turned the tide of the conversation, and in a few moments the artist
found himself with Miss Jyvecote discussing the Royal Academy pictures
of the last season, glorifying Millais, extolling Holman Hunt, raving
over Leslie and Herbert, and ringing the changes over the pearly grays,
changeful opals, amaranths, and primrose of Leighton. From London to
the _salon_ is easy transition, and from thence to the galleries of
Dresden, Munich, and Florence. She had visited all, and to a purpose.
He had lingered within their enchanting walls until every canvas became
more or less a friend. There was a wonderful charm in this meeting. To
Brown Miss Jyvecote was a listener freshly intelligent, _naïvely_
sensible. To her the clever _critiques_ of this high-bred yet humble
artist savored of a romance written but unreal. It is scarcely
necessary to say that when people drop thus upon a subject so charming,
so inexhaustible, so refreshing the old Scytheman is utterly
disregarded, and the sun was already sinking towards the west when Miss
Jyvecote’s phaeton came to the gate.
“Have you any of your sketches here, Mr. Brown?” she asked, as she drew
on her yellow dogskin driving-gloves.
“Only a few that I dashed off on my walk hither from Castlebar.”
They were glorious little bits of weather-worn granite, brilliant with
gray, green, and orange lichens; luminous green seas and black rocks
basking in the sunlight; fern-crowned inlets and cliffs glittering with
bright wild flowers. She gushed over them. What girl does not gush over
the sketches of a tall, handsome, earnest artist?
“Oh! if I might dare to ask you for one of them, Mr. Brown.”
“Take all,” he said.
She would not hear of this.
“They are your working-drawings, Mr. Brown?” selecting one, possibly
the least valuable.
“Will you not require an escort, Miss Jyvecote, on your lonely drive?”
“Escort! No. In the first place, I shall probably not meet a human
being; and, in the next, I should only meet a friend were I to
encounter any one. I fear my prolonged visit has spoiled your work for
to-day, Mr. Brown.”
“My work! You will hardly guess what I am pledged to do and the work I
am about to commence. It is nothing less than a copy of the picture of
Daniel O’Connell which hangs over the mantel-piece. It is for Mrs.
Clancy, who is to adorn her kitchen wall with it.”
“Surely you are not in earnest?”
“_Hélas!_ I am always in earnest, and so is Mrs. Clancy,” he added,
laughingly narrating that worthy lady’s anxiety with reference to the
artistic adornment of the back door.
“May we not hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Moynalty? Father
Maurice has promised us a visit. I’m sure my father will call and—”
“Pray do not trouble him. I never visit, and, as my stay here is only
one of sufferance, I know not the moment I may be evicted by my
ruthless landlord.”
“You should make an exception in our favor, Mr. Brown. We can show you
a Claude, a doubtful Murillo, and a charming Meissonier. Our flowers,
too, are worth coming to see—that is, they are wonderful for Connemara.
Father Maurice, you must ask Mr. Brown to come over with you on
Monday.”
“Of course, my dear child, of course. He’ll be enchanted with the
castle. You’ll come, of course, Mr. Brown?” turning to our hero, who,
however, remained silent, although brimming over with words he dared
not speak.
“Then it’s _au revoir, messieurs_!” gaily exclaimed Miss Jyvecote, as
she whirled rapidly away.
It would have surprised some of the artist’s London friends could they
have peeped behind the scenes of his thoughts and gazed at them as
naturalists do at working bees. It would have astonished them to hear
him mutter as he watched the receding vehicle: “This is just the one
fresh, fair, unspotted, and perfect girl it has been my lot to meet.
Such a girl as this would cause the worst of us to turn virtuous and
eschew cakes and ale.”
* * * * *
Mr. Brown had confided in one man ere dropping out of Vanity Fair. To
this individual he now addressed himself, requesting of him to “drop
down to O’Connor’s, the swell ecclesiastical stained-glass man in
Berners Street, Oxford Street, and order a set of Stations of the
Cross. You don’t know what they mean, old fellow, but the O’Connors
will understand you. Let them be first class and glowing in the reds,
yellows, blues, and greens of the new French school of colors. I don’t
mind the price. Above all things let them have especially handsome
frames of the _Via Dolorosa_ pattern.” The letter went on to tell Mr.
Dudley Poynter of his doings and the calm throb of the heart of his
daily life. “There is not much champagne in it, Dudley, but there is a
body that ne’er was dreamed of in your philosophy, or in that of the
wild, mad wags of the smoking-room _clique_.”
Mr. Brown completed his copy of the Liberator, to the intense
admiration of Father Maurice and the ecstasy of Mrs. Clancy. The worthy
priest would not permit its being hung in the kitchen, though, but gave
it the place of honor in the snug little sitting-room. It is needless
to say that the entire population of Monamullin, including the cabin
curs—who were now on terms of the closest intimacy with the
artist—turned in after last Mass to have a look at the “picther o’
Dan.”
“Be me conscience! but it’s Dan himself—sorra a wan else,” cried one.
“I was at Tara, an’ it’s just as if he was givin’ Drizzlyeye [Disraeli]
that welt about his notorious ancesthor, the impinitent thief on the
crass,” observed another.
“Faix, it’s alive, it is. Look at the mouth, reddy for to say
‘Repale.’”
“There’s an eye!”
“Thrue for ye; there’s more fire in it than in ould Finnegan’s chimbly
this minit.”
“Troth, it’s as dhroll as a pet pup’s.”
“Stan’ out o’ that, Mr. O’Leary, or ye’ll get a crack av his fist.”
“Three cheers for the painther, boys!”
These and kindred comments flung a radiated pleasure into the inner
heart of the artist—that _sanctum_ which as yet was green and fresh and
limpid—while the eulogies, however quaintly and coarsely served up,
bore the delicious fragrance which praise ever carries with it like a
subtle perfume.
“The love of praise, howe’er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in every heart.”
Mr. Brown was enamored of his new existence—possibly with the child
passion for toyland; but the passion endured, nevertheless,
strengthening with each successive sunrise and maturing with every
gloaming. An invitation, accompanied by a card, had arrived by special
messenger for the artist, requesting the favor of his company, _et
cætera, et cætera_, to which that gentleman responded in a polite
negative, assigning no particular reason, but indulging in vague
generalities. He had thought a good deal of Miss Jyvecote, and sat
dreaming about her by the sea, his hands clasped around his knees and
his beloved meerschaum stuck in his mouth—sat dreaming, and fighting
against his dreams—fights in which fancy ever got the uppermost of the
rude and real. A longing crept up out of the depths of his heart to see
her once again, and to travel in the sunlighted path of her thoughts.
One thing he was firmly resolved upon—not to leave Monamullin without
another interview; though how this was to be brought about he did not
very well see. Yes, he would see her just once more, and then stamp the
whole thing out of his mind. He had been hit before, and had come
smilingly out of the valley of desolation, and so he should again,
although this was so utterly unlike his former experiences.
Father Maurice was charmed with his guest. He had never encountered
anything like him—so bright, so genial, so cultured, so humble and
submissive, and so anxious to oblige.
“Imagine,” said he in cataloguing his virtues to Larry Muldoon—“imagine
his asking me to let him ring the bell for five o’clock Mass, and he a
Protestant!”
The priest and his guest had long talks together, the latter drawing
out his host—digging for the golden ore of a charming erudition, which
lay so deep, but which “was all there.” Night after night did Father
Maurice unfold from germ to bud, from bud to flower, from flower to
fruit the grand truths of the unerring faith in which he was a
day-laborer, the young artist drinking in the sublime teachings with
that supreme attention which descends like an aureole. Father Maurice
was, as it were, but engaged in thinking aloud, yet his thoughts fell
like rain-drops, refreshing, grateful, and abiding.
The good priest, although burning with curiosity with regard to the
antecedents of his guest, was too thorough a gentleman, had too great
respect for the laws of broken bread and tasted salt, to ask so much as
a single question. A waif from the great ocean of humanity had drifted
into this little haven, and it should be protected until the ruthless
current would again seize it to whirl it outwards and onwards. Miss
Jyvecote betrayed her disappointment in various artless ways when
Father Maurice arrived at the castle without the artist. “I’m sorry you
didn’t fetch him along _bon gré mal gré_, father,” said Mrs. Jyvecote,
“as papa goes to Yorkshire next week, and Juey can talk of no person
but Mr. Brown.”
Miss Jyvecote blushed rosy red as she exclaimed: “What nonsense, mamma!
You have been speaking a good deal more about him than I have. You rave
over his sketch.”
“I think it immense.” Mrs. Jyvecote affected art, and talked from the
pages of the _Art Journal_ by the yard. “His aerial perspective is full
of filmy tone, and his near foreground is admirably run in, while his
sense of color would appear to me to be supreme.”
“Come, until I show you where I have hung it,” exclaimed Miss Juey,
leading the priest up a winding stair into a turret chamber fitted up
with that exquisite taste which a refined girl evolves like an
atmosphere.
“You have really hung my guest most artistically. And such a frame!
Where on earth did you get it?”
“I—I sent to Dublin for it—to Lesage’s, in Sackville Street.”
“I have no patience with the fellow for not coming over to see this
joyous place,” said the priest, “and I really can’t understand his
refusal.”
Miss Juey couldn’t understand it either, but held her peace.
According to Murty Mulligan’s veterinary opinion, the pony was still
unfit to travel.
“It’s meself that’s watchin’ her like a magpie forninst a marrabone;
but she is dawny still, the crayture! an’ it wud be a sin for to ax her
to thravel for a cupple o’ days more, anyhow, your riverince.”
“Why, her knees are quite well, Murty.”
“But she’s wake, sir—as wake as Mrs. Clancy’s tay on the third
wettin’—an’ I’m afeard for to thrust her; more betoken, yer
riverince”—in a low, confidential tone—“she’s gettin’ a bellyful av the
finest oats in the barony, that will stand to her bravely while she’s
raisin’ her winther coat.”
Mr. Brown asked Father Maurice a considerable number of questions anent
his visit, and was particularly anxious in reference to the departure
of Mr. Jyvecote.
“He told me himself that he would leave Westport to-morrow by the night
train for Dublin, in order to catch the early boat that leaves Kingston
for Holyhead.”
Upon the following morning the artist, slinging his knapsack across his
back, started in the direction of the Glendhanarrahsheen valley.
“I want to make a few sketches of the coast scenery about May Point,”
he observed.
“There is better scenery in the Foil Dhuv, about two miles farther on;
and, bless my heart! you’ll be quite close to Moynalty Castle, and why
not go in and see their pictures, your own especially, in such a grand
gilt Dublin frame?”
Simple priest! Artful artist!
It was a delightful morning that was shining over Monamullin as the
artist quitted it _en route_ to—May Point, of course. The sea, like a
great sleeping monster, lay winking at the sun, and but one solitary
ship was visible away in the waste—a brown speck in a flood of golden
haze. If young gentlemen would only put the single “why?” to themselves
in starting upon such expeditions, it might save them many a heartache;
but they will not. Any other query but this one. What a talisman that
small word in every effort of our lives!
Brown felt unaccountably joyous and brave, charmed with the present,
and metaphorically snapping his fingers at the future. A morning walk
by the deep and dark blue ocean summons forth this sensation. You bound
upon air; champagne fills your veins; all the ills the flesh is heir to
are forgotten, all the phantoms of care and sorrow are laid “a full
fifty fathom by the lead.”
It is a glorious seed-time, when every thought bears luscious fruit.
He travels merrily onward, now humming a barcarolle, now whistling a
fragment of a _bouffe_, until he reaches the gloomy defile known as the
Valley of Glendhanarrahsheen. A turn of the sylvan sanded road brings
him in sight of the lordly turrets of Moynalty; another turn, and lo!
he comes upon no less a personage than Miss Jyvecote, who, with her
married sister, a Mrs. Travers, are driving in the direction whence he
had come. Juey was Jehu, and almost pulled the ponies upon their
haunches on perceiving our hero.
“This _is_ a condescension, Mr. Brown,” she said, presenting him to her
sister. “Will you take a seat?”
“Thanks, no; I am about to ascend that mountain yonder,” pointing
vaguely in the direction of the range known as the Twelve Pins.
“Then we shall expect you to luncheon at two o’clock.”
“I’m afraid not. I purpose returning by the other road.”
“What road? There is no other road.”
“Across country.”
“Then you do not intend honoring us with a visit?” Her tone was vexed,
if not haughty.
Now, he had quitted Monamullin with no other intention than that of
proceeding straight to the castle, and yet he replies in the negative.
Let those better versed in the mysteries of the human heart than I am
analyze his motives. I shall not endeavor to do so.
“Don’t you think you are acting rather shabbily?” she said, preparing
to resume her drive.
He laughed.
“_Au plaisir_, then!” And with a stately salutation, courteous enough
but nothing more, she swept onwards.
He watched the phaeton go whirling along the white road and disappear
round a huge fern-covered boulder, and his vexation with himself grew
intolerable.
“What an ass, what a brute I have been! What could I have been thinking
about? Was I asleep or mad? Invited to the house, I actually refuse to
pay the stereotyped visit. Why a counter-jumper would know better. How
charming she looked! And that delicious blush when she met me! She
seemed really pleased, too. What can she think of me? My chance is
gone.”
He seated himself on the stump of a felled tree in his favorite
attitude, having lighted his pipe.
“Might I thrubble yer honner for a thrifle o’ light or a bit of a
match?” asked a passing peasant.
“With pleasure; take a dozen!”
The man looked puzzled; he had never seen wax vestas till now.
“They look mighty dawny, yer honner.”
“Do you belong to the castle?” asked our hero. Somehow or other the
castle and its inmates were ever uppermost in his thoughts now.
“Yis, sir.”
“Is Mr. Jyvecote at home?”
“No, yer honner. I met him this mornin’ at Billy’s Bridge, makin’ hard
for Westport.”
The cards all in his favor, and he wouldn’t play his hand! What did it
mean? Would he go up to the castle, and, announcing himself to the
_châtelaine_, pay that visit which conventionality demanded? No; he had
swung into another current, and he would not alter his course. It was
better as it was—ay, far better. And there came a sort of desolate
feeling upon him, smiting him drearily like a dull ache. Had he seen
the last of her? Was his life henceforth to be unlighted by the
radiance of her presence? Here, in the mystic silence of
Glendhanarrahsheen, came the revelation. Here did his own secret
surprise him. He had allowed the image of this fair young girl to twine
itself around his heart, till he now felt as if he could fling aside
pride, reserve, past and future, just to hear her voice once more, to
feel the tender pressure of her tiny hand.
And so he sat there dreaming, and fighting with his dreams, until his
tobacco “gave out,” and until, shaking himself together, he summoned a
supreme effort to help him on his road.
“It won’t do to be caught skulking here,” he thought.
The soft white shingle drawn from the brown-black waters of the lake
muffle the sound of approaching wheels, and, ere he can return to a
coign of vantage, the phaeton flashes past.
I have already stated that my hero was a young gentleman of warm
temper, great energy, and prone to sudden impulses and unconsidered
actions, and on this occasion he was true to his nature, for he shouted
“Stop!” with the authoritative tone of a post-captain on a
quarter-deck.
Miss Jyvecote pulled up.
The artist, glowing with a fierce excitement, plunged down the road and
came up to the vehicle.
“Miss Jyvecote,” he pants, his handsome face flushed, his eyes
flashing, “I don’t want you to think me a brute. I do not know why I
acted so rudely this morning. I left Monamullin on purpose to come and
visit you. Father Maurice says that open confession is good for the
soul. You have it now. _Do_, please _do_ forgive me.”
“Hand and glove,” she exclaims, holding out her coquettishly-gloved
hand.
He jumped into the back seat, and, in a flutter of joyous commotion,
was whirled to the grand entrance of the castle.
“You must first come and see _my_ picture, Mr. Brown,” exclaimed Miss
Jyvecote, leading the way to the turret chamber.
There was a courteous flattery in this that caused the heart of the
artist to swell in admiring gratitude.
Later on they visited the gardens and the conservatories, tasting green
figs and toying with luscious bunches of bursting grapes; and by and by
came the presentation to Mrs. Jyvecote, who complimented him in
pre-Raphaelite terms upon his greens, grays, opals, and blues.
“We want some one to continue the fascinating pages of Hook,” she said,
“and I feel assured, Mr. Brown, that next year’s Academy will see you
‘on the line.’”
After luncheon they repaired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Travers
indulged in chromatic fireworks upon a superb Erard piano; and when she
had risen the artist seated himself unasked, and sang a little
love-song of Shelley’s in a baritone that would have pushed Mr. Santley
_a l’outrance_. Song was one of Mr. Brown’s gifts, and his voice was
cultivated to perfection. A deep, rich voice, sweet, sad words, with
perfect enunciation of every syllable—_ma foi_, there are moments, and
there _are_ moments, and this was one of the latter in the life of
Julia Jyvecote.
He sang Gounod’s _Ave Maria_ as that sublime hymn has been rarely sung
in a drawing-room—sang it with a religious fervor, and with a simple
intensity of feeling that wrought its own magic. He _felt_ his success,
and smiled gravely to himself as he bent over the instrument, playing
the closing chords ever so softly, until note after note fainted in
sheer melody.
He was asked for _Annabel Lee_—for “that love that was more than
love”—but refused. He possessed Tom Moore’s secret, and, having
produced the desired effect, faded out like his own last notes. Mrs.
Jyvecote tackled him upon art, Mrs. Travers upon music, and Miss
Jyvecote was silent. Somehow or other in talking to _her_ he was stupid
and confused, while in conversing with the others he was at his best.
Pressed on all sides to stop for dinner and remain the night, he could
scarcely refuse, although pleading dress and the probable anxiety of
his host. The first point was settled by a declaration upon the part of
his entertainers that it would be a treat to sit down in morning
toilettes; the second by the despatching of a boy to Monamullin. Mr.
Brown resigned himself to his fate and went with the stream.
How beautiful Miss Jyvecote looked in the mild radiance of the
wax-lights which lit up the rooms at night—wax-lights everywhere—in the
hands of Ninive dancing-girls, Dresden shepherdesses, oxidized silver
sconces, and girandoles of quaint and cunning design. What rapture in
being seated beside her, engaged in turning over the pages of a superb
photographic album too heavy for her dainty lap, and resting upon his
knees!
Why does he start and turn pale?
Why does Miss Jyvecote gaze at him, and with a merry laugh exclaim:
“Why, Mr. Brown, this photo is the very image of you.”
Beneath the photograph were the words:
“To Jasper Jyvecote from Ernest Noel.”
* * * * *
“Three days away from me! Why, it appeared three weeks,” exclaimed
Father Maurice, as the artist returned to the cosy cottage of the amber
thatch and snow-white walls. “I knew you would appreciate the
Jyvecotes, and I felt that they would appreciate _you_. Have you taken
any sketches?”
“One, the lake of Glendhanarrahsheen, which I mean to finish; and then,
_padre_, I must say _adios_ to Monamullin for many a long day.”
“Tut, tut, tut, man! we can’t do without you,” said the priest; “and
mind you, Mr. Brown, I’m sure the ladies at Moynalty would have their
likenesses done, and give you a good deal of money for them,
too—probably as much as five pounds apiece.”
“Five pounds apiece,” thought the artist, “and Millais getting two
thousand guineas for a single portrait!”
“And I’m delighted to tell you, my dear friend, that your O’Connell has
already got you a job. Mr. Muldoon—you might have noticed his shop
nearly opposite the chapel, a most flourishing concern—is anxious to
have his likeness done, and will have his wife and mother painted also,
as well as his five children and his collie; and if his maiden aunt
comes over from Castlebar he’ll throw her in, provided you can draw her
chaise. So I think,” added Father Maurice triumphantly, “I have been
doing good business for you in your absence.”
“Splendid, my valued host! But before I can touch these commissions I
must finish the lake.”
“Of course, of course; there’s no hurry. But, mind you, Muldoon is
ready money, and all you young fellows in the world require a little of
that—not that you want it here,” he cried hastily, lest his guest might
suppose that anything was required of him; “but when you take a day in
Westport, or perhaps as far as Sligo, you’ll want many little things
that couldn’t be had here for all the gold in the Bank of Ireland.”
The three days Mr. Brown had spent at Moynalty completely riveted the
fetters which might have been easily burst ere the iron had grown cold.
He endeavored to persuade himself that this visit was a mere romantic
episode in the career of an artist—a thing to be talked of in the sweet
by-and-by, and to be remembered as a delightful halting-place in the
onward journey. He tried to fling dust in his mind’s eye, and but
succeeded in closing the eye to everything save the glorious inviting
present. He floated on from day to day in a sort of temporary
elysium—why call it a fool’s paradise?—so tranquil that it was
impossible pain or sorrow could be its outcome. An intimacy sprang up
in this wild, strange, isolated place that a decade of London seasons
could never have brought to ripeness, and he felt in the _entourages_
of the palatial dwelling as though he was in his own old home. He rode,
walked, boated, drew, and sang with Julia Jyvecote. She, too, would
seem to live in the present, in the subtle, delicious consciousness of
being appreciated—ay, and liked. The small chance of ever enjoying a
repetition of his visit lent a peculiar charm to every circumstance,
and forbade those questionings as to who’s who with which the favored
ones of fortune probe the antecedents of the standers at the gates
which enclose the upper ten thousand.
From the accident of the photograph he was playfully christened Sir
Everard, and it became a matter of amused astonishment how readily he
accepted the title and how unvaryingly he responded to a call upon the
name.
He quitted Moynalty in a strange whirl of conflicting thought.
“May we not hope to see you in London, Mr. Brown?” said Mrs. Jyvecote,
graciously coming upon the terrace to bid him adieu. “We go over in
April, and our address is 91 Bruton Street, Mayfair. I know how sorry
Mr. Jyvecote will be to have missed you, especially as he arrives here
to-morrow; and I am also confident that he would be anxious to serve
you—although,” she added, with a caressing courtesy, “a gentleman of
Mr. Brown’s gifts requires no poor service such as we could render
him.”
“How long do you remain in Monamullin, Mr. Brown?” asked Mrs. Travers.
“Until I finish a sketch of the lake here which Miss Jyvecote intends
to honor me by accepting.”