So intent was Cornelius on his occupation that he never heard or saw me,
until I observed, somewhat timidly, "Cornelius, Kate sent me up to tell
you that it is half-past eight o'clock."
He looked up with a sudden start that nearly upset the table, and sharply
exclaimed, "Why did you come in without knocking?"
"I knocked twice, Cornelius, but you did not answer."
"If you had knocked ten times, you had no right to open that door and
enter this room."
"Cornelius, the door was open," I said very earnestly, for he looked
quite vexed, with his face flushed, and his brow knit.
"Oh, was it?" he replied, smoothing down. He looked hastily at the
drawing on the table, then gave me a quick glance, read in my face that I
had seen it, and, taking a sudden resolve, he said, "Come in, and shut
the door."
I obeyed. When I stood by his side, Cornelius laid his hand on my head,
and gazing very earnestly in my eyes, he said, "You look as if you could
keep a secret. Do you know what a secret is?"
"Yes, Cornelius, I do."
"Then keep mine for me. You see I am drawing. I rise every morning with
dawn, to draw; but I do not want Kate to know it just yet,--not until I
have done something worth showing. This is the secret you will have to
keep; do you understand?"
"Oh yes," I confidently answered.
"How will you manage?"
"I shall not tell her," was my prompt reply.
"Why, of course," he said, smiling; "but not to tell is only the first
step in keeping a secret. The next, and far more difficult, is not to let
it appear that there is a secret. This shall be the test of your
discretion."
He removed every trace of his late occupation, and accompanied me
downstairs. Miss O'Reilly was not in the parlour; but when she came in
she gave her brother a good scolding, which he bore patiently. When he
rose to go I handed him his hat as usual; as he took it from my hand, he
stooped, and whispered, "Remember!"
He was no sooner gone than Kate, turning to me, said, with a puzzled
smile, "Daisy! what was it Cornelius whispered so mysteriously?"
I hung down my head.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes, Kate."
"Then answer, child." Again I was mute. Kate laid down her work and
beckoned me to her.
"Is it a secret?" she asked, gravely.
"I don't say it is, Kate," I replied eagerly.
"Then answer." I was obstinately silent.
"Will you tell me?" she asked, much incensed.
"No," I resolutely replied.
She rose in great wrath, and consigned me to the back-parlour for the
rest of the day. Never did punishment sit so lightly on me. Towards dusk
Miss O'Reilly opened the door, that I might not feel quite alone.
Cornelius came home much later than usual; I sat in the dark, but I could
see him; he had thrown himself down on the sofa; the light of the lamp
fell full on his face; his look wandered around the room in search of me.
"She has been naughty," gravely said his sister; and she proceeded to
relate my offence.
"She would not tell you?" he observed.
"No, indeed! I tried her again in the afternoon; but she stood before me,
white with stubbornness, her lips quite closed, hanging down her head,
and as mute as a stone."
"She is a peculiar child," quietly said Cornelius, and I could see his
gaze seeking to pierce the gloom in which I had lingered.
"Peculiar! you had better call it originality."
Cornelius laughed; and half raising himself up on one elbow, summoned me
in with a "Come here, Daisy!" that quickly brought me to his side. He
pushed back the hair from my forehead, looked into my face, and said,
gravely, "She looks stubborn; I see it in her eyes, and yet what
wonderfully fine eyes they are, Kate!"
"Eyes, indeed!" was her indignant rejoinder. "Daisy, go back to your
room."
I turned away to obey, but Cornelius called me back.
"Let me try my power," he said to his sister; then to me, "Daisy, tell
Kate what I whispered to you."
"Remember!" was my ready reply.
"How can you call her stubborn?" asked Cornelius.
"Remember--what?" inquired Kate; "there, do you see how she won't
answer?"
"You obstinate child!" said Cornelius, smiling, "don't you see I mean you
to speak? Say all; tell Kate why I bade you remember."
"I was not to tell you that I had found him drawing," I said, turning to
Miss O'Reilly.
Her work dropped on her knees; she turned very pale; her look, keen and
troubled, at once sought the calm face of her brother, who had again sunk
into his indolent attitude, with his hand carelessly smoothing my hair.
Miss O'Reilly tried to look composed, and observed, in a voice which all
her efforts could not prevent from being tremulous and low, "Oh! you were
drawing, Cornelius, were you?"
"Yes," he carelessly replied, "it amuses me in the morning."
"Oh, it amuses you very much, Cornelius?"
"Why, yes."
She took up her work; laid it down, rose, went up to her brother, and
standing before him said, resolutely, "Cornelius, tell me the truth."
He sat up, and making her sit down by him, he calmly observed, "Why do
you look so frightened, Kate?"
"The truth!" she exclaimed, almost passionately, "the truth!"
"You have had it."
"What does that morning drawing mean?"
"You know it."
"You mean to become an artist?"
"I am an artist," he replied, drawing himself up slightly.
She rocked herself to and fro, looking at her brother drearily. He laid
his hand on her shoulder, and said, with earnest tone and look--
"Kate, I know all you dread; there are obstacles; I see them, and I will
conquer them. Obstacles! why if there were none, would anything in this
world be worth the winning?"
He had begun calmly; he ended with strange warmth and vehemence, throwing
back his head with the presumptuous but not ungraceful confidence of
youth. His look was daring, his smile full of trust; to both his sister
responded by a mournful glance dimmed with tears.
"You had promised--" she began.
"Not to give it up for ever, Kate," he interrupted; "I have kept my
promise, I have tried not to draw; I might as well try not to breathe."
"I know now why you took that paltry situation; you did not mean to stop
there."
"No, indeed, Kate."
"I always knew you were ambitious."
"So I am."
"A nice mistress Fame will make you, my poor brother! Oh yes, very!"
"I won't make a mistress of her, Kate; she is too much used to that; she
shall be my hand-maiden."
"First catch her!" shortly replied his sister.
He laughed good-humouredly; she gave a deep, impatient sigh.
"I know I must seem harsh," she said, "but our father's death--of a
broken heart--is always before me. You are very like him in person and
temper; for God's sake be not like him in destiny! I know painting; once
it has taken hold of a man's mind, soul and being, he must either win or
perish. Love is nothing to it. I would rather see you in love with ten
girls."
"At a time?" interrupted Cornelius, looking shocked. "Am I a Turk?"
"You foolish boy, is a Turk ever in love? I mean I would rather see you
wasting, in successive follies, the best years of your youth, than see
you a painter. There comes a time, when, of his own accord, a man gives
up passion; but when does the unlucky wight who has once begun to write
poetry or paint pictures give them up?"
"Never, unless he never loved them," replied Cornelius, with a triumphant
smile; "poetry or painting, which I hold to be far higher, becomes part
of a man's being, and follows him to the grave. But it is a desecration
to speak of it as a human passion. I am not hard-hearted; but if Venus in
all her charms, or, to use a stronger figure of speech, if one of
Raffaelle's divine women were to become flesh and blood for my sake, and
implore me to return her passion--"
"Why you would of course; don't make yourself out more flinty than you
are; it would not take one of Raffaelle's women to do that either."
"Hear me out: if to win this lovely creature I should give up painting,
not for ever, not for ten years, nor yet five, but just for one year,--
Kate, she might walk back to her canvas."
"Conceited fellow!" indignantly said Kate, divided between vexation at
his predilection for Art, and the slight thrown on her sex.
"It is not conceit, Kate; it is the superior attraction of Art over
passion. How is it you do not see there is and can be nothing like
painting pictures?" Kate groaned. "It beats all else hollow,--poetry,
music, ambition, war, and love, which is held master of all. Alexander,
unhappy man! wept because he had no more worlds to win. Did Apelles ever
weep for having no more pictures to paint? Paris carried off Helen to
Troy, which was taken after a ten years' siege. Imagine Paris an artist;
he paints Helen under a variety of attitudes: Menelaus benevolently
looking on; little Hermione plays near her mamma; Troy stands in the
distance, with Priam on the walls; everything peace and harmony.--Moral:
if fine gentlemen would take the portraits, and not the persons of fair
ladies, we should not hear so much of invaded hearths and affairs of
honour."
"Will you talk seriously?" impatiently said Kate.
"As seriously as you can wish," he replied gravely. "What do you fear for
me? It is late to begin, but I have been working hard these two years.
What about our poor father? many a great painter has been the son of a
disappointed artist. What even about the difficulty of winning fame? I am
ambitious, not so much to be famous, as to do great things. There is the
aim of a life; there is the glorious victory to win."
His handsome face had never looked half so handsome: it expressed daring,
power, hope, ardour, all that subdues the future to a man's will.
"I tell you," he resumed, with a short triumphant laugh, "that I shall
succeed. I feel the power within me; I shall give fame to the name of
O'Reilly, stuff your pockets with money, charm your eyes with fair forms;
in short I shall conquer Art."
He passed his arm around his sister's neck, and gave her a warm kiss. She
half smiled.
"That always was the way," she said, with a sigh: "I argued; you talked
me out of my better knowledge, and then you would put your arm around my
neck, and--"
"There was no resisting that, Kate; but then I looked up, and now I look
down."
"Yes, you are a man now," she replied, looking at him with an admiring
smile, "and the O'Reillys have always been fine men."
"And the women lovely, gifted, admired--"
"And minded as much as the whistling of the wind. Don't look vexed, my
poor boy. I know I am not fair to you; that many a son is not so good and
dutiful to his mother as you are to me; but, you see, it is as if you had
been marrying a girl I hated; I can't get over it, even though I feel you
have a right to please yourself. The best course will be not to talk of
it: we should not agree; and where's the use of disagreeing?"
"If wives were as sensible as you are--"
"Nonsense!" she interrupted, smiling; "no woman of spirit would give in
to her husband; but to her boy! oh, that's very different. Please
yourself; paint your pictures, my darling, only--only--if the public
don't like them, don't break your heart."
She now stood by him, with her hand resting lightly on his fine dark
hair, and her eyes seeking his with wistful fondness. He laughed at her
last words, laughed and knit his brow as he said--
"The public may break its heart about me, Kate--not that I wish it such a
fate, poor thing!--but against the reverse I protest. And now have mercy
on your brother, who has heard something about Daisy, and a good deal
about painting, but nothing about tea."
"Are you hungry?"
"Starving."
"Poor fellow! I had no idea of it,--I shall see to it myself."
She left the room. Her brother remained sitting in the same attitude, a
little bent forward, abstractedly gazing at the fire. Then all at once he
saw and noticed me, as I sat apart quiet and silent. He beckoned; I
approached.
"What shall I give you?"
"Nothing," was my laconic reply.
"But I want to give you something."
I hated the idea of my being paid for my secrecy and my punishment. I
felt myself reddening as I answered--
"But I don't want anything, Cornelius."
"Don't you?" he replied, smiling, and before I knew what he was about, I
found myself on the knee and in the arms of Cornelius, who was kissing me
merrily. He had never done half as much since I was with him and his
sister. My face burned with surprise and delight; he laughed, kissed me
again, and said, with the secure smile of conscious power, "Well, what am
I to give you?"
I was completely subdued; I replied, submissively, "Anything you like,
Cornelius."
"No, it must be anything you like, and in my power to give. A book, a
plaything, a doll, etc."
"Anything! may I really ask for anything?" I exclaimed, with sudden
animation.
"Yes, you may."
"Do you really mean it?"
"I always mean what I say. Why, child, what can it be? Your eyes sparkle
and your cheeks flush. What is it? Speak out."
"Let me be with you in the morning when you are drawing."
"Is that it?" he said, looking annoyed and surprised.
"Yes, Cornelius."
"You will have to stay very quiet."
"I don't mind that, Cornelius."
"You must not speak."
"I don't mind that either."
"Have something else: a book with pictures."
I did not answer.
"And I will let you come in now and then."
I remained mute. Cornelius saw that what I had asked for, and nothing
else, I would have. Again he warned me.
"Daisy, you will find it very dull to sit without speaking or moving. I
pity you, my poor child."
I was shrewd enough to see through his pity. I looked up into his face,
and said demurely--
"I shall not mind it, Cornelius."
"You will mind nothing to have your way--obstinate little thing!--but I
warn you: you must come in without knocking, without saying good morning;
you must not move, speak, or go in and out; if you break the agreement
once, you lose the privilege for ever."
"I shall not break the agreement, Cornelius."
"Of course you won't," he said, looking both provoked and amused, "catch
me again passing my word to you, Miss Bums."
I half feared he was vexed, but he was not, for when Deborah brought in
the tea-tray, with the addition of fried ham and eggs, Cornelius, instead
of putting me away, kept me on his knee.
"The O'Reillys always had good appetites," observed Miss O'Reilly, who
stood looking on, enjoying the vigour with which her brother attacked her
good-cheer. "Daisy, what are you perched up there for? Come down
directly."
"Stay, Daisy," said Cornelius, "you are not in my way." And indeed, from
the fashion in which everything vanished before him, I do not think I
was. But Miss O'Reilly was of a different opinion, for she resumed
impatiently--
"Now, Cornelius, you need not feed that child from your plate; she left
half her own tea, and she drinks yours, because it is yours."
Cornelius was holding his cup to my lips. He smiled, and kissed me.
"Yes, pet her now," said Kate, "after getting her unjustly punished."
"It was thoughtless of me--I beg her pardon."
"I don't want you to beg my pardon," I replied, looking a little
indignantly at his sister.
"I think if he were to beat you, you would enjoy it," was her short
answer.
His meal was over; he had removed from the table to the sofa; but he had
not put me away. Miss O'Reilly looked at us from her place, and evidently
could not make it out.
"Are there to be no lessons?" she asked at length.
"No, this is a holiday."
"Shall there be no singing?"
"I am tired."
He was not too tired to talk to me, and make me talk, to an extent that
induced Miss O'Reilly to exclaim--
"I thought the child was a mouse, and she turns out to be a magpie."
She spoke shortly, but he kept me still.
"Decidedly," said Kate, after vainly waiting for me to be put away,
"decidedly, if one were to meet you in China or Japan, that little pale
face would be somewhere about you."
He said it was a little pale face, but that it had fine eyes, and he
caressed her who owned it, very kindly.
"Nonsense!" observed his sister, frowning.
"She is so shy," he pleaded.
"Pretty shyness, indeed!" replied Kate, as she saw me, with the sudden
familiarity of childhood, pass my arm around the neck of her brother, and
rest my head on his shoulder. "Daisy, it is bed-time."
She rose, but I could not bear to leave Cornelius on the first evening of
his kindness. I clasped my two hands around his neck, and looked
beseechingly in his face.
"Another quarter of an hour, Kate," he said.
"Not another minute," she replied, taking my hand, for I lingered in his
embrace like our mother Eve in Eden. "If you are good." she added, to
comfort me, "you shall stay up half an hour longer as the days increase."
"But they are shortening now," I said, mournfully.
"Let her stay up for this one evening," entreated Cornelius, "to make up
for her dull day in the back-parlour."
Miss O'Reilly allowed herself to be mollified; but as she returned to her
place and sat down, she said emphatically, looking at the fire--
"He will spoil that child, you'll see he will."
Cornelius only smiled; he did not attempt to contradict the prophecy by
putting me away; as long as I liked, he allowed me to remain thus--once
more an indulged and very happy child.
From that evening Cornelius liked me. By making him all to me, I had
succeeded in becoming something to him; for there is this mysterious
beauty in love, that it wins love; unlike other prodigals, it is in the
very excess of its bounty that it finds a return.