A PORTRAIT.
“Mother--mother, who was the idiot that said riches don’t bring
happiness?”
It was two days after the interview Chris had had with Mr. Bradfield in
the drawing-room, and the new music had come. Mr. Bradfield, who had
on several occasions during the past two days caught sight of Chris,
but failed to get a word with her, had sent up a message to the effect
that if Mrs. and Miss Abercarne would go down to the drawing-room, they
would find something there which would interest one of them.
So they went down to the great room, which was cold, with a
recently-lighted fire in each of the two grates, and dimly lighted,
for there was no gas, and the illumination consisted of a dozen wax
candles. Chris, who had put on a dress square in the neck, in honour
of the occasion, in spite of her mother’s warnings, shivered, but the
sight of the great pile of music on two tables in the middle of the
room made her forget the cold.
Mrs. Abercarne sighed at her daughter’s exclamations. She felt very
much inclined to echo the sentiment. Certainly her own happiness had
belonged to the time when she had been well off, before frocks had to
be turned, and last year’s bonnets furbished up.
Mr. Bradfield had not yet come in from the dining-room, so Chris could
chatter on at her ease.
“To think of being able to get everything one wanted, just by sending
to town for it. No question whether it costs sixpence or ten pounds.
To be able to look into the windows without considering that four and
elevenpence three farthings is five shillings. Oh! mother,” and she
pounced upon a waltz, and a song, and a gavotte, which she felt sure
she should like, “I feel as if I were living in an enchanted palace,
and as if Mr. Bradfield were the good fairy.”
“Mr. Bradfield is very much obliged to you, I’m sure,” said the owner
of the house, who had come in very quietly, attracted by the sound
of her bright voice from the adjoining room, “It’s a more flattering
comparison than you made to me at first, if I remember rightly.”
But Chris was too happy to be troubled by this reminiscence.
“That was nothing to what you may expect if you come upon me without
warning when I don’t feel very good,” said she.
“Let us hear some of the music, Chris,” said her mother, afraid that
the girl’s sauciness might offend the great man.
But Mr. Bradfield was inclined to take everything the young girl
said in good part. He even offered to turn the leaves of her music,
with apologies for his clumsiness, which was indeed extreme. Chris,
who, although not a performer of special excellence, read music well
and with spirit, was in an ecstasy of girlish enjoyment, and she
communicated the contagion to her older companions. Mr. Bradfield was
good humour itself; Mrs. Abercarne was the perfection of graciousness.
He hunted out some old photographic albums, the portraits of which
she inspected minutely through her double eye-glasses, with the most
flattering comments imagination could suggest.
“You needn’t be so polite unless you really like it,” he said, drily,
when she had just found the word “intellectual” to describe a very grim
female face; “they’re only relations.”
Mrs. Abercarne looked up in astonishment.
“All these are your relations? You must have a great many, then?”
“Swarms of ’em.”
Mrs. Abercarne looked through her eyeglasses, no longer at the
photographs, but at him.
“I should have thought among so many you might have found someone to
manage your establishment without having to advertise,” she suggested.
Mr. Bradfield laughed.
“So I could. I could have found a hundred. Some to manage my
establishment, some to manage me, some to do both. And then all those
whom I had not selected would have come down upon me in a body, and my
life wouldn’t have been worth a year’s purchase among them. It won’t
be worth much when they find you are here, you and Miss Christina. I
shouldn’t be surprised if they were to set fire to the house and burn
us all up together.”
Mrs. Abercarne began to look frightened, while Chris was immensely
amused.
“Even money, you see, Miss Christina,” he went on, turning to the girl,
who indeed engrossed most of his attention, “doesn’t keep you free from
all worries.”
“It does from the worst of them, though,” said Chris, sagely. “It saves
you from all the little ones, which are much worse to bear every day
than one big one now and then. Who wouldn’t rather have one bad attack
of typhoid fever and have done with it than have, say toothache, every
day? You can’t understand how much worse it is to deny yourself every
day things which cost a penny, than to resist, once in a way, the
temptation to spend a sovereign.”
Mr. Bradfield was looking at her intently.
“At any rate,” said he, with some wrath in his tone, “as long as you
remain here, the sovereigns as well as the pennies will be forthcoming
as often as they are wanted.”
Here Mrs. Abercarne thought fit to interpose majestically:
“My daughter was only using those particular terms as an illustration,”
she said, in a suave manner; “as a matter of fact, neither the pennies
nor the sovereigns are matters that concern her.”
Both Mr. Bradfield and Chris accepted this rebuke in silence; but
they exchanged a look, and poor Chris could not help remembering Mr.
Bradfield’s remark that her mother was a joke.
“At the same time,” went on Mrs. Abercarne, conscious that she had
somewhat checked the evening’s pleasure, “I must confess that whatever
cares one may have seem lighter when borne in a mansion like this,
surrounded by treasures of art, and evidences of high culture.”
Mr. Bradfield tried to look as if he appreciated the compliment, and
Chris, feeling that the atmosphere was growing frigid again, made a
diversion.
“Indeed, Mr. Bradfield,” said she, “we’re never tired of looking at
your beautiful things. Only all the cabinets and cupboards are always
locked up, and it is very tantalising not to know what’s inside.”
“Well, here are my keys,” said he, as he took from his pocket a large
bunch of various sizes. “Open anything you like; there is no Blue
Beard’s chamber here.”
Perhaps they thought this remark rather unfortunate, with the knowledge
they all had of the locked rooms in the east wing. At any rate, there
was an awkward pause as Chris took the keys. He hastened to add:
“There are no rooms in this house, except, of course, poor Dick’s,
which you may not ransack as much as you like.”
“Thank you,” said Chris, as she ran to a handsome inlaid cabinet, with
a locked cupboard in the centre; “I’m going to take you at your word,
and begin here.”
She opened the carved doors, and found a collection of rare coins,
which excited in her only a languid interest. Then she examined the
contents of a pair of engraved caskets which stood on a side table.
Lastly, the shelves of a locked cupboard under a rosewood book-case
engaged her attention.
Here she found something more attractive to her frivolous mind.
Hidden away at the back of the bottom shelf was an old cardboard box,
containing a miscellaneous collection of portraits, pencil-sketches,
faded daguerreotypes, and a few miniatures on ivory.
One of these last attracted her at once in a very strong degree. It
was the portrait of a young man, fair, clean-shaven and strikingly
handsome, with features slightly aquiline, blue eyes, and an expression
which seemed to Chris to denote sweet temper and refinement in
equal degrees. She was a long way from her two companions when she
discovered the portrait; for the bookcase under which the cupboard was
occupied a remote corner of the back drawing-room, while her mother and
Mr. Bradfield were sitting by the fire in the front room.
She sat so long quietly looking at the miniature, that Mr. Bradfield’s
attention was attracted.
“Our flibbertigibbet has grown very quiet,” said he at last. “I wonder
what mischief she is up to!”
As he spoke, he rose softly from his chair, walked on tip-toe to the
other end of the room, and peeped round the partition, part of which
still remained between the front and the back room. Chris saw him, and
started.
“We’ve caught her in the very act, Mrs. Abercarne!” he cried. “Guilt on
every feature!”
Indeed, Chris had blushed a little, and thrust the portrait quickly
back on the shelf.
“I was only looking at a picture,” she explained quickly. And the next
moment, seized by an idea, she snatched up the miniature and held it
towards Mr. Bradfield.
“It looks like a portrait,” said she. “Do you know who it is?”
As she held up the picture, she saw a change in Mr. Bradfield’s face.
It was too dark in this back room to see whether he lost colour; but an
expression of what was certainly annoyance, mingled with something that
looked like terror, passed over his face. It was gone in a moment, and
he answered her calmly enough.
“No,” said he, “I don’t know who he is. I daresay I bought it in a
collection of miniatures.”
Chris turned it over in her hand.
“Oh! here’s the name, I suppose,” she said; “‘Gilbert Wryde, 1847.’”
Again, as she glanced up quickly, and rather curiously, she saw the
same sort of look for a couple of seconds on Mr. Bradfield’s face. But
he answered in a tone just as unmoved as before.
“Perhaps it’s only the name of the artist who painted it. I should
think the date was right, by the costume. Are you fond of miniatures?
I have a splendid collection in one of the rooms upstairs. I will show
you them to-morrow, if you like.”
“Thank you. I don’t know that I do care for them so very much. But I
like that one. The face is an interesting one.”
“I think they used to flatter the sitter a little in the days when
people had themselves painted like that,” said Mr. Bradfield. “I
daresay, now, an artist of those days would have done the fairy’s
trick, and transformed the beast into a prince. And now, will you let
us have that song from ‘Utopia’ once more before Mrs. Abercarne carries
you off?”
Chris rose at once, returned him his keys, and went to the piano. She
sang the song he had asked for, received Mr. Bradfield’s enthusiastic
thanks, and noticed that he seemed in higher spirits than he had been
all the evening. He gave Mrs. Abercarne her candle, bowed her out of
the room, and contrived to detain Chris a moment longer.
“We must absolutely find you that sweetheart,” said he, in a low voice,
and in rather wistful tones. “You will be dull in this outlandish place
without one.”
“You must absolutely leave me to do as I like about that, Mr.
Bradfield,” replied Chris, saucily. “And I am never dull anywhere.”
“I wish I could say the same of myself,” said he, heartily.
And then he let her go, wishing her good-night with some constraint,
which she, used to admiration from young and old, did not fail to
notice.
She ran upstairs, and joined her mother at the door of their room. Mrs.
Abercarne looked at the girl as soon as they got inside the door.
“What was Mr. Bradfield saying to you, Chris?” she asked, with apparent
indifference, as she took from her head the scrap of old point lace
which she thought proper to wear by way of a cap.
“Oh, he said he must get me a sweetheart, and I told him he might save
himself the trouble,” said she, lightly. “Don’t you think it very silly
of him to say those things to me, mother?”
Mrs. Abercarne paused a moment, and then answered, thoughtfully:
“I think he means to be kind. He always speaks as if he took an
interest in you--a great interest.”
Chris glanced quickly at her mother.
“An interest! Oh, yes,” said she.
Then there was another short silence, during which Chris knelt in front
of the fireplace and stared intently at the red coals.
“You don’t seem very grateful, dear!”
The girl started.
“Grateful! I? What for?” she asked stupidly.
“Why, Chris, you are in the clouds! What, were you thinking about Mr.
Bradfield?”
“Mr. Bradfield!” echoed the young girl, with a laugh of derision. “No,
mother; I was thinking about that face in the miniature.”
Her mother laughed, rather contemptuously.
“I shouldn’t waste many thoughts upon a portrait painted forty years
ago!” she said somewhat scornfully. “Why, child, the idea of growing
sentimental about a man who, if he is still alive, must be seventy if
he is a day!”
“Sentimental!” echoed Chris. “Did I speak sentimentally? I did not
know it. But--I should like to know something about the man whose
portrait it was. It was an interesting face, mother. I will show it you
to-morrow, and you shall judge for yourself whether I am not right.”
Mrs. Abercarne, seeing that the girl was too much occupied in thinking
of the picture to give her attention to anything else, gave up her
attempt to sound her on another subject, and talked about the music
until they both went to sleep.
On the following day, when Chris was in the drawing-room with her
duster, she remembered the fascinating miniature, and thought she would
like to have another look at it by daylight. So she went into the back
drawing-room, remembering that she had forgotten to lock the cupboard
door when she handed back his keys to Mr. Bradfield.
Someone had been there before her, however, for the door was now
securely locked. Chris was vexed at this, and gave the door an
impatient little shake. The cupboard was old, and the bolt gave way
under this rough handling. She had not expected this, but, as it had
happened, she felt justified in taking advantage of the occurrence, for
Mr. Bradfield had given her permission to examine what she pleased.
Opening the door, therefore, she took out the box, which had been
replaced at the back of its shelf, and turned out the contents in
search of the miniature. She took out every separate thing, she
thoroughly examined not only that shelf but the others; and then she
shut the cupboard, disappointed and puzzled.
The miniature was no longer there.