it was not very long after this that frank renton was accosted by one of his friends in the regiment with what seemed to him a very odd sort of request. ‘look here, frank,’ said young edgbaston, who was a son,—it is unnecessary to add,—of lord brummagem, and a very popular, good-natured young fellow, ‘i’ve promised to produce you at the riches’, where i am going to lunch. don’t struggle, my boy. they are going to have your brother laurie, and you must come.’
‘my brother laurie!’ cried frank in amazement. ‘and who are the riches; and what do they want me for? i never heard of the people that i know of. i suppose it is one of your jokes?’
‘it’s very witty to be sure,’ said edgbaston, ‘but it is not one of my jokes. papa rich is something in the city. he was a cheesemonger once upon a time, i believe; but that’s all left behind long ago. alf rich, of the buffs, is one of his sons. you know alf. he gives capital dinners and eke lunch{153}eons. and they’re all intensely jolly, from the pater down to little nelly. come along. i promised to bring you. and you’ll meet your brother, if that’s any inducement. old rich told me he was to be there.’
‘laurie to be there! i don’t understand it,’ said frank.
‘old rich buys pictures to no end,’ said edgbaston; ‘perhaps that’s why your brother’s going; or perhaps he’s after little nelly. and not a bad speculation either, i can tell you. she’s a nice little girl;—and heaps, cartloads, mountains of tin. if laurie don’t go in for that style of thing, i’d recommend it to your own consideration.’
‘if it’s so desirable, why do you let it go among your friends in this liberal way?’ said frank. ‘it’s not in laurie’s line, i fear,’ he added with a sigh. to tell the truth, the conditions and prospects of his elder brothers lay much on frank’s mind. he felt easy about himself; but he disapproved of the others, especially laurie, whom everybody had disapproved of from his cradle,—and felt that he was in a bad way.
‘then come along, and try your luck, my boy,’ said his friend. and the consequence was that by noon frank and half-a-dozen more were flying over the green, balmy, awakening country on edgbaston’s drag. they were all in high spirits, with that delightful sense of fulfilling every duty that can be{154} looked for from a guardsman which is the soul of pleasure. and frank renton, puritanical as he had been in respect to his brother laurie and alice severn, was soon chatting about ‘little nell,’ whom he had never seen, as familiarly as any of them. so that it is evident stern principle alone was not involved in his displeasure with his brother. the young men were not at all contemptuous of the good things to be had at richmont; but the family who were to receive them there did not count for much. old rich spent his money freely to give them pleasure, and got laughed at for his pains; mamma rich, or rich mère, as they call her, was not much more respectfully treated; and as for nelly rich, her name was bandied about from mouth to mouth with the most unscrupulous ease. ‘if i were you, so-and-so, i’d certainly go in for little nell,’ one and another of those lively youths would say from time to time. she had ‘heaps of tin’—that was her grand characteristic,—and was evidently ready to drop into anybody’s arms who should do her the honour to hold them out to her. but the talk was a matter of course, not meaning half that it seemed to mean. and half at least of her critics were dumb before nelly, and had an unfeigned dread of her keen little bright eyes and sharp speeches. richmont itself was a big house in a big park, conveying to the ordinary spectator no sense of present incongruity with its past. the old part of the mansion was in the east{155} wing, and not visible from the front, and all that could be seen by the party in the drag was the vast white modern fa?ade, very fresh and clean as yet, with great plate-glass windows, and a wide hospitable door, opening into a hall with scagliola pillars. at this door old rich stood, waving his hand in sign of welcome. the flower-beds on the lawn were already full of every bright thing which could be had at the season, and the whole place was alit and alive with wealth, and warmth, and movement. ‘to think that a fine old place like this should drop into the greasy hands of an old cheesemonger!’ said one of the men as they drove through the leafy avenue. but they were all quite willing to be the cheesemonger’s guests, and to drink his wine, and enjoy the good things his greasy gold had provided.
‘glad to see you all,’ shouted mr. rich; ‘delighted we’ve got such a fine day; almost good enough for croquet, it appears to me. good morning, my lord. oh, any friend of yours! ah-ha, mr. frank renton,’ stretching forth his hand with a cordiality which took frank by surprise, ‘now i call this kind. had everything been as it ought to be, of course we’d have met before now,—country neighbours, you know. your brother has just come by the last train with a friend of his, a wonderful clever fellow from town. he’s too much of a swell himself ever to paint much, eh? but he’s hand and glove with all of them. come along up-stairs, and i’ll take you to him. lord{156} edgbaston, you know your way to the drawing-room. mrs. rich will be delighted to see you; and i trust to you not to let my nelly leave the room till i send for her. i mean to give the child a little surprise,’ added the millionnaire, rubbing his fat hands. ‘come along, mr. renton.’ frank followed in a state of partial stupefaction. what reason there could be for this old fellow’s cordiality; why he should leave a live lord to find his own way up-stairs and conduct him, frank renton, instead; why laurie should be here; what he had to do with the surprise mr. rich was going to give his child;—all these were mysteries to frank. he seemed to have gone into an enchanted house. had mr. rich taken him aside and offered him his daughter’s hand and fortune on the spot, his surprise would scarcely have been increased. was this what it meant? or if it was not this, what did it mean?
the rentons and the beauchamps had been friends in the old days, and frank knew the house through which he was being guided almost as well, perhaps, as the owner of it did, who walked before him, looking not half so imposing as his own butler. frank, who had a good deal of prudence for so young a man, thought it would be better on the whole to say nothing about this; but when his host preceded him through passage after passage, and up one short flight of stairs after another, surprise got the better of him.{157}
‘we must be going to the music-room, i suppose,’ he said; ‘this is the way;’ for the new master paused uncertain between two turns.
‘that’s about it,’ said mr. rich; ‘droll though, to see a stranger know one’s house better than one does oneself. i suppose you were a deal here in the time of the old people? very nice people according to all i hear. but, you know, i didn’t turn them out. bought the place at a fair price, as anybody else might have done. it was their doing, not mine. ah! it’s a sad thing to outrun the constable, mr. frank. it should be a lesson to you as a young man.’
‘i am just going off to india,’ said frank, determined, at least, to let his new acquaintance know that little was to be made of him in the way of society, ‘and i shall not have much chance.’
‘to india, eh?’ said mr. rich, with an unchanged tone. clearly after all, he did not mean to offer the young guardsman on the spot his daughter and her fortune. ‘india’s a fine thing at your age. my eldest boy went off a dozen years ago, when we were not quite so well off as we are now; and he’s coming home this summer, please god. if you had been at home we might have had no end of jolly meetings; but your mother goes out nowhere, i hear.’
‘not now,’ said frank; ‘my mother is a great invalid.’ and there was something in his tone which betrayed a certain offence,—what right had this{158} man to speak of his mother? and this tone conveyed itself at once to the other’s lively ear.
‘ah, well! she has a right to please herself,’ said mr. rich. ‘here we are at last. halloo, gentlemen, i hope it fits. i wouldn’t have it too large or too small for a hundred pounds.’
‘never fear, it will fit beautifully,—i knew it would,’ cried laurie’s voice from behind a great picture, which was being hoisted into its place. after having been rather splendid and haughty about his mother to this commonplace individual, who had no right to hope for her acquaintance, it must be admitted that it gave frank a pang to find his brother as busy as a workman, and quite at his ease in his occupation, putting up mr. rich’s pictures. here was something worse even than laurie’s slovenly ways and contented relapse into lower life. when a man has a brother in the guards he owes it, if not to himself, at least to his relations, to remember that he is a gentleman. and to play the fool in such a house as this was worse than anything, with all those fellows below to tell each other how sadly frank renton’s brother, ‘the artist fellow,’ had fallen back in the world.
‘i did not know my brother was in the habit of carrying home his work,’ he said, with a certain savage irony. but laurie did not hear this speech, and mr. rich, who did hear it, took no notice. there was nothing for it but to stand and stare at the daub as it was raised to its place. in the middle of the floor, in{159} front of it, stood a bearded stranger, whom frank did not know, nor care to know. he was watching the progress of the picture with anxious interest. was it laurie’s picture? whether it were or not, laurie condescending to make a carpenter of himself for the moment was a sight which shocked his brother much. he strode away to the end window, and gazed out to show his indifference, with a soft whistle of impatience, which would have made itself into words anything but soft had circumstances permitted. but nobody remarked either his impatience or his anger. the room was long and not very broad, and the panel in which the picture was being placed was immediately opposite the gilded pipes of a chamber organ, which was let into the wall. to be sure, if it had been a picture of chorister boys instead of little barbarians it would have been more harmonious with the place; but suffolk’s angles shone out of the dark wall like positive sunshine. there were three broad mullioned windows in one end of the room, and at the other a great east window full of heraldic designs in painted glass,—the arms of the beauchamps and their connexions. under this blaze of colour, on either side, the panels were carved, running into little pinnacles and canopy work of a semi-ecclesiastical kind. it had been, indeed, a chapel in the early ages, when the beauchamps were catholic. a few high-backed, heavy, oak chairs were all the furniture in it now, except quite at the west end of the room, near where{160} the picture was being placed, where a grand piano stood under one window, and a small easel in the other. this picturesque place, in which priests in glittering vestments, and knights in steel, and ladies in flowing robes, would have been the natural actors, was now the music-room in richmont, occupied chiefly by the ex-cheesemonger’s daughter,—an out-of-the-way place in which she could pursue her occupations as she pleased. reflections, not exactly to this effect, but of a somewhat similar meaning, were in frank’s mind as he turned with disgust from his unconscious brother. the poor beauchamps!—who had the best blood in england in their veins, and were now vegetating at all sorts of wretched continental baths and watering-places. to be sure, old beauchamp was a blackleg, and his wife no better than she should be,—and the music-room, when frank knew it, had been a lumber-room and play-room, dear to the children, though nobody thought anything about its picturesqueness. still, those were the beauchamps, and these riches,—and what a falling off was there! frank was full of these thoughts, and in a very discontented mind generally, not condescending to look at the picture with which all the rest were absorbed, when laurie emerged from behind the frame, and, to his amazement, saw that it was his brother who interrupted the light in the middle window. it was a kind of bay window, projecting just a little out beyond the line of the others, and in it{161} there stood a low chair covered with old brocade, and a small table with a vase of fresh spring flowers. frank had not noticed these little accessories, but laurie, having the eye of an artist, took them in at a glance. somehow frank’s attitude, standing between the low chair and the little table, suggested ideas to laurie’s mind of a different kind from those which moved his brother. this was the favourite haunt of the millionnaire’s daughter. the chair was hers, and the flowers, and the book which lay on the ledge of the window; and royalborough was close at hand, not too far for a young soldier to ride over any day. could frank be nelly rich’s property too?
‘frank!’ cried laurie, ‘you here! who could have dreamt of seeing you?’
‘i have more reason to say so,’ said frank. ‘we are quartered close by; but what can you be doing carpentering in a house like this? perhaps that’s the branch of art you have taken to at last,’ the guardsman continued with a sneer. as for laurie, he had been good-natured from his cradle, and laughed at this little ebullition.
‘not quite,’ he said. ‘come and look at the picture. of course, i know you don’t know anything about it; but so long as you have eyes you may look, at least. what games we used to have up here! is the goddess worthy of the shrine now?’ he added, glancing up with a little curiosity into the young soldier’s face.{162}
‘i don’t know what you mean by shrines and goddesses,’ said frank, still angry; ‘but i do think, for the sake of your friends, if not for your own, you ought to mind what you’re about, and not be so very complaisant in the house of a cad like this.’
‘hush!’ said laurie, ‘don’t call names, my big brother. what have i been doing, i wonder, to come under your great displeasure? dust on my coat, is it?’ and laurie suddenly bethought himself of the cobwebs which he had hoped the padrona might have brushed off for him; and stopped short, the foolish fellow, and smiled and sighed.
‘dust!’ cried frank, indignantly. ‘i wonder you did not take it off to do your work the better. it would have been the right thing to do.’
‘and so it would,’ said laurie; ‘i will recollect another time. but come along, old fellow, and look at the picture, and don’t make yourself so disagreeable. old rich has sent for his daughter, and we can’t go on squaring before a lady. stand here, and look at it well.’
‘is it yours?’ said the reluctant frank. and laurie laughed and shook his head.
‘he asks if it is mine,’ he said; ‘there’s a guardsman’s idea of the possibilities, suffolk! you might as well have asked if that madonna was mine.’
‘well, and what if i had?’ said frank, stoutly, in his ignorance—and went and stared with a deter{163}mination to see nothing. the three figures were standing thus grouped,—frank looking at the picture, and suffolk, who had taken no part in the conversation, looking with mild surprise at the natural curiosity called a guardsman of which he knew little more than the other did about the angles,—when mr. rich came back triumphant with his daughter. they made a curious centre to the room, from which, by this time, the workmen who had been placing the picture had disappeared, leaving them alone. frank, the very impersonation of scepticism and critical ignorance, stood with his face turned upward to the angles, and defiance and disdain in the very attitude of his feet resentfully planted on the polished oaken floor. suffolk, turning round and round in his fingers the rule which one of the workmen had left behind him, stood half a step behind, looking at frank, with the faintest of smiles on his face, and that curious faculty of seeing, which never deserts a true painter, somehow making itself visible in his eyes. he was not studying the figure which thus defiantly posed before him, and yet there was an amusing consciousness of the pose, and of all expressed by it, in his look. frank was so unaware of this, and laurie, as he recognised it, became so divided between sympathy with his brother and amusement with his friend, that the three faces made a very curious group; and so nelly rich thought as she came into the room, not knowing why it was that{164} her father had brought her here. she was followed by the entire party, mrs. rich leading the way, and leaning her substantial weight on edgbaston’s arm. she had but a minute to notice the group, but it made an impression on her; and curiously enough,—or, perhaps not curiously,—nelly’s sympathies fixed upon frank in the moment she had to identify him. the others were laughing at him, and he was young and single-handed, and,—so handsome. nelly rich piqued herself upon being intellectual and fond of art; and yet it was neither the painter nor the amateur that caught her eyes; it was the ignorant, unintellectual, handsome young guardsman, which no doubt was quite natural in a way.
she gave a cry of wonder and delight when she saw the picture; but the kind father, to whom that cry was music, had made a mistake by bringing the party with him. after the first outburst nelly retreated and was silent. she was not the kind of nelly rich whom either frank or laurie renton had expected to see. anything more unlike the portly, comely mother who came in after her, sweeping her gorgeous skirts all over the brown oak floor, could not be conceived. nelly was very small; she had the figure and the foot of a fairy; and how her dark, clear, olive complexion,—her hair so dark as to be almost black,—her brilliant dark-brown eyes,—could have been derived from the two ruddy, roundabout people beside her, was a puzzle to everybody. she{165} might have been a fairy changeling, but that her small figure was perfect in form, and instinct with life, health, and activity. she was as plainly dressed as her mother was gorgeous, with a black gown and knots of crimson ribbons, like a spaniard, which, indeed, was the most becoming dress she could have chosen. and she was not a timid maiden generally, taking shelter from the crowd; but a creature quite able to express herself and defend herself. nevertheless she stepped aside as her mother entered on edgbaston’s arm, and said not a word more about the picture. the party invaded the music-room, filling it with noise and movement. the scene was changed. it was no longer a retired, half-solemn place, full of associations of the past, and one soft, pleasant suggestion of the present conveyed by the fresh flowers, the instruments, the little easel, and the book, which harmonised everything; but a show place, with vulgar sightseers and a vulgar showman,—vulgar, though the visitors came of blood to which no objection could be taken. they gazed at the painted window, and at the carved oak, and at the pictures, alike with suppressed yawns, and referred stealthily to their watches, wondering when luncheon would be announced. suffolk, who was the only stranger whom no one knew, stood aside, and looked on with a certain indignation. his picture, newly placed, newly arrived,—a picture which academicians had condescended to praise, and the ‘sword{166}’ had noticed favourably,—should have been, no one could doubt, the chief thing to be noticed; but what the newcomers did was to cast a careless glance at it, and say, ‘ah! oh! pretty thing, to be sure,’ and turn their backs with that unspeakable calm of indifference which galls the artist mind beyond endurance. ‘like old woodland’s style, ain’t it?’ said edgbaston, with his glass in his eye. if there was one man or painter whom suffolk regarded with especial contempt it was old woodland! the painter turned to the window stung and smarting all over, and tried to look out; and then one of the young men found a sketch upon nelly’s little easel, and went into ecstasies over it. they all crowded, a mass of tall heads, to look at it with an interest which no one had dreamt of showing in the angles. ‘parcel of empty-headed coxcombs!’ suffolk said to himself; and then certain reflections overtook him as to the kind of people who were likely to see his work where it was now placed. was not the guardsman the very highest possible class of visitor who could come to richmont; and was this all for which he had spent his brains and his strength? he had turned, and was looking with the most curious wonder and contempt upon the group round nelly’s easel. could he help being contemptuous? the sketch was an unobtrusive little performance, pretending nothing, and not meaning much. and it was for such eyes as these that he had painted his picture! he was thinking so with a{167} certain bitterness, when nelly herself, with a little rush, penetrated the group, and, seizing upon the harmless drawing they were gazing at, thrust it before their eyes into a portfolio.
‘it is not worth a glance,’ she cried; ‘it’s a bit of waste paper. oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t stare, and make me ashamed of myself before mr. suffolk! it was the picture you came to see.’
‘i came because you were coming,’ said one of the young men.
‘oh, never mind the picture. come and show us what you have here,’ said another, laying his hand on the portfolio. this was how they talked, with suffolk looking on. as for nelly, her cheeks grew crimson. she was not, as we have said, a timid maiden; and she was given to speaking her mind, as even these gentlemen knew.
‘yes,’ she said, with her eyes sparkling; ‘to be sure, you know best. you shall have the portfolio to look at—art brought down to the meanest capacity. i might have known that would be the most suitable for you; and, mr. suffolk, come and tell me about it,’ she said softly, turning to the painter. she held out her hand, that he might offer her his arm, and led him, in spite of himself, opposite to the poor picture which had been so scorned. ‘i want to clear them all away, those stupid men,’ said nelly, confidentially. ‘i hate young men; they are all so idiotic. mr. suffolk, when i look at this i could cry, out of envy{168} and spite. how is it you can do it?—and i work and work and can’t do anything. i would give my head if i could paint only that little bit of a tree; and i suppose you never gave it a thought?’ she said, turning the brilliant brown eyes upon him. ‘tell me about it, please; for it will be my chief friend, and live with me all day long.’
‘what am i to tell you, miss rich?’ said the painter, taken by surprise, and yet standing on his dignity still.
and then nelly gazed at the angles for at least a minute in silence, holding his arm. ‘it does not matter,’ she said, at last, with a long-drawn breath of satisfaction,—‘i shall learn it all from their faces. you must know, i live in this room, and they will never ask me what they are to tell me. i shall find out all their story in little bits. that one is quite happy to have so much change and variety, and to feel himself in rome,—you painted him when you were happy, mr. suffolk; and that one is thinking of home,—something had happened to you then. i shall find it all out by degrees. those men don’t find themselves so happy as they thought they would be over the portfolio,’ she broke off suddenly, with a little laugh; ‘but please to remember i have got eyes, and there are other people besides guardsmen who come here sometimes. mamma, i hear the bell for luncheon; please take all those men away.’
‘you must not be shocked with nelly, mr.{169} suffolk,’ said mrs. rich. ‘i have told her all about your charming little wife, so she knows she need not be afraid to speak to you; and that’s her way, making up all that nonsense about the pictures she likes. i think it looks perfectly charming, now that it is in its place. nelly, this is mr. renton, whom i told you of. he is such a friend of mrs. severn’s; and this is mr. frank renton; neighbours of ours, you know, when they are at home, and cousins to that nice miss westbury you made acquaintance with the other day,—such a nice, lady-like girl. but i hear the bell. i am sure you must all be quite hungry after your long drive.’
‘yes, come along,’ said mr. rich; ‘come along, and let us have something to eat. nothing like art for giving one an appetite. i am as hungry as a hunter. all with getting up suffolk’s lovely picture! gem of my collection, i call it, though i have half-a-dozen crowquills down-stairs, which i’ll show you after lunch. come along, gentlemen. as for nelly, you know, and the painter, they’ll follow. ladies and men of genius don’t want to eat like us common mortals. come along, come along,’ said the millionnaire, his voice dying off in the passage. the two rentons, who had just been presented to nelly, stood by her, waiting till she led the way; and nelly, for her part, had no inclination to lead the way. she had got rid of ‘those stupid men,’ and she was rather in the humour for a little talk.{170}
‘now they’re gone one can breathe,’ she said, with complimentary confidentialness. ‘we need not go down just yet. please, mr. renton, tell me about the severns. you are grand people, and i don’t suppose miss westbury would like it if i quoted her as an acquaintance; but i may ask about the severns. do you know them too?’
‘i have only seen them once,’ said frank; ‘but i don’t think you do mary westbury justice. i am sure she would be charmed——’
‘tell me about the severns, please,’ said nelly, with a little wave of her hand.
then there was a pause, which nobody could have explained. laurie, it is true, knew very well why it was that he, excited and confused as he was, should feel himself unable to speak of the padrona; but why could not frank answer so simple a question? in the meanwhile frank, on his side, saw suddenly before him, as in a vision, that picture of alice standing in the doorway, with all the shadows round her, and felt his lips sealed, and could not speak.
‘if these gentlemen will not tell me anything,’ said nelly, ‘mr. suffolk, speak. i’m sure you know them too.’
‘i have only seen them once,’ repeated frank, hastily. ‘miss severn plays like—st. cecilia. i have not heard anything like her playing for a hundred years.{171}’
‘well,’ said nelly, shrugging her shoulders, ‘here is one fact elicited by dint of inquiry. miss severn—that is, i suppose, alice, who was a little darling when i saw her last—plays. i don’t care so much for playing as i ought to do. and i wanted to hear of the padrona and all the little ones. couldn’t you tell me anything more, mr. renton? yes, i call her the padrona too. mr. severn used to give me a lesson sometimes—not for money, but for love. it may seem strange to you,’ said nelly, demurely, ‘but he was fond of me. and i am fond of her, and all of them. and alice plays! i suppose that is all one could ever get out of a man. if any one asks you about me, mr. frank renton, i know exactly what you will say: “miss rich—draws.” it is nice to be so concise, but oh, tell me about my pretty padrona, please!’ cried nelly, clasping her hands together, and turning appealing eyes to laurie. it was almost more than laurie’s composure could bear, for it was just at the moment after he had made his discovery, and was waiting to know what was to be done with him; and his heart was, so to speak, in his mouth.
‘she is as pretty as ever,’ said laurie, in that strange tone of suppressed emotion which makes itself almost more distinctly apparent than the plainest confession of feeling; ‘and i don’t think i could tell you how good she is. suffolk knows her. we cannot trust ourselves to speak of the padrona,’ said{172} laurie, nervously, ‘we people who live about the square.’
and then suffolk said something to the same purport in words, but in so different a tone as to throw the thrill in laurie’s voice into fuller relief. and nelly looked at him full in the face, not disguising the little gleams of discernment, half surprise, half mischief, in her eyes. this was the only sign about her of inferior breeding. she had not sufficient delicacy to conceal the enlightenment his tone had given her. she looked at him so that he felt he was discovered, and his face flamed with the sudden consciousness; and then she turned to frank, who was the particular mouse with which at the moment nelly felt disposed to play.
‘this room must have been made on purpose for miss severn, who plays,’ she said. ‘i should think anybody who was musical would be in paradise here. there is the organ and the piano, and in that closet there are harps, and sackbuts, and dulcimers, and all kinds of music. i shall ask alice severn to come to see me, and mr. frank renton shall come too, and hear her—play.’
‘i ask no better,’ said frank, responding to the challenge as became a guardsman. and nelly took them down-stairs, leaving the two graver, pre-occupied men to follow, and making frank her partner by some subtle sleight of hand. he was very much at home at richmont before the day was over. even{173} laurie remarked the rising flirtation, and laughed to himself in the midst of his own excitement at the possibility of his brother’s fortune coming in so easy a way. and his friends congratulated him on his success, and pledged him in bumpers when they got home. ‘i tell you, my boy, she has cartloads of tin,’ said edgbaston. ‘better that than going out to india.’ and as for frank, he did not deny to himself that on the whole, notwithstanding laurie’s undignified aspect, and mr. rich’s soap-boiling, or cheesemongering—which was it?—he had spent a very pleasant day.
