Skaife arrived in Paris, and, after a lengthened interview with Mary, he
quitted her abode. If he was very pale, it was the pallor of sudden, and
almost deemed impossible, joy. Minnie lived! and he was wending his way
to a now scarcely sad chamber, where Hope sat beside the still pale, but
recovering woman, reclining near a cheerful wood blaze, in a more
comfortable, though still very humble, room. This is all she would
consent to at Mary's expense; for personal resources she had none.
Skaife found himself incapable of much speech; he could but press
Minnie's hand between his own with the affection of a brother, to whom a
loved sister was suddenly restored from death. He, however, endeavoured
to persuade her to return at once to Gatestone, promising her a joyful
welcome from all, who mourned her loss severely. To this she was deaf;
nothing could induce her to quit Paris, and leave Tremenhere's vicinity.
Skaife had bound himself, by a solemn promise, not to reveal her
existence without her permission, unless he saw the absolute necessity
for so doing, to prevent the marriage of Tremenhere with Lady Dora.
After vainly endeavouring to urge her to another course, he quitted the
house to visit Miles, and, if possible, discover what his real feelings
were; for a certain pride prevented Minnie from throwing herself at his
feet, until she knew whether his heart still remembered her.
Our readers will recollect, that she knew nothing of his visit to
Marseilles--his conviction of her innocence. She only knew the fatal
words, which, ringing in her ears, had driven her frantic--his avowed
love for Lady Dora. Tremenhere was pained and surprised by Skaife's
visit. He felt in himself so guilty towards Minnie, that one who had
known all her worth seemed as an accusing spirit. Skaife's manner, too,
after the first hasty meeting, was so embarrassed, that it added to the
suffering his presence inflicted.
It would have been impossible for a friend to look upon Miles without
reading all his deep care, however veiled to the world in
general;--there was the clouded eye, without fire, full of soul and
expression; but the changing fire was gone--'twas one settled, calm,
uncomplaining trouble. Skaife spoke of his journey to Paris as one of
mere pleasure; of course Minnie's family was never alluded to. Miles had
been painting when the other entered, and drawing the cover, of which
Lord Randolph had spoken, over the easel, he rose to welcome him with a
start of pleasure, which, however, almost instantaneously settled into a
look of pain and embarrassment. For some time they spoke on indifferent
subjects, things most difficult to find for two so closely drawn
together in one painful one. There was a moment's pause, when Tremenhere
suddenly exclaimed--
"Skaife, I am surprised--much surprised, to see you here."
"How so?" the other asked, colouring, and amazed.
"Because, were I in your place, I should shun the atmosphere where
breathed such another as myself, like that of a pest-house."
"Pardon me, Tremenhere, you would do as I do--feel sincere pity for a
man, whose severest punishment must be his own bitter remorse and
regret."
Tremenhere looked silently at him a moment.
"You have indeed said truly," he uttered at last, and turned away
towards the covered picture before him.
"Tremenhere," said Skaife, laying a hand on his arm, "I rejoice to hear
you speak as you do; for vain as it may be, 'twill solace you all the
remaining years of your life to remember _her_--as she was. You see I
know to what you allude."
"Remember her, Skaife! What can that do for me? Remember that, but for
the insane promptings of some demon, jealous of my happiness, I might
now have her beside me, a living, breathing creature, instead of only
this!" And he drew back the veil from his painting, and there, on the
speaking canvass, was Minnie--oh, Minnie, as though she breathed before
him! There is nothing so faithful as memory. It was an altar-piece, of
which he had before spoken--a Madonna and child. The eyes looked forth
serene and beautiful, patient, and with that predestined look which such
a face should have--a look of future sorrow, future and immortal hope.
Minnie's was all a face should be for so holy a purpose; and when
Skaife remembered all she had suffered, he felt how well Tremenhere had
chosen the subject, to call her features into life's seeming.
"It is like her, is it not?" asked the latter, fixing his deep, earnest
gaze upon the face. "And I have tried to throw into the countenance
something of the trouble I _have_ seen there--something of what must
have been, when she was at Marseilles! Skaife, I went there a week
since, and learned all; since my return, I have passed the heavy hours
of day and night in pourtraying the look which I divined hers, in that
sad room where my child was born!"
"Have you been there?" exclaimed the other, a joy almost beyond controul
bursting his heart; for he had come to that room in fear, of what he
might hear.
"Yes," answered Tremenhere, looking up, surprised at his tone; "but I do
not think you quite understand me, by your tone. I have been in the
humble house of the toiling woman and mother--of the one I lured from
every luxury, to cast, with a blighted name, into _want_!--want,
Skaife--for this she has known! _Now_ do you comprehend my utter
wretchedness? Oh, believe that there can be no sorrow, no remorse like
mine! I sit here for hours searching in my memory for every tone of her
voice, every look of her sweet face! I tell _you_ this, for
self-abasement; _you_, at least shall know me as I am, though to the
world I may be a mystery--to some, a monster!"
"From my soul I pity you, Tremenhere; but oh! I rejoice that her memory
is now so sacred in your eyes from stain."
"Sacred and pure as an angel's, Skaife! Yet what can that avail now?"
"I feared," uttered the other, "that--I scarcely know how to speak my
thought--that, in short, you might be--were, dazzled by Lady Dora
Vaughan!"
"By her!" and he laughed in derision. "Have you, too, known the human
heart so ill, to suppose that, having once loved Minnie, even though
unjust, cruel, her murderer, I could ever place another, and such a one
as Lady Dora, near her? No, no; be my feelings what they may, I never
will dream even of so vain a thing as alleviating them by any union;
still less with Lady Dora, than another!"
"I have, nevertheless, heard strange rumours."
"Have you? well, 'tis well. I would have it thus; 'tis----" He paused.
"Let us change the subject," he said hastily; "time will prove all of
us."
They were silent some moments.
"Do you know what grieves me most in this my task?" He pointed to the
picture. "I cannot find in my mind a thought of what _our_ child was
like. I would I could thus complete my subject. But all is a blank!" He
pointed to the infant, of which there was but an outline; indeed, all
but the Madonna's face was this only, for he had not long commenced the
picture, which had been one ordered some time previously.
A sudden thought struck Skaife.
"I was visiting in a house, yesterday," he said, "and there was struck
by the unearthly beauty of a boy I saw in the arms of the _concièrge_. I
asked to whom it belonged, and was told, to a poor woman residing in the
house. I make no doubt I could induce them to bring the child to you--it
is the loveliest I ever saw."
"Thank you, Skaife," he answered sadly; "but I do not think _any_ child
could give me the faintest idea of what hers must have been; it must
have had a look of more than mortal sorrow on its young face, born in so
much woe and care. I will try and dream what it could have been; nothing
living can even pourtray it."
Skaife said no more on the subject; but, leaving shortly afterwards,
hastened to Minnie, and with thankfulness of joy, watched the calm beam
of hope in her eye, when he told her all that had passed between them.
Skaife urged her to allow him, by degrees, to break the truth to her
sorrowing husband; but there was still on her memory, unobliterated, the
recollection of his words to her cousin, which nothing could efface, but
proof to the contrary. One thing, however, they arranged, and Monsieur
d'Estrées was the person chosen to carry out the scheme--namely, to take
little Miles, or William as he was called, to his father's studio. The
child had become so accustomed to the old man during Minnie's illness,
that he would go any where unfearingly with him. We should vainly
attempt to depict the mother's feelings, when she saw her boy next day
departing under the care of her two sincere friends, to see his father
for the first time. Thrice she called them back in mother's pride to
arrange some curl on the noble brow, or again kiss the cheek, where
perhaps his lip might be pressed. There was something hallowing in the
thought to her beautiful mind, that their child should be the medium of
communication between them, though to him unknown. Skaife had previously
written to apprise Tremenhere, that at that hour he should call; and
when he entered, and after a few moments, by way of prefacing the visit,
mentioned he had asked a friend of the mother's, who often nursed the
child in her absence, to call with him. Tremenhere coolly thanked him;
at the same time expressing his firm conviction, that it could not
answer his views or exalted ideas of what it should be. When d'Estrées
entered as Monsieur Georges, and the boy with a quiet, contemplative
air, most uncommon in one so young, looked in childish questioning at
the tall, dark, strange man, Tremenhere stood transfixed. It was not
that a look of the mother shook his heart--it was not the thought, that
of such an age would his own be, were it living. No, it was the artist's
realized dream--such a dream as inspiration might have given him. A
child born in so much sorrow could not look as others would; every
beautiful lineament was grave as of early woe, if so young a heart might
feel it; but yet this was more--it was a soul's sorrow implanted by a
mother's cares, watered by her tears, on the boy's countenance.
Tremenhere looked at him, then at the old man--a memory crossed his
imagination.
"Surely I have seen you before," he cried, gazing earnestly at
d'Estrées.
"I think not, monsieur," said the other; but his voice trembled, for
he, too, remembered him, and then he so ably recalled his father and
d'Estrées's best friend to his mind; "for I am an old man, seldom
leaving home." He spoke in French.
"Strange--strange!" he replied in thought; "you seem very familiar to
me."
"And the boy?" asked Skaife; "is he not all I promised you?"
"He might have been _hers_," was the reply, which spoke volumes. He
approached, and the child used to many strange faces looked fearlessly
upon him, but with the strange, grave look we have before noticed.
Tremenhere opened his arms, and the little boy's were around his neck,
and the eyes, so like his own, fixed upon him. Something for the first
time passed through the father's heart; he thought of his own, and
involuntarily passed his hand over the head, where the golden curls were
springing up, thick and clustering. He turned up the little unsmiling
face, and his stern lip pressed the baby cheek.
"Bless you, my boy!" he whispered.
Strange, he never asked his name, or any thing about him, but gazed, and
gazed on the face in bitterness of thought. As he did so, he turned
towards the picture. The child stared a moment--the eyes distended--and
then the whole sad face lighted up with a smile of angel beauty, as he
paid the highest compliment which could be offered to Miles's art, by
stretching forth his arms towards it; and the little tongue tried to
syllable a name. The boy knew his mother!
D'Estrées and Skaife turned pale, as a hasty glance passed between them:
they deemed it impossible so strange a recognition could pass
unsuspected: they trembled for the moment of avowal. But Miles's mind
was obscured from all thought of the truth; he only saw a childish
rapture on beholding a picture; and again kissing the boy and hastily
passing him to d'Estrées, seated himself at the easel, and beneath his
pencil placed the outline of his boy in its mother's arms.
Tremenhere had resolved upon one thing both as a duty--a sacred one--and
secondly, if possible, to give some more healthy tone to his heart, by
the necessity for activity of mind and body. This was, to labour for the
means of proceeding to Gibraltar, to seek proof of his mother's
marriage. With his conviction of Minnie's innocence, this thought had
sprung up with renewed vigour; for this reason he remained more at home,
working at the picture for which his own unknown child was daily
sitting. For this, when completed, he expected a large sum, with which
he purposed at once proceeding to Gibraltar. Moreover, it was a labour
of love, though of deep sorrow; for Minnie lived again before him, and
the hours passed, in contemplating the face and form perfecting beneath
his hand.
Lady Dora was lost in vain conjectures as to the cause of his
estrangement; though a momentary doubt might arise, yet her unfailing
pride came in to soothe her--"he durst not trust himself!" Thus she
thought, and with this conviction arose a determination to go to his
studio; this was not difficult of accomplishment. By a cleverly turned
hint to her mother about Lord Randolph's impatience respecting her
picture, Lady Ripley wrote, expressing a desire for its completion, as
soon as he conveniently might attend to it; and soliciting an hour when
Lady Dora might give him a sitting. This lady so arranged it, that her
mother asked from herself without naming any impatience on her part, but
Tremenhere smiled in scorn and triumph; for he saw the whole affair, as
though it had been planned beneath his eye. He wrote, regretting much
occupation had obliged him to banish himself from her ladyship's circle;
for the happy indolence which there crept over him, unfitted him for
other less pleasing occupations, but fixing an hour in which he should
be too happy to see Lady Dora. Every line of this had been guardedly
penned; and each word had a signification in that lady's eyes,
flattering to herself. Lord Randolph had seen him several times, and
always reported something about the mysteriously veiled picture; she was
convinced in her own mind, that this was some portrait of herself, and
she resolved, if practicable, to verify the fact; however, when she
arrived there with an appearance of calm dignity, accompanied by her
mother, nothing was to be seen but herself as Diana on the easel, and as
unfinished as when she had last seen it. This confirmed her impression
of some strange mystery; and Tremenhere's suffering face, which nothing
could disguise, made her heart bound high in triumphant pride--it was
suffering on her account. His manner still further strengthened this
deep error on her part,--her mother accompanied her, consequently their
words, beyond mere general ones, were few; still, when she spoke of his
absenting himself from all society, the significance with which he
whispered, "Better live with a sad memory, than a vain and dangerous
reality," lost nothing of the effect he intended it to convey. The real
truth was, he felt too worn in spirit, even for revenge sake, just then
to continue his comedy with herself--he had only courage to suffer; but
his absenting himself was as politic a thing as he could have done; and
she left the studio with a tremor in her heart, of which she had thought
herself incapable--one which not a little startled her yet rebelling
pride, and made her look every hour with deeper gloom, or nervous
excitement, on the preparations which were progressing for her marriage
with Lord Randolph, whom she almost hated, and yet had not the courage
to come to an open rupture with, lest Tremenhere should quite read her
heart. She was bent upon bringing him to her feet, and then permitting a
hope to gleam over his doubts.