure that Lady Bearwarden also saw d.i.c.k. Nor was her ladyship best pleased with the activity he displayed in avoiding her carriage and escaping from her society. If Mr. Stanmore had been the most successful Lovelace who ever devoted himself to the least remunerative of pursuits, instead of a loyal, kindhearted, una.s.suming gentleman, he could hardly have chosen a line of conduct so calculated to keep alive some spark of interest in Maud"s breast as that which he unconsciously adopted. It is one thing to dismiss a lover because suited with a superior article (as some ladies send away five-foot-ten of footman when six-foot comes to look after the place), and another to lose a va.s.sal for good, like an unreclaimed hawk, heedless of the lure, clear of the jesses, and checking, perhaps, at every kind of prey in wilful wanton flight, down-wind towards the sea.
There is but one chance for a man worsted in these duels _a l"outrance_, which are fought out with such merciless animosity. It is to bind up his wounds as best he may, and take himself off to die or get well in secret. Presently the conqueror finds that a battle only has been won, and not a territory gained. After the flush of combat comes a reaction. The triumph seems somewhat tame, ungraced by presence of the captive. Curiosity wakes up, pity puts in its pleading word, a certain jealous instinct of appropriation is aroused. Where is he? What has become of him? I wonder if he ever thinks of me _now_!
Poor fellow! I shouldn"t wish to be forgotten altogether, as if we had never met; and though I didn"t want him to like _me_, I never meant that he was to care for anybody else. Such are the thoughts that chase each other through the female heart when deprived of sovereignty in the remotest particular; and it was very much in this way that Lady Bearwarden, sitting alone in her boudoir, speculated on the present doings and sentiments of the man who had loved her so well and had given her up so unwillingly, yet with never a word of reproach, never a look nor action that could add to her remorse or make her task more painful.
Alas, she was not happy; even now, when she had gained all she most wished and schemed for in the world. She felt she was not happy, and she felt, too, that for d.i.c.k to know of her unhappiness would be the bitterest drop in the bitter cup he had been compelled to drain.
As she looked round her beautiful boudoir, with its blue-satin hangings, its numerous mirrors, its redundancy of coronets surmounting her own cipher, twisted and twined into a far more graceful decoration than the grim heraldic bruin which formed her husband"s cognisance, she said to herself that something was yet required to const.i.tute a woman"s happiness beyond the utmost efforts of the upholder"s art--that even carriages, horses, tall footmen, quant.i.ties of flowers, unlimited credit, and whole packs of cards left on the hall table every day were mere accessories and superfluities, not the real pith and substance of that for which she pined.
Lady Bearwarden, more than most women, had, since her marriage, found the worldly ball at her foot. She needed but to kick it where she would. As Miss Bruce, with nothing to depend on but her own good looks and conquering manners, she had wrested a large share of admiration from an unwilling public; now, as a peeress, and a rich one, the same public of both s.e.xes courted, toadied, and flattered her, till she grew tired of hearing herself praised. The men--at least those of high position and great prospects--had no scruple in offering a married woman that homage which might have entailed their own domestic subjugation if laid at a spinster"s feet; and the women--all except the very smartest ladies (who liked her for her utter fearlessness and _sang-froid_ as well as for her own sake)--thought it a fine thing to be on intimate terms with "Maud Bearwarden," as they loved to call her, and being much afraid of her, made up to her with the sweet facility and sincerity of their s.e.x.
Yet in defiance of ciphers, coronets, visiting-cards, blue hangings, the homage of lords, and the va.s.salage of ladies, there was something amiss. She caught herself continually looking back to the old days at Ecclesfield Manor, to the soft lawns and shady avenues, the fond father, who thought his darling the perfection of humanity, and whose face lit up so joyfully whenever she came into the room; the sweet delicate mother from whom she could never remember an unkind look nor an angry word; the hills, the river, the cottages, the tenants, the flower-garden, the ponies, and the old retriever that died licking her hand. She felt kindly towards Mrs. Stanmore, and wondered whether she had behaved quite as well to that lady as she ought, recalling many a little act of triumphant malice and overt resistance which afforded keen gratification to the rebel at the time. By an easy transition, she glided on to d.i.c.k Stanmore"s honest and respectful admiration, his courtesy, his kindness, his unfailing forbearance and good humour.
Bearwarden was not always good-humoured--she had found that out already. But as for d.i.c.k, she remembered how no mishap nor annoyance of his own ever irritated him in the slightest degree; how his first consideration always seemed to be _her_ comfort and _her_ happiness; how even in his deep sorrow, deceived, humiliated, cut to the heart, he had never so much as spoken one bitter word. How n.o.bly had he trusted her about those diamonds! How well he had behaved to her throughout, and how fondly would he have loved and cherished her had she confided her future to his care! He must be strangely altered now, to avoid her like this. She was sure he recognised her, for she saw his face fall, saw him wince--that at least was a comfort--but never to shake hands, never even to stop and speak! Well, she had treated him cruelly, and perhaps he was right.
But this was not the actual grievance, after all. She felt she would do precisely the same over again. It was less repentance that pained her, than retribution. Maud, for the first time in her life, was beginning to feel really in love, and with her own husband. Such an infatuation, rare as it is admirable, ought to have been satisfactory and prosperous enough. When ladies do so far condescend, it is usually a gratifying domestic arrangement for themselves and their lords; but in the present instance the wife"s increasing affection afforded neither happiness to herself nor comfort to her husband. There was a "Something" always between them, a shadow, not of suspicion nor mistrust, for Bearwarden was frank and loyal by nature, but of coldness. She had a secret from him, and she was a bad dissembler; his finer instincts told him that he did not possess her full confidence, and he was too proud to ask it. So they lived together a few short weeks after marriage, on outward terms of courtesy and cordiality, but with this little rift of dissatisfaction gradually yet surely widening into a fissure that should rend each of these proud unbending hearts in twain.
"What would I give to be like other wives," thought Maud, looking at a half-length of her husband in uniform, which occupied the place of honour in her boudoir. "What is it? Why is it? I would love him so, if he would let me. How I wish I could be good--_really_ good, like mamma was. I suppose it"s impossible now. I wonder if it"s too late to try."
And with the laudable intention of beginning amendment at once, Lady Bearwarden rang sharply to tell her servants she was "not at home to anybody till Lord Bearwarden came in, except"--and here she turned away from her own footman, that he might not see the colour rising in her face--"except a man should call with some silks and brocades, in which case he was to be shown up-stairs at once."
The door had scarcely closed ere the paper-cutter in Maud"s fingers broke short off at the handle. Her grasp tightened on it insensibly, while she ground and gnashed her small white teeth, to think that she, with her proud nature, in her high position, should not be free to admit or deny what visitors she pleased. So dandies of various patterns, afoot, in tea-carts, and on hacks more or less deserving in shape and action, discharged themselves of their visiting-cards at Lady Bearwarden"s door, and pa.s.sed on in peace to fulfil the same rite elsewhere.
Two only betrayed an unseemly emotion when informed "her ladyship was not at home": the one, a cheerful youth, bound for a water-party at Skindle"s, and fearful of missing his train, thanked Providence audibly for what he called "an unexpected let off"; the other, an older, graver, and far handsomer man, suffered an expression of palpable discomfiture to overspread his comely face, and, regardless of observation, walked away from the door with the heavy step that denotes a heavy heart. Not that he had fallen in love with Lady Bearwarden--far from it. But there _was_ a Somebody--that Somebody an adverse fate had decreed he must neither meet to-day nor to-morrow, and the interval seemed to both of them wearisome, and even painful.
But Maud was Somebody"s dear friend. Maud either had seen her or would see her that very afternoon. Maud would let him talk about her, praise her, perhaps would even give her a message--nay, it was just possible she might arrive to pay a morning visit while he was there. No wonder he looked so sad to forego this series of chances; and all the while, if he had only known it, Fate, having veered round at luncheon-time, would have permitted him to call at Somebody"s house, to find her at home, enchanted to see him, and to sit with her as long as he liked in the well-known room, with its flowers and sun-shades and globes of gold-fish, and the picture over the chimney-piece, and its dear original by his side. But it is a game at cross-purposes all through this dangerous pastime; and perhaps its very _contretemps_ are what make it so interesting to the players, so amusing to the lookers-on.
Lady Bearwarden grew fidgety after a while. It is needless to say that "the man with some silks and brocades" to be admitted by her servants was none other than "Gentleman Jim," who, finding the disguise of a "travelling merchant" that in which he excited least suspicion in his interviews with her ladyship, had resolved to risk detection yet once more, and had given her notice of his intention.
We all remember Sinbad"s Old Man of the Sea, and the grip of that merciless rider tightening closer and closer the longer he was carried by his disgusted victim. There is more truth in the fable than most of us would like to allow. If you once permit yourself to set up an "Old Man of the Sea," farewell to free agency, happiness, even tolerable comfort, from that time forth! Sometimes your burden takes the shape of a renewed bill, sometimes of a fatal secret, sometimes of an unwise attachment, sometimes only of a bad habit; but whatever it be, the farther you carry it the heavier it seems to grow; and in this case custom does not in the least degree reconcile you to the infliction.
Up with your heels, and kick it off at any price! Even should you rick your back in the process, it is better to be crippled for life than eternally oppressed by a ruthless rider and an intolerable weight.
Gentleman Jim was becoming Lady Bearwarden"s Old Man of the Sea. More than once of late he had forced himself on her presence when it was exceedingly inconvenient and even dangerous to meet him. The promised interview of to-day had been extorted from her most unwillingly, and by threats, implied if not expressed. She began to feel that she was no longer her own mistress--that she had lost her independence, and was virtually at the command of an inferior. To a proud nature like hers such a situation seemed simply intolerable.
Lord Bearwarden seldom came in much before it was time to dress for dinner; but young men"s habits are not usually very regular, the monotonous custom of doing everything by clockwork being a tedious concomitant of old age. Maud could not calculate on his absence at any particular hour of the day unless he were on duty, and the bare notion that she should _wish_ thus to calculate fretted and chafed her beyond measure. It was a relief to hear the door-bell once more, and prepare to confront the worst. A London servant never betrays astonishment, nor indeed any emotion whatever, beyond a shade of dignified and forbearing contempt. The first footman showed Lady Bearwarden"s suspicious-looking visitor into her boudoir with sublime indifference, returning thereafter leisurely and loftily to his tea. Maud felt her courage departing, and her defeat, like that of brave troops seized by panic, seemed all the more imminent for habitual steadiness and valour. She took refuge in an attempt to bully.
"Why are you here?" said Maud, standing bolt upright; while Gentleman Jim, with an awkward bow, began as usual to unroll his goods. "I have told you often enough this persecution must finish. I am determined not to endure it any longer. The next time you call I shall order my servants to drive you from the door. O, will you--_will_ you not come to terms?"
His face had been growing darker and darker while she spoke, and she watched its expression as the Mediterranean fisherman watches a white squall gliding with fatal swiftness over the waters, to bring ruin and shipwreck and despair. It sometimes happens that the fisherman loses his head precisely at the wrong moment, so that foiled, helpless, and taken aback, he comes to fatal and irremediable grief. Thus Lady Bearwarden, too, found the nerve on which she prided herself failing when she most wanted it, and knew that the prestige and influence which formed her only safeguards were slipping from her grasp.
She had cowed this ruffian at their first meeting by an a.s.sumption of calm courage and superiority in a crisis when most women, thus confronted at dead of night by a housebreaker, would have shrunk trembling and helpless before him. She had retained her superiority during their subsequent a.s.sociation by an utter indifference as to results, so long as they only affected character and fortune, which to his lower nature seemed simply incomprehensible; but now that her heart was touched she could no longer remain thus reckless, thus defiant. With womanly feelings came womanly misgivings and fear of consequences. The charm was lost, the spell broken, and the familiar spirit had grown to an exacting master from an obedient slave.
"That"s not the way as them speaks who"s had the pith and marrow out of a chap"s werry bones," growled Jim. "There wasn"t no talkin of figure-footmen and drivin" of respectable tradesmen from folks" doors when a _man_ was wanted, like this here. A _man_, I says, wot wasn"t afeard to swing, if so be as he could act honourable and fulfil his bargain."