Kitabı oku: «An Old Man's Darling», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XXIV
"Hurrah, Leslie!"
"Well, Carl!"
"Our pictures are sold!"
"What pictures?"
"What pictures?" mimicking the indifferent tone. "Oh! how indifferent we are! yet a year ago how blessed were the feet of the messenger who brought such tidings! Success falls upon you, my boy. Now with me a ready sale is quite an event. Of course I meant the pictures we sent to Paris!"
The same old studio at Rome into which we looked three years ago, and the same two artists we saw then. Carl Muller had just entered, waving an open letter over his head.
The gay, mercurial German looked as boyishly handsome as ever, as though time had forgotten him. Not so with Leslie Dane, who stood beside a half-finished picture, critically regarding it. He was handsomer than ever, as though the subtle hand of a sculptor had been at work upon his features chiseling the fine Greek outlines into rarer perfection and delicacy. A few lines of thought and care added rather than detracted from the interest with which one turned a second time to look at his face. The full lips half shaded by the dark mustache had lost a little of the almost womanly sweetness of the past and acquired a sterner curve. Into the dark eyes there had crept a gleam of brooding sadness, and a few silver threads shone in the clustering locks about his white brow. His last three years had made their mark upon him in many subtle changes.
"I could have told you that yesterday, Carl," he said, smiling, "but you were out when my letter came, and I was so busy over my picture here that I forgot it when you returned."
"The agent wrote to you first then," said Carl. "He might have had the courtesy to drop me a line at the same time."
"Do not blame him too much, Carl," said Leslie Dane. "He was in a hurry about writing to me because he had a letter to inclose from the purchaser of the pictures."
"Another commission, you lucky dog!" exclaimed Carl Muller.
"It amounts to that, I suppose. He wants me to go to Paris and paint his wife's portrait. If I will not go to Paris he will come to Rome."
"If the mountain will not go to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the mountain," said Carl.
"Something that way," said Leslie, carelessly.
"You will accept, of course. The old fellow paid such an extravagant price for the pictures that another commission might be a temptation even to you who have lately been surfeited with success."
"The money certainly might be an object, but I think I shall refuse," was the abrupt reply.
"Refuse!" exclaimed Carl, in surprise, "and why, if I may ask?"
"The man is an American."
"So are you," cried the German, surprised at the dark frown that darkened on Leslie's brow. "Is that a disgrace?"
"I suppose not. Yet I will have nothing to do with my countrymen," said the artist, sternly.
Carl gave vent to a low whistle.
"Ye gods! An American—born under the shadow of the eagle's wing of liberty, a citizen of a land the most patriotic upon earth—coolly repudiating his country! I never expected to see such a novel sight under the sun!"
"You mistake me, Carl," said Leslie Dane, a little vexed. "I do not repudiate my native land. I revere her as the noblest country upon earth, but I am from henceforth an exile, self-expatriated from her shores, and I do not wish to meet anyone who can recall memories I would fain forget."
"You are a strange fellow, Leslie, I cannot understand your moods."
"You do not? Shall I explain, Carl? Listen, then."
Carl looked up into the dark face with its look of proud grief mingled with bitterness.
"No, no; forgive my levity," he said; "I would not intrude upon your secret, dear friend. Let it rest."
"It does not matter," said Leslie, his deep voice full of pain. "I will tell you, Carl. It is only this: One woman in that fair land where I was born has played me false and ruined my life. I hate and shun all Americans for her sake!"
He took up his brush and went to work at his picture without another word. Carl was silent also; he was recalling that episode of three years ago when Leslie in his wild outbreak had painted out the portrait of his fair, false-hearted love.
"So he has not forgotten her," he thought; "and yet he has never breathed another word of her until to-day. Ah! she will never know what a true and noble heart she cast away."
He sat still awhile thinking profoundly, and referring to his letter now and then with ever-increasing pride in the lucrative sale of his picture, for Carl was a lazy fellow, and though he commenced numbers of things seldom had patience to finish them. Consequently a completed work and its ready sale had all the charm of novelty to him.
"I say," he said, breaking the silence that had brooded as long as he could bear it, and returning to the charge upon his friend, "old fellow, it's a shame you should refuse such a profitable commission for a scruple I must say is not worthy of you. Do accept it, Leslie. This old fellow—let me see"—referring again to his letter—"Carlyle his name is—Colonel Carlyle—need not trouble you much with the sight of his obnoxious face, and the old lady—Favart says he is an old man, so of course she is an old lady—need only give you a few sittings. They would not trouble you long, and you need not think of them as Americans at all. Simply regard the sitter as your model, and think no more about it."
Leslie Dane did not answer, but the slight smile that played around his lips showed that he had been an attentive listener to Carl's admonition.
"You know," resumed Carl, seeing that Leslie would not answer, "we have been promising ourselves a trip to Paris for ever so long. I see no chance so suitable as the present when I have this pot of money to spend, and when you might so agreeably combine business with pleasure in the execution of this portrait and the enjoyment of all the pleasures of Paris. Recollect, you would be fairly lionized there."
"I do not fancy being lionized," said Leslie Dane, grimly.
"Do you not! Now, I should enjoy it above all things. But since I am not apt to have that honor I should enjoy following in your wake and taking all the glories second-hand. I should be sure to get a little of the honor reflected on me, for though I am not the rose, you know I have lived near it."
Leslie Dane looked up with a quizzical smile.
"Confess now, Carl," he said, "that nothing will content you but to get away and spend the gold you have earned. All your flattery and sophistry leads to this—that you are wild for a companion to aid and abet you in spending the money that is burning a hole in your pocket this minute."
"Somehow the gold does seem to burn through my pockets," said Carl, reflectively. "But, tra, la, what is it good for but to buy pleasure?"
He began to hum a few bars of a German song with a gay refrain.
"Come, come, get to your work," exclaimed the other. "Your signal success with your last work should stimulate you to renewed efforts."
"So it will," affirmed Carl; "but not to-day. I feel so giddy over my good news that I could not work to-day. I should hardly know how to mix my colors. I feel as lazy, shiftless and good-natured as the Italian lazzaroni out in the sunshine."
Leslie Dane gave a little sigh as he looked at his happy companion. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle the gay current of his good nature. His temperament was an enviable one.
"Carl, did you ever have a sweetheart?" Leslie asked curiously.
"Sweethearts—yes, a score of them," laughed Carl. "More Gretchens, Madchens, and Anitas than you could count on your fingers. Why do you ask?"
"Only for curiosity. I thought you could not be so care-free and joyous if love had ever come into your life."
"That is according to how we look at love," said the German; "with you it is all a solemn epic or tragedy. With me it would be a pretty little poem or a happy song."
Leslie sighed but did not answer.
"Come, now," said the German, "we have wandered from our subject. Give up your selfishness this once, Leslie, and take a holiday. Come with me to Paris next week."
Leslie stood silently meditating, and Carl saw that the battle was almost won.
"Don't hesitate," said he, pushing his advantage. "Indeed you work too hard, my boy. There is no need of it since you have forsworn marriage. Take a breathing spell and come with me to Paris and paint old Mrs. Carlyle's portrait."
Leslie frowned slightly at the words.
"Pray do not mention those people again," he said, in an irritated tone. "Perhaps I will accompany you to Paris; but I have no fancy to paint the portrait of a wrinkled old woman."
CHAPTER XXV
"Confound the impudence of such fellows!" said Colonel Carlyle, fretfully, as he entered his wife's morning-room.
It was a charming apartment with hangings of pale blue satin that made a perfect foil to the pearl-fair beauty of Bonnibel.
The chairs and sofas were upholstered in the same rich material; the carpet was white velvet, sprinkled over with blue forget-me-nots; the costly white lace curtains were draped over blue satin, and the bright fire burning in the silver grate shone upon expensive gilding and delicate bric-a-brac scattered profusely about the room.
A marble Flora, half buried in flowers, stood in a niche, and vases of delicate white lilies were on the marble mantel.
The young mistress of all this beauty and wealth so tastefully combined, as she sat near the fire with an open book, looked like a gem set in an appropriate shrine, so fair, and pure, and dainty, was her person and her apparel.
She looked up with a slight smile as her liege lord's fretful ejaculation fell upon her ears.
"What person has been so unfortunate as to incur your displeasure?" she inquired.
"The artist of whom I purchased that splendid picture for the drawing-room—the last one, you know."
"Yes," she said, languidly; "and what has he done now?"
"I wanted him to paint your portrait, you know."
"Excuse me, I did not know," she returned.
"Oh no; I believe you did not. I think I failed to mention the matter to you. Well, he is the greatest artist in Rome—people are raving over his pictures. They say he has the most brilliant genius of his time."
"Is that why you are angry with him?" she asked, with a slight smile.
"No; oh, no. But I wrote to him and asked him to paint your portrait. I even offered to take you to Rome if he would not come to Paris."
"Well?"
"He had the impertinence to send me a cool refusal," said the colonel, irately.
"He did—and why?" asked Bonnibel, just a little piqued at the unknown artist.
"He did not like to paint portraits, he said—he preferred the ideal world of art. Did you ever hear of such a cool excuse?"
"We have no right to feel angry with him. He is, of course, the master of his own actions, and has undoubted right to his preferences," said Bonnibel, calmly.
But though she spoke so quietly, her womanly vanity was piqued by the unknown artist's cold refusal "to hand her sweetness down to fame."
"Who is he? What is his name?" she asked.
The colonel considered a moment.
"I have a wonderful faculty for forgetting names," he said. "Favart has told me his name several times—let me see—I think—yes, I am sure—it is Deane!"
"I should like to see him," she said, "I have always taken a great deal of interest in artists."
"You will be very apt to see him," said the colonel; "he is in Paris now—taking a holiday, Favart says. People are making quite a fuss over him and his friend—the artist from whom I bought the other fine picture, you know. You will be sure to meet them in society."
"Do you think so?" she asked, twirling the leaves of her book nervously. The mention of artists and pictures always agitated her strangely. She could not forget the young artist who had gone to Rome to earn fame and fortune and died so soon. Her cheek paled with emotion, and her eyes darkened with sadness under their drooping lashes of golden-brown.
"Yes, there is not a doubt of it," he said. "In fact, I suppose we shall have to invite them, too, though I do not relish it after the fellow's incivility. But it is the privilege of greatness to be crusty, I believe. Anyway, the fashionables are all feting and lionizing him, so we cannot well slight him. I shall have Monsieur Favart bring him and his friend to our ball next week. What do you say, my dear?"
"Send him a card by all means," she answered, "I am quite curious to see him."
"Perhaps he may repent his refusal when he sees how beautiful you are, my darling," said the colonel, with a fond, proud glance into her face. "His ideal world of art, as he calls it, cannot contain anything more lovely than yourself."
"You flatter me, Colonel Carlyle," she said lightly, but in her heart she knew that he had spoken truly. She had been afloat on the whirling tide of fashionable life now for several months, and praises and adulation had followed her everywhere. The gay Parisians went mad over her pure blonde loveliness. They said she was the most beautiful and refined woman in Paris, as well as the most cold and pure. She had begun to take a certain pleasure in the gaieties of the world and in the homage that followed her wherever she moved. These were the empty husks on which she had to feed her heart's hunger, and she was trying to find them sweet.
Colonel Carlyle's baleful jealousy had lain dormant or concealed even since he had taken his wife from school.
True, his arch-enemy, Felise Herbert, was in Paris, but for some reason of her own she had not as yet laid any serious pitfall for his unwary feet.
Perhaps she was only playing with him as the cat does with the little mouse before she ruthlessly murders it; perhaps Bonnibel's icy-cold manner and studied reserve to all made it harder to excite the old soldier's ever ready suspicion.
Be that as it may, life flowed on calmly if not happily to the colonel and his young wife.
They met Mrs. Arnold and her daughter frequently in their fashionable rounds, they invited them to their house, and received invitations in return, but though the colonel was cordial, his wife was cold and proud to the two women who had been so cruel to her and driven her into this unhappy marriage with a man old enough to be her grandfather. She could not forgive them for that cruel deed.
"I bide my time," Felise said to her mother one day when they were discussing the Carlyles. "I am giving her a little taste of the world's pleasures. I want her to fall in love with this life she is leading here. She will be tempted by its enticements and forget her coldness and prudishness. Then I shall strike."
"She is very circumspect," said Mrs. Arnold. "They say she is a model of virtue and beautiful wifely obedience."
"The higher she soars now the lower her fall shall be!" exclaimed the relentless girl, with her low, reckless laugh, "mother, I shall not fail of my revenge!"
Ah! Felise Herbert! The coils of fate are tightening around you like a deadly serpent while you exult in your wickedness.
CHAPTER XXVI
The gay, pleasure-loving Parisians were on the qui vive for Mrs. Carlyle's masquerade ball, for it was everywhere conceded that her entertainments were the most recherche and delightful in the whole city. Colonel Carlyle spared neither pains nor expense to render them so.
In his laudable desire to further Bonnibel's happiness, the colonel lavished gold like water. He knew no other path to success than this. He wanted to win her regard, if possible, and his experience in society had disposed him to believe that the most potent "open sesame" to a woman's heart was wealth and power.
How far the colonel's convictions were true, or how ably he might have succeeded in the darling wish of his heart, had things gone well, we shall never know, for the frail superstructure of his happiness, builded on the sand, was destined to be thrown down and shattered into fragments by the wild winds of fate, that should converge into storms on that fatal night to which so many looked forward with pleasure.
And yet not the faintest presentiment of evil came to him that day to whisper of the gathering clouds of destiny. He knew not that his "house of cards" tottered on its foundation, that the wreck and ruin of his dearest hope was about to be consummated. He knew not, or he might have exclaimed with the poet:
"Of all that life can teach us,
There's naught so true as this;
The winds of fate blow ever,
But ever blow amiss!"
The brief winter day came at length, gloomy and overcast, with clouded sky that overflowed with a wild, tempestuous rain, as though
"The heart of Heaven was breaking
In tears o'er the fallen earth."
At night the storm passed over, the bright stars shone through the misty veil of darkness, a lovely silver moon hung its crescent in the sky. All things seemed propitious for the hour that was "big with fate" to the lovely girl whose changing fortunes we have followed to the turning point of her life.
Cold, and dark, and gloomy though it seemed outside, all was light, and warmth, and summer in the splendid chateau.
Hot-house flowers bloomed everywhere in the most lavish profusion. The air was heavy with their fragrance.
Entrancing strains of music echoed through the splendid halls, tempting light feet to the gay whirl of the dance. The splendid drawing-rooms, opening into each other, looked like long vistas of fairy-land, in the glow of light, and the beauty shed around by countless flowers overflowing great marble vases everywhere. The gay masquers moved through the entrancing scene, chatting, laughing, dancing, as though life itself were but one long revel. In the banqueting hall the long tables were loaded with every luxury under the sun, temptingly spread on gold and silver plates. Nothing that taste could devise, or wealth could procure, was lacking for the enjoyment of the guests; and pleasure reigned supreme.
It was almost the hour for unmasking, and Colonel Carlyle stood alone, half hidden by a crimson-satin curtain, looking on idly at the gay dancers before him.
He felt weary and dull, though he would not have owned it for the world. He hated to feel the weakness and feebleness of old age creeping over him, as it was too surely doing, and affected to enter into all the gaieties of the season, with the zest and ardor of a younger and stronger man.
He had for a few moments felt dull, sad and discontented. The reason was because he had lost sight of his beautiful idol whom no mask could hide from his loving eyes.
She had disappeared in the moving throng a little while ago, and now he impatiently waited until some happy chance should restore her to his sight again.
"I am very foolish over my darling," he said to himself, half proudly, half seriously. "I do not believe that any young man could worship her as passionately as I do. I watch over her as closely and jealously as if some dread mischance might remove her from my sight at any moment. Ah, those dreadful two years in which I so cruelly put her out of my life and starved my eyes and my heart—would that I might recall them and undo their work! Those years of separation and repentance have sadly aged me!"
He sighed heavily, and again his anxious gaze roved through the room.
"Ah, there she is," he murmured, delightedly. "My beautiful Bonnibel! how I wish the time for unmasking would come. I cannot bear for her sweet face to be hidden from my sight."
At that moment a small hand fluttered down upon his arm.
He turned abruptly.
Beside him stood a woman whose dark eyes shone through her concealing mask like coals of fire. She spoke in a low, unfamiliar voice:
"I know you, sir. Your mask cannot hide Colonel Carlyle from my eyes."
"Madam, you have the advantage of me," he answered politely. "Will you accord me the privilege of your name?"
"It matters not," she answered, with a low, eerie laugh, whose strangeness sent a cold thrill like an icy chill along his veins, "I am but a wandering sibyl; I claim no name, no country."
"Perhaps you will foretell my future," he said, humoring her assumption of the character.
"It were best concealed," she said, and again he heard that strange, blood-curdling laugh.
He bowed and stood gazing at her silently, wondering a little who she could be.
The wandering sibyl stood silent, too, as if lost in thought. Presently she started and spoke like one waking from a dream:
"And yet perhaps I may give you a word of warning."
"Pray do so," he answered carelessly, for his eyes had returned to the graceful form of Bonnibel as she stood leaning against a tall stand of flowers at a little distance from him.
The woman's eyes followed his. She frowned darkly beneath her mask.
"You have gathered many distinguished guests around you to-night, Colonel Carlyle," she said, abruptly.
"None more honored than yourself, madam, be sure, although unknown," he answered, with a courtly bow.
"Pretty words," she answered, with a mocking laugh. "Let me repay them by a friendly warning."
She bent nearer and breathed in a low, sibilant whisper:
"Your wife and the great artist who is your honored guest to-night, were lovers long ago. Watch well how they meet when unmasked to-night!"
With the words she glided from him like the serpent forsaking Eden.
And that deadly serpent, jealousy, that had lain dormant in the colonel's heart for months, "scotched but not killed," now coiled itself anew for a fatal spring.
The blood in his veins seemed turning to liquid fire.
His heart beat so wildly that he could distinctly hear its rapid throbs.
He felt frightened at the swiftness and violence of the passion that flooded his whole being.
The words spoken by the masked woman seemed to burn themselves into his heart.
"Your wife and the great artist who is your honored guest to-night were lovers long ago. Watch well how they meet when unmasked to-night."
For a moment Reason tried to assert her supremacy, and whisper, "Peace, be still," to the seething whirlpool of emotion.
"Do not believe it," she said. "Someone is trying to tease you. It is quite impossible that Bonnibel and this foreign artist should have met before. Anonymous warnings should always be treated with contempt."
And then he remembered the anonymous note he had received at Long Branch two years before.
"That was true," he said to himself. "Bonnibel as good as admitted it, for she would not show me the inscription in the ring, and she refused to give up wearing it. But she said that the giver was dead. Had she had two lovers, then, innocent and youthful as she was? Perhaps she deceived me. Women are not to be trusted, they say. I will obey the warning of my unknown friend and watch."
He waited impatiently for the summons to supper, which would be the signal for laying aside the masks.
"It must be true," he said to himself, "for that would explain why he was so discourteous about painting her portrait. He did not wish to be thrown into familiar contact with her again. Perhaps she had used him cruelly. It may be that she threw him over because he was poor and unknown, then, and accepted me only for the sake of my wealth."
He was nearly maddened by these tumultuous thoughts. He was almost on the point of going to her at once and overwhelming her with the accusation of her wrong-doing.
At that moment the signal came and his guests unmasked.
He saw Monsieur Favart coming toward him accompanied by a handsome distinguished-looking young man in the costume of a knight. He had never met the great Roman artist, yet he felt a quick intuition that this must be the man. The premonition was verified for Monsieur Favart paused before him and said:
"Colonel Carlyle, it gives me pleasure to present my artist friend, Mr. Dane."
The two gentlemen bowed to each other, but for a moment Colonel Carlyle could not speak. When he did his voice was hoarse and strained, and his words of welcome were so few that Monsieur Favart looked at him in surprise. What had become of the old colonel's urbanity and courtliness?
"You will allow me to present you to my wife, Mr. Dane," said the host, breaking the silence with an effort.
The artist bowed and they moved down the long room side by side, the old man with his white face and silvery beard, the young one with his princely grace and refined beauty.
Leslie Dane had been most reluctant to attend the ball given by the American colonel, but Carl Muller had teased him into compliance. He had nerved himself for the trial, and found that he could bear the contact with one from his native land with more sang froid than he expected.
"Now I shall see the old lady," was his half-smiling comment to himself as he walked along. "I wonder if she is very angry with me because I would not paint her portrait."
The next moment, before he had time to raise his eyes, he found himself bowing hurriedly at the sound of his host's voice uttering the usual formal words of introduction.
Bonnibel was standing alone by a tall jardiniere of flowers, looking downward a little thoughtfully. She was dressed as Undine, in a floating robe of sea-green, with billows of snowy tulle, looped with water-lilies and sea-grasses, and lightly embroidered with pearls and tiny sea-shells. Her appropriate ornaments were aquamarines in a setting of golden shells. Her long, golden hair fell unbound over her shoulders and rippled to her waist, enveloping her form in a halo of brightness. She looked like a beautiful siren of old ocean, as fair and fresh and beautiful as Venus when she first arose from its coral caves.
Someone had said to her just a moment before, "Mrs. Carlyle, you look like a beautiful picture," and the words had recalled to her mind the great artist who had refused to paint her portrait.
"I wonder if Mr. Deane is here to-night," she was thinking, when Colonel Carlyle's voice spoke suddenly beside her, and she bowed haughtily, actuated by a little feeling of pique, and lifted her sea-blue eyes to the face of the artist. She met his gaze fixed steadily upon her with a look of utter surprise, bitter pain and bitterer scorn upon his deathly pale face. In an instant the tide of time rolled backward and these two, standing face to face the first time in years, knew each other!
Ah, me! how could she bear the revelation that flashed over her so swiftly, and live through its horror, its shame and disgrace! The words she had been about to speak died unuttered on her lips, the lights, the flowers, the stern, set face of Leslie Dane, all swam before her eyes as things "seen in a glass, darkly." She threw up her hands blindly and reeled backward, striking against the light jardiniere as she fell. It was overturned by the shock, and scattered its wealth of flowers about her as she lay there unconscious, as beautiful, as fragile, as innocent as they.
For a moment neither Colonel Carlyle nor Leslie Dane moved or spoke. It was a third person who pushed past them and lifted the fair, inanimate form. For Colonel Carlyle, there was murder seething in his jealous heart that moment, and in the breast of Leslie Dane a grand scorn was strangling every emotion of pity.
"Falser than all fancy fathoms,
Falser than all songs have sung,"
was the thought in his heart as he looked down on the pale and lifeless face.
People crowded around, with advice and restoratives, and as she came back slowly to life they asked her what had caused her to faint. Was she ill, were the flowers too overpowering, were the rooms too warm?
"I struck my head against the jardiniere and fell," was all she would say as she hid her pale face in her hands to shut out the sight of the cold, calm eyes that looked down upon her with veiled scorn.
Colonel Carlyle revived sufficiently to lead her away to her room, and people told each other that an accident had happened to Mrs. Carlyle. She had struck her head against the jardiniere of flowers and fainted from the pain.
