THE PORTRAIT
As I came out on to the great landing which had a recess supported by
pillars, I saw that a baize door on the other side, corresponding to the
one by which I had come was slowly opening. To my excited fancy it
opened stealthily, and I stood staring at it, not knowing what might
issue from it.
Imagine, then, my joy and surprise when I saw for the second time
Anthony Cardew's face. At first I could hardly believe it; and he, on
his part, looked equally amazed, and very pleasurably so, I must say.
"Why, where have you dropped from, Miss Bawn?" he asked. "A minute ago I
could have sworn I was alone in the house, unless, perhaps, the good old
creature who looks after it had come back from her marketing."
"And where have you dropped from?" I asked, suddenly light-hearted. "I
thought you were on your way to the South Seas."
"Why so I should have been," he answered, "only for sudden happenings.
And how do you come here? To be sure, it is your own house, and I am a
trespasser. I little thought when I came who I should find."
"I am in town for a short visit," I said, "with Miss Champion. She was
not well to-day so I came to see the house alone."
"And, as luck would have it, I had a fancy on the same day to see a
portrait in the picture-gallery here. It is something better than
chance, Miss Bawn."
We stood looking at each other with a happy intimacy. And then his
mention of the portrait recalled the miniature I had found in the wood.
I had had a foolish girl's fancy to hang it about my neck under my
dress, and it lay there now, suspended by a slender gold chain which was
one of my godmother's gifts to me. I had a shy reluctance to let him
know I carried it there.
"By the way," I said, "I believe I have a jewel of yours. I found it in
the wood."
His eyes lightened and darkened in a way that was peculiar to him and
his cheek flushed.
"You have found the miniature?" he said, in great excitement. "I was
heartbroken for the loss of it. Have you got it with you?"
He had stretched out his hand as though he expected his recovered
treasure to be handed to him at once, and I could not deny that I had
it, so I took it from about my neck, murmuring something about having
carried it for safety and that the case was at Aghadoe and should be
returned to him.
"I thought you were gone to the ends of the earth," I said lamely; "and
I was so afraid that I might lose it before I should have a chance of
returning it."
He took it gently and looked at it for a second. Then he kissed it.
"Why, it is warm from its resting-place," he said, "and so the dearer."
And then he took it off from its little chain and placed it in an inner
pocket of his coat, handing me back the chain.
"Maybe you'd like to see what picture it was that made me a trespasser,"
he said, with a suddenly reckless air. "Come, child, and you shall see.
Perhaps it was the discovery that the dead was come alive that sent off
two decent fellows to find a Spanish galleon without me. There are
better things than gold. Aye, faith, the gold on a woman's head, the
light in her eye, may be worth many treasure-ships."
We went back through the baize door through which he had come. There was
a second door within it which being opened disclosed the
picture-gallery; that, being lighted from overhead, had not the gloom of
the rest of the house.
I looked around me at the ruffled and periwigged gentlemen, the smiling
ladies, who were my ancestors and ancestresses, with interest.
"There is a picture of my grandmother here which I am said to resemble,"
I said, as I looked down the line of pictures, "though I am ashamed to
say that I am thought to resemble her, seeing that she is a great
beauty, and is, indeed, beautiful in her old age. Perhaps I resemble her
without possessing any of her beauty."
"Ah, Miss Bawn," he said, looking at me roguishly, "'handsome is as
handsome does.'"
"That is so," I said. "My grandmother has often told me that if I am
good and gentle no one will trouble about my looks."
He turned suddenly then and he said in a singularly sweet voice--
"Dear child! dear child!"
Then he took my hand as though I had been indeed a child and led me up
to the portrait.
"What do you see?" he asked.
"I never could be like anything so beautiful," I said, with indignation.
"If Gran looked like that she must have been beautiful indeed, and she
must have looked like it."
The young girl in the portrait was wearing a white satin gown. She was
painted in the manner of the period, with a lamb beside her which she
had wreathed with roses; and she stood in a flowery meadow. She had an
armful of roses like Flora's self, and as she stood one or two escaped
and fell down her dress. She had the long neck which has come to me, a
beautiful small head, golden hair, warm fair colouring and violet eyes.
"I never could be like it," I said again.
Captain Cardew smiled. I saw him take the miniature from his pocket and
look at it and again at the portrait as though he compared them.
"You see the likeness, do you not?" he asked.
"Yes, there is a likeness," I acknowledged.
"I came here to feast my eyes upon it," he said. "I was frantic at the
loss of the miniature. I had seen this picture before, long ago, when I
was a boy. When I first saw ... the original of the miniature I
remembered this and thought it the strangest coincidence. I wanted to
find out for myself if the likeness was really so strong."
"And it was?" I asked.
"It was. Yet you are more like the miniature than the portrait is."
"Ah, no," I said. "I could not be. The portrait is very beautiful."
"You are more like her," he repeated.
We had left the doors of the gallery ajar, and now we heard plainly a
heavy foot coming up the stairs and puffing and wheezing as of a very
stout, asthmatic person ascending.
"It is Bridget Kelly," he said, turning and smiling at me. "She was much
disturbed that I would not have her as _cicerone_, but she remembered me
from the old days, and, seeing that I would not have her, she left me to
mind the house while she did her marketing."
"I found the door open when I came to it," I said.
"Bridget must have left it so. I dare say the house has a ghostly
reputation and is shunned. And now, do you know why I did not go
treasure-hunting?"
"How should I know?" I answered him.
He caught me suddenly into his arms.
"Because, Bawn, my darling," he said, "the dead has come alive again."