When Cornelius asked for an opinion it was all very well, but when he asked for a candid opinion he would never tolerate any save that which he himself favoured. He was now in one of his most positive moods, so I prepared for submission--an easy task, for I always thought him in the right, and whatever my original opinion might have been, I invariably came back to his in the end, as to the only true one. He led me to his easel, on which I saw the long neglected Stolen Child.
"I had forgotten all about it," said Cornelius, "but finding this morning that I could not get on with Medora in the absence of Miriam, I looked amongst the old things, whence I fished out this. Now, admitting that it will not do for a picture, I think it will at least make an excellent study--eh?"
"Yes, Cornelius, a very good study indeed."
"Why not a picture?" he asked, frowning.
"It is not good enough," I replied, confidently.
"You silly little thing, you must have forgotten all about pictures and painting, to say so," rather hotly answered Cornelius. "Why a baby could tell you I never began anything that promised better. Oh, Daisy! what am I to think of your judgment? At all events," he added, softening down, "if you are not yet a first-rate critic, you are a first-rate sitter. So get ready. You need not mind about your Gipsy attire; all I want is the face and attitude."
I looked at the picture, drew back a few steps, and placed myself in the old position.
"The very thing," cried Cornelius, delighted. "Oh, Daisy, you are invaluable to me."
He began at once, and worked hard until breakfast, during which he could speak of nothing but his Stolen Child.
"A much better subject than Medora," he said, decisively; "there has been too much of Byron's heroines."
"Do you mean to throw it of one side?" asked Kate.
"Oh no, I hope to have both pictures ready for next year's Academy; pressed for time, I shall work all the harder and the better, Kate."
"Which will you finish first?"
"The Stolen Child."
"Well," said Kate, very quietly, "I have a fancy that it will be Medora."
"How can it? Miriam is away for two months, you know."
"Yes, but I have a fancy the sea-air will not agree with her," continued Kate, in the same quiet way.
Cornelius looked at his sister with a somewhat perplexed air.
"I don't know anything about that," he said, at length; "but I can go on with the Stolen Child, and I hope to go on quickly too, Daisy sits so well, you know."
"I know she is as bad as you are; look at her swallowing down her tea as fast as she can, to be in time."
"She is a good little thing," he replied, patting my neck, "though I cannot say she yet thoroughly knows what constitutes a good picture.
Don't hurry, Daisy; there is plenty of time."
"But I am quite ready," I replied eagerly.
"So am I; let us see who shall be upstairs first."
"Cornelius, how can you be such a boy?" began Kate; I lost the rest, I had started up, and was hastening upstairs all out of breath. Cornelius, who could have outstripped me with ease, followed with pretended eagerness, and laughed at my triumph.
"I was first," I cried from the landing, and flushed and breathless I looked round at him, as he stood on the staircase a few steps below me: he gave me a pleased and surprised look.
"Why, that child would be quite pretty if she had a colour," he observed to himself; "poor little thing!" he added as he came up and stood by me, "I wish I could keep that bloom on your little pale face: but it is already going--the more's the pity!"
"Indeed," I replied, "it is no pity at all, for the pale face is much the best for the picture."
This disinterested sentiment did not in the least surprise Cornelius, who was too much devoted to his painting to think anything too good for it, or any sacrifice too great. He confessed the pale face would make the picture more pathetic, and was not astonished at my preferring it on that account.
We remained in the studio nearly the whole day. Kate, who did not seem much pleased at this return to our old habits, significantly inquired in the evening how much I had learned.
"Nothing." replied Cornelius; "but to make up for it, I will help her; we shall study together, so she will learn her lessons and repeat them at the same time."
"That will be tedious, Cornelius."
"She gives me her days; I may well give her my evenings."
"And your letter?"
"I shall sit up."
"Poor fellow!" compassionately said Kate, "what between painting, teaching, and love, your hands are full."
CHAPTER XIX.
For three months and more, Cornelius had neglected painting; he now returned to it with tenfold ardour. I have often, since then, wondered at the strange mistake Miriam committed in leaving him, and thinking she had weaned him from his art; his passion for it was a part of his nature, and not to be taken up or laid down at will.
She was as much deceived with regard to me. Cornelius was too fond of me in his heart, to give me up so readily as she had imagined. He liked me, but besides this I think he also felt unwilling to lose my deep and ardent love for himself. He knew better than any one its force and sincerity, and it is dangerously sweet to tenderness, pride, and self- love, to be master of another creature's heart, as he was of mine. It was when I had least chance of winning him back, when I was removed from his sight, when he appeared to neglect me, when he might be supposed to have forgotten me, and he seemed no longer called upon to trouble himself with me, that he humbled his pride before my grandfather, to obtain again the child he had slighted. I doubt if anything ever cost him more; I know that this proof of faithful affection effaced every past unkindness.
It was thus, when Miriam no doubt thought my day over, that unexpectedly, and as the most natural tiling, he fetched and brought me home. His temper, though yielding and easy in appearance, was in reality most obstinate and pertinacious. He seemed to give in, but he ever came back to his old feeling or opinion, and that too with an unconsciousness of his offence which must have been most irritating. In spite of the hints of Kate, I am sure he had not the faintest suspicion that, in devoting himself to painting or in bringing me home, he had done that which could annoy Miriam. Her letters, of course, expressed nothing but approbation of the changes that had taken place in her absence. In order, I suppose, to breed in me a kindly feeling towards his mistress, Cornelius took care to read to me every passage in which I was mentioned as "the dear child,"
and all such sentiments as "I am charmed to think dear little Daisy is again with you," etc.
In one sense, this was useless; in the other it was unnecessary. It was useless, because my feelings towards Miss Russell could not change on account of a few kind words in which I had no faith. It was unnecessary, because not hatred, but jealousy, was what I felt against her; nothing could and did mollify me so much as her absence. So long as she stayed away, I did not envy her in the least the acknowledged preference of Cornelius. Every evening when he sat down to write, I brought him of my own accord pen, ink, and paper, and in the morning I ran unbidden to fetch him his letter. I could even, when I saw him read it with evident delight, participate in his pleasure, little as I loved her from whom it came. My love was very ardent, but it was very pure; from my dawning youth it caught perhaps something of passion, but it also kept all the innocence of my childhood, scarcely left behind.
Cornelius, I believe, felt this, and as there is nothing more delightful than to inspire or feel a pure affection, I can now understand why he found a charm which Kate could not feel, in yielding to this. Often in our moments of relaxation when I sat by him on the couch, he would turn to me with a smile, and, stooping, leave on my brow a kiss as innocent as it was light, feeling, perhaps,--what I never felt, for I never thought of it--that he was now receiving the purest affection he could ever hope to inspire, and feeling the most disinterested tenderness he ever could hope to feel for child or maiden not of his blood. I was growing older, more able to understand him, more fit to be his companion, and this might be the reason that he now became more kind and friendly than ever he had been. Nothing could exceed his care of me: absorbed in his picture though he might seem, he was quick to detect in me the least sign of weariness, and imperative in exacting the rest I was loath to take. For the sate of the air he made me go down to the garden and often accompanied me.
I remember well one August afternoon, warm and breezy, when sitting together on the bench that stood by the porch, we looked from within the cool shadow of the house and through the air quivering with heat, on the ardent sunshine that seemed to vivify every object on which it touched.
The garden flowers around us had that vivid brilliancy of hue of which the shade deprives them, to lend them, it is true, a more pensive grace; even the old sun-dial wore a gay look, and seemed to mark the hour as if it cared not for the passing of time. Every glittering leaf of the two poplars lightly trembled and appeared instinct with being; the garden- door stood open, and gave a bright though narrow glimpse of the lane, with its yellow path, its low green hedge, and beyond it a blue line of horizon. There was no scenery, no landscape, scarcely even that picturesque grace which every-day objects sometimes wear, but with that warm sunshine, that dazzling light and air so transparently clear, none could look and say that there was not beauty. For if Summer possesses not the green hope of Spring, the brown, meditative loveliness of Autumn, it has a glow, a fullness, a superabundance of life quite its own. Earth is truly living and animate then; she and the sun have it all their way, and seem to rejoice--he in his power and strength--she in her life and beauty.
"'Faith, this is pleasant!" observed Cornelius, throwing himself back on the bench, "a summer's day never can be too hot or too long--eh, Daisy?"
"I suppose not, Cornelius, but I hope it is not for me you are staying here, because I am quite rested."
"So you want me to go up and work."
"You know, Cornelius, you often say there is nothing like painting pictures."
"No more there is; and you must learn and paint pictures too. Well, you do not look transported."