By N. P. Willis.
(_From "People I Have Met" (now out of print)._)
"Five hundred dollars a year!" echoed Fanny Bellairs, as the first
silver gray of the twilight spread over her picture.
"And my art," modestly added the painter, prying into his bright copy
of the lips pronouncing upon his destiny.
"And how much may that be, at the present rate of patronage--one
picture a year, painted for love!"
"Fanny, how can you be so calculating!"
"By the bumps over my eyebrows, I suppose. Why, my dear coz, we have
another state of existence to look forward to--old man-age and old
woman-age! What am I to do with five hundred dollars a year, when my
old frame wants gilding--(to use one of your own similes)--I sha'n't
always be pretty Fanny Bellairs!"
"But, good Heavens! we shall grow old together!" exclaimed the painter,
sitting down at her feet, "and what will you care for other admiration,
if your husband see you still beautiful, with the eyes of memory and
habit."
"Even if I were sure he would so look upon me," answered Miss Bellairs,
more seriously, "I cannot but dread an old age without great means of
embellishment. Old people, except in poetry and in very primitive
society, are dishonored by wants and cares. And, indeed, before we are
old--when neither young nor old--we want horses and ottomans, kalydor
and conservatories, books, pictures, and silk curtains--all quite out
of the range of your little allowance, don't you see!"
"You do not love me, Fanny!"
"I do--and will marry you, Philip--as I, long ago, with my whole heart,
promised. But I wish to be happy with you--as happy, quite as happy, as
is at all possible, with our best efforts, and coolest, discreetest
management. I laugh the matter over sometimes, but I may tell you,
since you are determined to be in earnest, that I have treated it, in
my solitary thought, as the one important event of my life--(so indeed
it is!)--and, as such, worthy of all forethought, patience, self-denial,
and calculation. To inevitable ills I can make up my mind like other
people. If your art were your only hope of subsistence--why--I don't
know--(should I look well as a page?)--I don't know that I couldn't run
your errands and grind your paints in hose and doublet. But there is
another door open for you--a counting-house door, to be sure--leading
to opulence and all the appliances of dignity and happiness, and
through this door, my dear Philip, the art you would live by comes to
pay tribute and beg for patronage. Now, out of your hundred and twenty
reasons, give me the two stoutest and best, why you should refuse your
brother's golden offer of partnership--my share, in your alternative of
poverty, left for the moment out of the question."
Rather overborne by the confident decision of his beautiful cousin, and
having probably made up his mind that he must ultimately yield to her,
Philip replied in a lower and more dejected tone:
"If you were not to be a sharer in my renown, should I be so fortunate
as to acquire it, I should feel as if it were selfish to dwell so much
on my passion for distinction, and my devotion to my pencil as a means
of winning it. My heart is full of you--but it is full of ambition,
too, paradox though it be. I cannot live ignoble. I should not have
felt worthy to press my love upon you--worthy to possess you--except
with the prospect of celebrity in my art. You make the world dark to
me, Fanny! You close down the sky, when you shut out this hope! Yet it
shall be so."
Philip paused a moment, and the silence was uninterrupted.
"There was another feeling I had, upon which I have not insisted," he
continued. "By my brother's project, I am to reside almost wholly
abroad. Even the little stipend I have to offer you now is absorbed of
course by the investment of my property in his trading capital, and
marriage, till I have partly enriched myself, would be even more
hopeless than at present. Say the interval were five years--and five
years of separation!"
"With happiness in prospect, it would soon pass, my dear Philip!"
"But is there nothing wasted in this time? My life is yours--the gift
of love. Are not these coming five years the very flower of it!--a
mutual loss, too, for are they not, even more emphatically, the very
flower of yours? Eighteen and twenty-five are ages at which to marry,
not ages to defer. During this time the entire flow of my existence is
at its crowning fulness--passion, thought, joy, tenderness,
susceptibility to beauty and sweetness--all I have that can be
diminished or tarnished, or made dull by advancing age and contact with
the world, is thrown away--for its spring and summer. Will the autumn
of life repay us for this? Will it--even if we are rich and blest with
health, and as capable of an unblemished union as now? Think of this a
moment, dear Fanny!"
"I do--it is full of force and meaning, and, could we marry now, with a
tolerable prospect of competency, it would be irresistible. But poverty
in wedlock, Philip--"
"What do you call poverty? If we can suffice for each other, and have
the necessaries of life, we are not poor! My art will bring us
consideration enough--which is the main end of wealth, after all--and,
of society, speaking for myself only, I want nothing. Luxuries for
yourself, Fanny--means for your dear comfort and pleasure--you should
not want if the world held them, and surely the unbounded devotion of
one man to the support of the one woman he loves, _ought_ to suffice
for the task! I am strong--I am capable of labor--I have limbs to toil,
if my genius and my present means fail me, and, oh, Heaven! you could
not want!"
"No, no, no! I thought not of want!" murmured Miss Bellairs, "I thought
only--"
But she was not permitted to finish the sentence.
"Then my bright picture for the future _may_ be realized!" exclaimed
Philip, knitting his hands together in a transport of hope. "I may
build up a reputation, with _you_ for the constant partner of its
triumphs and excitements! I may go through the world, and have some
care in life besides subsistence, how I shall sleep, and eat, and
accumulate gold; some companion, who, from the threshold of manhood,
shared every thought--and knew every feeling--some pure and present
angel who walked with me and purified my motives and ennobled my
ambitions, and received from my lips and eyes, and from the beating of
my heart against her own, all the love I had to give in a lifetime.
Tell me, Fanny! tell me, my sweet cousin! is not this a picture of
bliss, which, combined with success in my noble art, might make a
Paradise on earth for you and me?"
The hand of Fanny Bellairs rested on the upturned forehead of her lover
as he sat at her feet in the deepening twilight, and she answered him
with such sweet words as are linked together by spells known only to
woman--but his palette and pencils were, nevertheless, burned in solemn
holocaust that very night, and the lady carried her point, as ladies
must. And, to the importation of silks from Lyons, was devoted,
thenceforth, the genius of a Raphael--perhaps! Who knows?
* * * * *
The reader will naturally have gathered from this dialogue that Miss
Fanny Bellairs had black eyes, and was rather below the middle stature.
She was a belle, and it is only belle-metal of this particular
description which is not fusible by "burning words." She had mind
enough to appreciate fully the romance and enthusiasm of her cousin,
Philip Ballister, and knew precisely the phenomena which a tall
_blonde_ (this complexion of woman being soluble in love and tears)
would have exhibited under a similar experiment. While the fire of her
love glowed, therefore, she opposed little resistance, and seemed
softened and yielding, but her purpose remained unaltered, and she rang
out "No!" the next morning, with a tone as little changed as a
convent-bell from matins to vespers, though it has passed meantime
through the furnace of an Italian noon.
Fanny was not a designing girl, either. She might have found a
wealthier customer for her heart than her cousin Philip. And she loved
this cousin as truly and well as her nature would admit, or as need be,
indeed. But two things had conspired to give her the unmalleable
quality just described--a natural disposition to confide, first and
foremost, on all occasions, in her own sagacity, and a vivid impression
made upon her mind by a childhood of poverty. At the age of twelve she
had been transferred from the distressed fireside of her mother, Mrs.
Bellairs, to the luxurious roof of her aunt, Mrs. Ballister, and, her
mother dying soon after, the orphan girl was adopted, and treated as a
child; but the memory of the troubled hearth at which she had first
learned to observe and reason, colored all the purposes and affections,
thoughts, impulses, and wishes of the ripening girl, and to think of
happiness in any proximity to privation seemed to her impossible, even
though it were in the bosom of love. Seeing no reason to give her
cousin credit for any knowledge of the world beyond his own experience,
she decided to think for him as well as love him, and, not being so
much pressed as the enthusiastic painter by the "_besoin d'aimer et de
se faire aimer_," she very composedly prefixed, to the possession of
her hand, the trifling achievement of getting rich--quite sure that if
he knew as much as she, he would willingly run that race without the
incumbrance of matrimony.
The death of Mr. Ballister, senior, had left the widow and her two boys
more slenderly provided for than was anticipated--Phil's portion, after
leaving college, producing the moderate income before mentioned. The
elder brother had embarked in his father's business, and it was thought
best on all hands for the younger Ballister to follow his example. But
Philip, whose college leisure had been devoted to poetry and painting,
and whose genius for the latter, certainly, was very decided, brought
down his habits by a resolute economy to the limits of his income, and
took up the pencil for a profession. With passionate enthusiasm, great
purity of character, distaste for all society not in harmony with his
favorite pursuit, and an industry very much concentrated and rendered
effective by abstemious habits, Philip Ballister was very likely to
develop what genius might lie between his head and hand, and his
progress in the first year had been allowed, by eminent artists, to
give very unusual promise. The Ballisters were still together, under
the maternal roof, and the painter's studies were the portraits of the
family, and Fanny's picture, of course, much the most difficult to
finish. It would be very hard if a painter's portrait of his liege
mistress, the lady of his heart, were not a good picture, and Fanny
Bellairs on canvas was divine accordingly. If the copy had more
softness of expression than the original (as it was thought to have),
it only proves that wise men have for some time suspected, that love is
more dumb than blind, and the faults of our faultless idols are noted,
however unconsciously. Neither thumb-screws nor hot coals--nothing
probably but repentance after matrimony--would have drawn from Philip
Ballister, in words, the same correction of his mistress's foible that
had oozed out through his treacherous pencil!
Cupid is often drawn as a stranger pleading to be "taken in," but it is
a miracle that he is not invariably drawn as a portrait-painter. A bird
tied to the muzzle of a gun--an enemy who has written a book--an Indian
prince under the protection of Giovanni Bulletto (Tuscan for John
Bull),--is not more close upon demolition, one would think, than the
heart of a lady delivered over to a painter's eyes, posed, draped, and
lighted with the one object of studying her beauty. If there be any
magnetism in isolated attention, any in steadfast gazing, any in passes
of the hand hither and thither--if there be any magic in _ce doux
demi-jour_ so loved in France, in stuff for flattery ready pointed and
feathered, in freedom of admiration, "and all in the way of
business"--then is a lovable sitter to a love-like painter in "parlous"
vicinity (as the new school would phrase it) to sweet heart-land!
Pleasure in a vocation has no offset in political economy as honor has
("the more honor the less profit"), or portrait-painters would be
poorer than poets.
And, _malgre_ his consciousness of the quality which required softening
in his cousin's beauty, and _malgre_ his rare advantages for obtaining
over her a lover's proper ascendency, Mr. Philip Ballister bowed to the
stronger will of Miss Fanny Bellairs, and sailed for France on his
apprenticeship to Mammon.
* * * * *
The reader will please to advance five years. Before proceeding thence
with our story, however, let us take a Parthian glance at the
overstepped interval. Philip Ballister had left New York with the
triple vow that he would enslave every faculty of his mind and body to
business, that he would not return till he had made a fortune, and that
such interstices as might occur in the building up of this chateau for
felicity should be filled with sweet reveries about Fanny Bellairs. The
forsworn painter had genius, as we have before hinted, and genius is
(as much as it is any one thing) the power of concentration. He entered
upon his duties, accordingly with a force and patience of application
which soon made him master of what are called business habits, and,
once in possession of the details, his natural cleverness gave him a
speedy insight to all the scope and tactics of his particular field of
trade. Under his guidance, the affairs of the house were soon in a much
more prosperous train, and, after a year's residence at Lyons, Philip
saw his way very clear to manage them with a long arm and take up his
quarters in Paris. "_Les fats sont les seuls hommes qui aient soin
d'eux memes_," says a French novelist, but there is a period, early or
late, in the lives of the cleverest men, when they become suddenly
curious as to their capacity for the graces. Paris, to a stranger who
does not visit in the Faubourg St. Germain, is a republic of personal
exterior, where the degree of privilege depends, with Utopian
impartiality, on the style of the outer man; and Paris, therefore, if
he is not already a Bachelor of Arts (qu?--_beau's Arts_), usually
serves the traveller as an Alma Mater of the pomps and vanities.
Phil. Ballister, up to the time of his matriculation in _Chaussee
d'Antin_, was a romantic-looking sloven. From this to a very dashing
coxcomb is but half a step, and, to be rid of the coxcombry and retain
a look of fashion, is still within the easy limits of imitation.
But--to obtain superiority of presence, with no apparent aid from dress
and no describable manner, and to display, at the same time, every
natural advantage in effective relief, and, withal, to adapt this
subtle philtre, not only to the approbation of the critical and
censorious, but to the taste of fair women gifted with judgment as God
pleases--this is a finish not born with any man (though unsuccessful if
it do not seem to be), and never reached in the apprenticeship of life,
and never reached at all by men not much above their fellows. He who
has it, has "bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his
bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere," for he must know, as a
chart of quicksands, the pronounced models of other nations; but to be
a "picked man of countries," and to _have been_ a coxcomb and a man of
fashion, are, as a painter would say, but the setting of the palette
toward the making of the _chef-d'oeoeuvre_.
Business prospered, and the facilities of leisure increased, while
Ballister passed through these transitions of taste, and he found
intervals to travel, and time to read, and opportunity to indulge, as
far as he could with the eye only, his passion for knowledge in the
arts. To all that appertained to the refinement of himself, he applied
the fine feelers of a delicate and passionate construction, physical
and mental, and, as the reader will already have included, wasted on
culture comparatively unprofitable, faculties that would have been
better employed but for the meddling of Miss Fanny Bellairs.
* * * * *
Ballister's return from France was heralded by the arrival of statuary
and pictures, books, furniture, and numberless articles of tasteful and
costly luxury. The reception of these by the family at home threw
rather a new light on the probable changes in the long-absent brother,
for, from the signal success of the business he had managed, they had
very naturally supposed that it was the result only of unremitted and
plodding care. Vague rumors of changes in his personal appearance had
reached them, such as might be expected from conformity to foreign
fashions, but those who had seen Philip Ballister in France, and called
subsequently on the family in New York, were not people qualified to
judge of the man, either from their own powers of observation or from
any confidence he was likely to put forward while in their society. His
letters had been delightful, but they were confined to third-person
topics, descriptions of things likely to interest them, etc., and Fanny
had few addressed personally to herself, having thought it worth while,
for the experiment sake, or for some other reason, to see whether love
would subsist without it usual _pabulum_ of tender correspondence, and
a _veto_ on love-letters having served her for a parting injunction at
Phil's embarkation for Havre. However varied by their different
fancies, the transformation looked for by the whole family was
substantially the same--the romantic artist sobered down to a
practical, plain man of business. And Fanny herself had an occasional
misgiving as to her relish for his counting-house virtues and manners;
though, on the detection of the feeling, she immediately closed her
eyes upon it, and drummed up her delinquent constancy for "parade and
inspection."
All bustles are very much alike (we use the word as defined in
Johnson), and the reader will appreciate our delicacy, besides, in not
intruding on the first reunion of relatives and lovers long separated.
The morning after Philip Ballister's arrival, the family sat long at
breakfast. The mother's gaze fastened untiringly on the features of her
son--still her boy--prying into them with a vain effort to reconcile
the face of the man with the cherished picture of the child with sunny
locks, and noting little else than the work of inward change upon the
countenance and expression. The brother, with the predominant feeling
of respect for the intelligence and industry of one who had made the
fortunes of the house, read only subdued sagacity in the perfect
simplicity of his whole exterior. And Fanny--Fanny was puzzled. The
_bourgeoisie_ and ledger-bred hardness of manner which she had looked
for were not there, nor any variety of the "foreign slip-slop" common
to travelled youth, nor any superciliousness, nor (faith!) any wear and
tear of youth and good looks--nothing that she expected--nothing! Not
even a French guard-chain!
What there _was_ in her cousin's manners and exterior, however, was
much more difficult to define by Miss Bellairs than what there _was
not_. She began the renewal of their intercourse with very high
spirits, herself--the simple nature and unpretendingness of his address
awakening only an unembarrassed pleasure at seeing him again--but she
soon began to suspect there was an exquisite refinement in this very
simplicity, and to wonder "at the trick of it;" and, after the first
day passed in his society, her heart beat when he spoke to her, as it
did not use to beat when she was sitting to him for her picture, and
listening to his passionate love-making. And, with all her faculties,
she studied him. What was the charm of his presence? He was himself,
and himself only. He seemed perfect, but he seemed to have arrived at
perfection like a statue, not like a picture--by what had been taken
away, not by what had been laid on. He was as natural as a bird, and as
graceful and unembarrassed. He neither forced conversation, nor pressed
the little attentions of the drawing-room, and his attitudes were full
of repose; yet she was completely absorbed in what he said, and she had
been impressed imperceptibly with his high-bred politeness, and the
singular elegance of his person. Fanny felt there was a change in her
relative position to her cousin. In what it consisted, or which had the
advantage, she was perplexed to discover--but she bit her lips as she
caught herself thinking that if she were not engaged to marry Philip
Ballister, she should suspect that she had just fallen irrecoverably in
love with him.
It would have been a novelty in the history of Miss Bellairs that any
event to which she had once consented, should admit of reconsideration;
and the Ballister family, used to her strong will, were confirmed
fatalists as to the coming about of her ends and aims. Her marriage
with Philip, therefore, was discussed, _coeur ouvert_, from his first
arrival, and, indeed, in her usual fashion of saving others the trouble
of making up their minds, "herself had named the day." This, it is
true, was before his landing, and was, then, an effort of considerable
magnanimity, as the expectant Penelope was not yet advised of her
lover's state of preservation or damages by cares and keeping. If
Philip had not found his wedding-day fixed on his arrival, however, he
probably would have had a voice in the naming of it, for, with Fanny's
new inspirations as to his character, there had grown up a new flower
in her garden of beauties--timidity! What bird of the air had sown the
seed in such a soil was a problem to herself--but true it was!--the
confident belle had grown a blushing trembler! She would as soon have
thought of bespeaking her wings for the sky, as to have ventured on
naming the day in a short week after.
The day _was_ named, however, and the preparations went on--_nem.
con._--the person most interested (after herself) accepting every
congratulation and allusion, touching the event, with the most
impenetrable suavity. The marbles and pictures, upholstery and
services, were delivered over to the order of Miss Bellairs, and
Philip, disposed, apparently, to be very much a recluse in his rooms,
or, at other times, engrossed by troops of welcoming friends, saw much
less of his bride elect than suited her wishes, and saw her seldom
alone. By particular request, also, he took no part in the plenishing
and embellishing of the new abode--not permitted even to inquire where
it was situated; and, under this cover, besides the pleasure of having
her own way, Fanny concealed a little secret, which, when disclosed,
she now felt, would figure forth Philip's comprehension, her whole
scheme of future happiness. She had taken the elder brother into her
counsels a fortnight after Philip's return, and, with his aid and
consent, had abandoned the original idea of a house in town, purchased
a beautifully-secluded estate and _cottage ornee_, on the East River,
and transferred thither all the objects of art, furniture, etc. One
room only of the maternal mansion was permitted to contribute its quota
to the completion of the bridal dwelling--the wing, never since
inhabited, in which Philip had made his essay as a painter--and,
without variation of a cobweb, and, with whimsical care and effort on
the part of Miss Fanny, this apartment was reproduced at Revedere--her
own picture on the easel, as it stood on the night of his abandonment
of his art, and palette, pencils and colors in tempting readiness on
the table. Even the fire-grate of the old studio had been re-set in the
new, and the cottage throughout had been refitted with a view to
occupation in the winter. And to sundry hints on the part of the elder
brother, that some thought should be given to a city residence--for the
Christmas holidays at least--Fanny replied, through a blush, that she
would never wish to see the town--with Philip at Revedere!
Five years had ripened and mellowed the beauty of Fanny Bellairs, and
the same summer-time of youth had turned into fruit the feeling left by
Philip in bud and flower. She was ready now for love. She had felt the
variable temper of society, and there was a presentiment in the heart,
of receding flatteries and the winter of life. It was with mournful
self-reproach that she thought of the years wasted in separation, of
her own choosing, from the man she loved; and, with the power to recall
time, she would have thanked God with tears of joy for the privilege of
retracing the chain of life to that link of parting. Not worth a day of
those lost years, she bitterly confessed to herself, was the wealth
they had purchased.
It lacked as little as one week of "the happy day," when the workmen
were withdrawn from Revedere, and the preparations for a family
breakfast, to be succeeded by the agreeable surprise to Philip of
informing him he was at home, were finally completed. One or two very
intimate friends were added to the party, and the invitations (from the
elder Ballister) proposed simply a _dejeuner sur l'herbe_ in the
grounds of an unoccupied villa, the property of an acquaintance.
With the subsiding of the excitement of return, the early associations
which had temporarily confused and colored the feelings of Philip
Ballister settled gradually away, leaving uppermost once more the
fastidious refinement of the Parisian. Through this medium, thin and
cold, the bubbles from the breathing of the heart of youth, rose rarely
and reluctantly. The Ballisters held a good station in society, without
caring for much beyond the easy conveniences of life, and Fanny, though
capable of any degree of elegance, had not seen the expediency of
raising the tone of her manners above that of her immediate friends.
Without being positively distasteful to Philip, the family circle,
Fanny included, left him much to desire in the way of society, and,
unwilling to abate the warmth of his attentions while with them, he had
latterly pleaded occupation more frequently, and passed his time in the
more congenial company of his library of art. This was the less noticed
that it gave Miss Bellairs the opportunity to make frequent visits to
the workmen at Revedere, and, in the polished devotion of her betrothed
when with her, Fanny saw nothing reflected but her own daily increasing
tenderness and admiration.
The morning of _fete_ came in like the air in an overture--a harmony of
all the instruments of summer. The party were at the gate of Revedere
by ten, and the drive through the avenue to the lawn drew a burst of
delighted admiration from all. The place was exquisite, and seen in its
glory, and Fanny's heart was brimming with gratified pride and
exultation. She assumed at once the dispensation of the honors, and
beautiful she looked with her snowy dress and raven ringlets flitting
across the lawn, and queening it like Perdita among the flowers. Having
narrowly escaped bursting into tears of joy when Philip pronounced the
place prettier than anything he had seen in his travels, she was, for
the rest of the day, calmly happy; and, with the grateful shade, the
delicious breakfast in the grove, the rambling and boating on the
river, the hours passed off like dreams, and no one even hinted a
regret that the house itself was under lock and bar. And so the sun
set, and the twilight came on, and the guests were permitted to order
round their carriages and depart, the Ballisters accompanying them to
the gate. And, on the return of the family through the avenue, excuses
were made for idling hither and thither, till light began to show
through the trees, and, by the time of their arrival at the lawn, the
low windows of the cottage poured forth streams of light, and the open
doors, and servants busy within, completed a scene more like magic than
reality. Philip was led in by the excited girl who was the fairy of the
spell, and his astonishment at the discovery of his statuary and
pictures, books and furniture, arranged in complete order within, was
fed upon with the passionate delight of love in authority.
When an hour had been spent in examining and admiring the different
apartments, an inner room was thrown open, in which supper was
prepared, and this fourth act in the day's drama was lingered over in
untiring happiness by the family.
Mrs. Ballister, the mother, rose and retired, and Philip pleaded
indisposition, and begged to be shown to the room allotted to him. This
was ringing-up the curtain for the last act sooner than had been
planned by Fanny, but she announced herself as his chamberlain, and,
with her hands affectionately crossed on his arm, led him to a suite of
rooms in a wing still unvisited, and, with a goodnight kiss, left him
at the open door of the revived studio, furnished for the night with a
bachelor's bed. Turning upon the threshold, he closed the door with a
parting wish of sweet dreams, and Fanny, after listening a moment with
a vain hope of overhearing some expression of pleasure, and lingering
again on her way back, to be overtaken by her surprised lover, sought
her own bed without rejoining the circle, and passed a sleepless and
happy night of tears and joy.
Breakfast was served the next morning on a terrace overlooking the
river, and it was voted by acclamation that Fanny never before looked
so lovely. As none but the family were to be present, she had stolen a
march on her marriage wardrobe, and added to her demi-toilet a morning
cap of exquisite becomingness. Altogether she looked deliciously
wife-like, and did the honors of the breakfast-table with a grace and
sweetness that warmed out love and compliments even from the sober soil
of household intimacy. Philip had not yet made his appearance, and they
lingered long at table, till at last, a suggestion that he might be ill
started Fanny to her feet, and she ran to his door before a servant
could be summoned.
The rooms were open, and the bed had not been occupied. The candle was
burned to the socket, and on the easel, resting against the picture,
was a letter addressed--"Miss Fanny Bellairs."