"You are rich, and I am poor. It is more blessed to give than to
receive."
"Ha, ha! You want me to be one of the blessed ones? Very neatly put.
Upon my word, you're a brave girl. You quite entertain me. Go on."
My cheeks were very red now, but I was not going to be beaten.
"Cousin Geoffrey," I said, "we are all very poor at home, and I hate
being poor. We have all to pinch and contrive, and I loathe pinching
and contriving. I have a talent, and I want to cultivate it. I want to
be an artist. I can't be an artist without money. I wish to go to one
of the good schools of art, here in London, and study hard, and work my
way up from the very beginning. I have no money to do this, but you
have lots of money. As you are my cousin, I think you ought to give me
enough money to learn art at one of the great schools here. I think you
ought. You are my relative--you ought to help me."
I had flung my words out almost defiantly, but now something seemed to
catch my voice; it broke.
"Oh, Cousin Geoffrey, this means so much to me," I said, half sobbing.
"How happy you can make me, and I will love you for it. There, I will
love you!"
I knew I was offering him something greater than he could give me. I
felt we were equals. I ceased to sob, I stood up, and looked him full
in the face.
He returned my gaze with great solemnity. A queer change came over his
very old face; his eyes were lit by an inward fire. It was impossible
for me to tell whether he was pleased or not, but unquestionably he was
moved, even agitated. After a brief pause he came up and took my hand
in his.
"You are a brave girl, Rosamund Lindley," he said. "You are like your
mother, but you have more spirit than she ever had. You are very
young--very, _very_ young, or you would not offer an old man like me--an
old miser, a person whose own heart is withered--such a gift as love.
What can a withered heart want with love? You are very young, Rosamund,
so I forgive your rash words. I will talk to you, however. Sit near
me. You may open that fresh heart to me if you feel inclined."
Cousin Geoffrey and I talked together for over an hour. At the end of
that time he told me he was hungry, and that if I had no objection he
would go out and bring in some lunch for us both.
He was now quite confidential and friendly. I made him laugh several
times, and although he had apparently turned a deaf ear to my request, I
fancied that I was getting on very well with him.
He made me chain the hall-door after him when he went out, and he
promised that he would not be longer away than he could help. He
brought in two mutton-chops for our lunch, which he fried himself in the
most perfect manner, over a gas-jet in his sitting-room. We had bread
with our chops, and some very rare wine, which was poured into tall
Venetian glasses of great beauty.
"I don't open this wine for my distant relatives," he said, with a
chuckle. "But you, Rosamund--your courage deserves the best I can do
for you."
After lunch he took me all over his large house. It was full of the
most valuable and costly furniture, but all worm-eaten and going to
decay from dirt and neglect.
He had some paintings of immense value in his drawing-rooms, and in his
library were several rare editions of costly books.
"I refused three thousand pounds for that Paul Veronese," he said,
pointing to a picture which I was too ignorant to appreciate.
"Then you, too, love art," I said. "Of course you will help me."
"I love the great in art," he answered. "But I despise the little. And
of all things, what I most despise is the wild talk of the aspirant.
Rosamund, you are a good girl, a plucky honest girl, but you will never
be an artist. Tut, tut! There have not been more than a dozen real
artists in the world, and is it likely that you will be the thirteenth?
Go and darn your stockings quietly at home, Rosamund, and forget this
silly little dream."