The door of Gertrude's studio was ajar, for the day was warm, and the
lady had sat persistently at her easel, as was her wont (when the glow
was on), since early day-light.
Pictures and picture frames, canvas and brushes, sketches in oils,
engravings and crayons, were scattered round, with as little regard to
housewife-ly order, as if the apartment had been tenanted by one of the
disorderly sex; the light was fine, and that was the most Gertrude cared
about.
She was a picture herself as she sat there, and though a woman, was not
aware of it. The loose, white wrapper she wore had become unfastened at
the throat, and fallen partially off one shoulder, revealing as perfect
a bust as ever set a sculptor or lover dreaming. No prettier ornament
could have been found to keep back her light brown tresses than her tiny
white ears. And as the light fell upon the arm and hand which held her
palette, one ceased marveling, with such a model before her, at her
successful reproductions of it in the female pictures.
There are some kinds of hair which always look poetical, whether
arranged or disarranged; their glossy waves changing in the sun's rays
like the arched neck of the peerless golden pheasant; now brown, now
golden, beautiful whether in light or shade. This was one of Gertrude's
greatest charms. And yet Gertrude was no beauty; but somehow there was a
witchery about her which made you think so. It might have been the play
of expression on the flexible lips, the warming up of the complexion,
the sudden kindling of the eye with smiles, to be as suddenly quenched
by tears; the rapid transitions from pensive sadness to mischievous
mirth. When she spoke, you thought the charm in her musical voice, when
she moved, in the symmetry of her form; every dress she wore you wished
she would always wear, every thing she did struck you as being most
perfectly and gracefully done; every thing she said was pertinent and
piquant; she had thought much, and read little, hence she was always
fresh and original; she was an independent thinker, and though
strong-minded and clear-headed, was strictly feminine. You looked your
watch in the face incredulously when you left her, as if _it_, not
_she_, were at fault.
"I really do not think I can do better than that," she soliloquized,
laying down her brushes, and stepping back to look at her picture, "that
is a success; I feel it."
"Saints and angels!" she exclaimed as the door creaked slightly on its
hinges; "where did you come from, you delicious little cherub?"
Well might she exclaim. There was Charley, the little truant, just as he
had crept out of bed, looking (as a babe always does when it first
wakes) like a delicate morning-glory, whose dewy beauty the first sun's
ray will exhale. His little white night-robe hung loosely about him; his
large lustrous eyes were full of childish wonder, his dark hair curled
in moist rings round his white temples, and his cheek was yet warm with
the flush of sleep.
"Where did you come from, you beautiful creature?" said Gertrude,
snatching him up, and kissing first his cherry lips, then his bare,
dimpled foot, with its pink-tipped toes, then his ivory shoulders; "I
never saw any thing half so beautiful--who _are_ you, you little dumb
angel?"
Charley only replied by cuddling his little curly head on Gertrude's
shoulder, for even infancy's ear may be won by the musical sweetness of
a voice, and Gertrude's tones were heart-tones.
"You trusting little innocent," said Gertrude, as her eye moistened,
"you are sweet and holy enough for an Infant Saviour. There, sit there
now, darling," said she, placing him on the middle of the floor, and
scattering a bunch of flowers about him by way of bribe, "sit there
now, while I sketch you for one," and she flew to her easel.
"Yah--yah," said a voice at the door, as another model presented itself,
in the picturesque turbaned head of Chloe, "yah--yah--you cheat ole
nurse dis time, Massa Charley--"
"Oh, don't take him away," said Gertrude; "lend him to me a little
while--whose child is it? I almost hoped he belonged to nobody."
"Missis, down stairs," answered Chloe; "I don't know her name; she berry
sick, I only came las' night to nurse her, and while I busy here and
dere, Massa Charley take hisself off."
"Your mistress is sick?" said Gertrude; "then of course she does not
want this little piece of quicksilver squirming round her; I want to
make a picture of him like those that you see," said Gertrude, pointing
to her sketches about the room;--"he is as handsome as an angel; leave
him with me, never fear, I can charm babies like a rattlesnake, and bite
them too," she added, touching her lips to Charley's tempting shoulders.
"But my missis--" remonstrated Chloe.
"Oh, never mind," said Gertrude, with her usual independence; "no mother
ever was angry yet because her child was admired. I will bring him down
to your door when he gets weary--there, do go away--he grows more lovely
every minute, and I am losing time."
It was not strange that Gertrude should have been unaware of the
presence of the new lodger, rarely leaving her studio and the little
room adjoining, where she had her meals served, except in the evening,
when Rose was shut up in her own apartment, a prey to sorrowful
thoughts.
Gertrude was as unlike other women in her dislike of gossip as in
various other items we might name. Provided she were not interfered
with, it mattered nothing to her who occupied the rooms about her. It is
only the empty-minded who, having no resources of their own, busy
themselves with the affairs of their neighbors. It was unaccountable to
her how the number of another woman's dresses, or bonnets, the hours and
the places in which she promenaded, the visitors she had, or refused to
have, her hours for rising, eating, and retiring, or the exact state of
her finances, could be matters of such momentous interest. Living
contentedly in a world of her own, she had neither time nor inclination
for such petty researches.
A month had elapsed since Rose's sickness; she was now convalescent, and
able to part with the faithful Chloe, who claimed the privilege of
calling in occasionally to see Massa Charley. Rose was again alone--no,
not quite alone, for Gertrude had made her acquaintance, to explain her
capture of Charley, and ask the loan of him till the picture should be
finished.
Gertrude was at a loss to comprehend Rose's manner: at one moment frank
and sisterly, at the next cold, silent, and repellant. Rose was
struggling with two contending feelings; her straightforward
ingenuousness made her shrink from the idea of concealing from one of
her own sex, who thus sought her acquaintance, her real history. She
shrank from a friendship based on deception.
Simple, straightforward Rose! as if half the friendships in the world
would not snap in twain, placed on any other basis! If each heart, with
its disingenuous trickeries, its selfish purposes and aims, were laid
bare to its neighbor, if the real motives for seeming kindness, the
inner life, whose pure outward seeming is often in direct inversion to
the hidden corruption were as transparent to the human as to the
Omniscient eye, who could stand the test?
A few interviews with Gertrude served to dispel, in a great measure,
these feelings. Her ready tact, and quick, womanly sympathies, served to
bridge over the chasm to Rose's naturally trusting heart.
Oh, that parting with the life-boat of faith--that unsettled, drifting,
sinking, weary feeling--that turning away even from the substance, for
fear of the mocking shadow--that heart-isolation which makes a desert of
the green earth, with all its fragrance, and music, and sunshine--who
that has known misfortune has not deplored it? Who has not striven in
vain to get anchored back again where never a ripple of distrust might
disturb his peace.
"Tell me how you like it," said Gertrude, placing Charley's finished
picture in the most favorable light. "Now don't say you are no
connoisseur, that is only a polite way of declining to give an
unfavorable opinion. Find all the fault you can with it; you at least
should know if it is true to life."
"It is perfect," said Rose, delightedly; "it is Charley's own self; he
_is_ a pretty boy," said the proud mother, looking alternately from him
to the picture.
"You must remember," said Gertrude, "that of all the different
expressions of a loved face, which the heart has daguerreotyped, the
artist can catch but one, and that one may not always be to friends the
favorite expression; hence you see, with all our good intentions, the
craft sometimes labor to disadvantage. However, I seldom paint
portraits; my forte is 'still life;' so, of course," she added,
laughing; "your mercurial little _Charley_ was quite out of my orbit,
but thanks to flowers and lump-sugar, I think I may say there is his
double."
"A mother's eye sees no flaw in it," said Rose.
"Thank you," said Gertrude, with a gratified smile. "It has already
found a purchaser. A gentleman who was in my studio this morning thought
it a fancy sketch, and would not believe me when I told him that there
was a beautiful living type; he offered me a sum for it that would at
one time have made my heart leap; I can afford to refuse it now."
"How early did your artistic talent develop itself?" asked Rose.
"I was always fond of pictures," replied Gertrude; "but the 'talent'
which prosperity 'folded in a napkin,' the rough hand of adversity shook
out."
"Adversity?" repeated the astonished Rose, looking at Gertrude's sunny
face.
"You are skeptical," said Gertrude. "I forgive you, but I have learned
not to wear my heart dangling like a lady's chatelaine at my girdle, to
be plucked at by every idle, curious, or malicious hand.
"Listen!" And she drew her chair nearer to Rose.