We were sitting dull enough in the parlour, one evening just before Christmas, when Kate said to him, in her sudden way--
"The days will get long in January."
"And I shall then be a free man," he replied, with a smile.
"You have been discharged!" she exclaimed, dismayed.
"I have discharged myself. Now, Kate, don't look so startled! The picture shall be finished in time."
"I dare say it will, Cornelius," she replied, ruefully.
"Well, then, what do you fear?"
"Suppose," she hesitatingly suggested, "that it cannot get exhibited!"
"I do not see how that can be," composedly replied Cornelius.
"Bless the boy! do they never reject pictures?"
I sat by Cornelius, whose hand played idly with my hair; he stopped short to give his sister an astonished glance, then he shook his handsome head, and laughed gaily.
"Reject _that_ picture, Kate!"
"He is his father all over," she sighed.
He smiled at her blindness, and turning to me, said--
"What do you say, Daisy?"
"They shan't reject it; they dare not," was my ready reply.
"It is too absurd to suppose such a thing, is it not?" he added, to teaze his sister, who disappointed him by unexpectedly veering round.
"Cornelius," she said, decisively, "your energy and decision in this matter give me more hope than your enthusiasm. I like a man to act for himself; but you must go on as you have begun, and give yourself up entirely. Will you be a student at the Royal Academy? Will you study under some great master? Will you travel? Speak, I have money."
"Thank you, Kate; I am glad you think I have acted rightly; but I have begun alone, and alone I must go on, with experience for my sole teacher.
I must keep my originality."
Kate remonstrated, but Cornelius, once in the fortification of his originality, was not to be ejected thence.
"Just like his poor father!" sighed Kate; "he was always for his originality."
Cornelius also resembled his poor father in the possession of a will of his own. Kate knew it, and wisely gave up the point.
In a few days more Cornelius was free. His tread about the house had another sound; his eyes overflowed with gladness and burned with the hope of coming triumphs. He exulted in the endless sittings we gave him, and amused himself like a child with day-dreams and air-castles. His favourite one--the fame and fortune were both settled--was a skylight.
"Yes, Kate," he once said, looking up at the ceiling, "to keep your brother under your roof, you must knock it down and give him a skylight.
Some artists prefer studios in town; but I, domestic man, stick to the household gods: with a skylight you may keep me for ever."
"Conceited fellow!"
"Conceited! now is not this a nice bit of painting?" he drew her to his side and made her face the easel.
"Indeed it is," she replied admiringly: "where will you send it?"
"To the Academy, Kate, the first place or none."
"Oh!" she hastened to answer, "I only fear they may not hang it as well as it deserves. Jealousy, you know, or even want of room."
"There is always room for the really good pictures," replied Cornelius.
This was in February, but his sister evidently felt some uneasiness on the subject, for she recurred to it several times, and when nothing led to the remark, observed to Cornelius with a wistful look--
"I hope it may be well hung, Cornelius."
"I hope so," he quietly replied.
At length came the day on which this interesting fact was to be ascertained. A bright May day it was; Cornelius wished to go alone, "there always was such a crowd on the first day," and had his wish. We stayed at home trying to seem very careless, very indifferent, but Miss O'Reilly could not work and I could not study. We began sudden conversations on common-place themes, that broke off as they had commenced, at once and without cause. Of the real subject that occupied our thoughts we never spoke. I went up and down the house with unusual restlessness, ever coming back to the window that overlooked the Grove.
"I should like to know what you mean by it?" suddenly asked Miss O'Reilly. "Why do you look out of that window?"
"Cornelius told me he would come by the Grove."
"And why do you fidget about his coming back on this particular day? Just get out of my light, if you please."
I obeyed; but the next thing Kate did herself was to open the window and look down the Grove. The day was waning; Cornelius did not return; she could not keep in, but said anxiously--
"I am afraid it is not well hung, after all."
"I am afraid it is not," I replied, for I too began to feel very uncomfortable.
"No, decidedly it is not well hung," she continued, "but I don't see why that should prevent him from coming back;" and no longer caring to hide her impatience, she took her seat at the window, which she left no more.
"There is Cornelius!" I said, with a start, as a ring was heard at the garden-door.
"Hold your tongue!" indignantly exclaimed Kate. "Why should he slink in by the back way? Daisy, I forbid you to open; it is a run-away ring: Cornelius indeed!"
I obeyed reluctantly; I was sure it was Cornelius, and as I had not been forbidden to look, I went to the back-parlour window. I reached it as Deborah opened the door. It was Cornelius, with his hat pulled down over his brow, and what could be seen of his face, of a dull leaden white. He passed by the girl without uttering a word, entered the house, and went upstairs at once. I heard him locking himself up in his room, then all was still.
I returned to the front parlour. Miss O'Reilly was pacing it up and down in great agitation, wringing her hands and uttering many broken ejaculations of mingled grief and anger.
"My poor boy! my poor boy!" she exclaimed, with a strange mixture of pathos and tenderness in her voice, like a mother lamenting over her child; then stopping short, she added, her brown eyes kindling with sudden and rapid wrath--"What a bad set they are! a bad envious set! They thought they would not let him get up and eclipse them all. Oh no!--not they--they knew better than that--crush him at once--don't give him time--crush him at once!"
She laughed sarcastically, then resumed, in a tone of indignant and dignified wonder, "I am astonished at Cornelius. What else could he expect? Has he not genius, and is he not an Irishman? Why did he not put Samuel Smith or John Jenkins or Leopold Trim at the bottom of his picture?--it would have got in at once; but with such a name as Cornelius O'Reilly, it was ludicrous to expect it."
"Don't they take in the pictures of Irish artists?" I asked.
"Hold your tongue!" was the short reply I got.