Checkmate. Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan
found an antipathy, he wisely chose to see it not – and chatting gaily, followed Lady May to the window.
But Vivian Darnley, though he said nothing, saw that blush, of which Alice, with a sort of haughty defiance, was conscious. It did not make him like or admire Mr. Longcluse more.
“Well, I suppose he is very charming – I don't know him well enough myself to give an opinion. But he makes his acquaintances rather oddly, doesn't he? I don't think any one will dispute that.”
“I don't know really. Lady May introduced him to me, and she seems to like him very much. So far as I can see, people are very well pleased at knowing him, and don't trouble their heads as to how it came about,” said Miss Arden.
“No, of course; but people not fortunate enough to come within the influence of his fascination, can't help observing. How did he come to know your brother, for instance? Did any one introduce him? Nothing of the kind. Richard's horse was hurt or lame at one of the hunts in Warwickshire, and he lent him a horse, and introduced himself, and they dined together that evening on the way back, and so the thing was done.”
“Can there be a better introduction than a kindness?” asked Alice.
“Yes, where it is a kindness, I agree; but no one has a right to push his services upon a stranger who does not ask for them.”
“I really can't see. Richard need not have taken his horse if he had not liked,” she answered.
“And Lady May, who thinks him such a paragon, knows no more about him than any one else. She had her footman behind her – didn't she tell you all about it?”
“I really don't recollect; but does it very much matter?”
“I think it does – that is, it has been a sort of system. He just gave her his arm over a crossing, where she had taken fright, and then pretended to think her a great deal more frightened than she really can have been, and made her sit down to recover in a confectioner's shop, and so saw her home, and that affair was concluded. I don't say, of course, that he is never introduced in the regular way; but a year or two ago, when he was beginning, he always made his approaches by means of that kind of stratagem; and the fact is, no one knows anything on earth about him; he has emerged, like a figure in a phantasmagoria, from total darkness, and may lose himself in darkness again at any moment.”
“I am interested in that man, whoever he is; his entrance, and his probable exit, so nearly resemble mine,” said a clear, deep-toned voice close to them; and looking up, Miss Arden saw the pale face and peculiar smile of Mr. Longcluse in the fading twilight.
Mr. Longcluse was greeted by Lady May and by Richard Arden, and then again he drew near Alice, and said, “Do you recollect, Miss Arden, about ten days ago I told you a story that seemed to interest you – the story of a young and eloquent friar, who died of love in his cell in an abbey in the Tyrol, and whose ghost used to be seen pensively leaning on the pulpit from which he used to preach, too much thinking of the one beautiful face among his audience, which had enthralled him. I had left the enamel portrait I told you of at an artist's in Paris, and I wrote for it, thinking you might wish to see it – hoping you might care to see it,” he added, in a lower tone, observing that Vivian Darnley, who was not in a happy temper, had, with a sudden impulse of disdain, removed himself to another window, there to contemplate the muster of the stars in the darkening sky, at his leisure.
“That was so kind of you, Mr. Longcluse! You have had a great deal of trouble. It is such an interesting story!” said Alice.
In his reception, Mr. Longcluse found something that pleased, almost elated him. Had Richard Arden been speaking to her on the subject of their morning's conversation? He thought not, Lady May had mentioned that he had not been with them till just twenty minutes ago, and Arden had told him that he had dined with his uncle David and Mr. Blount, upon the same business on which he had been occupied with both nearly all day. No, he could not have spoken to her. The slight change which made him so tumultuously proud and happy, was entirely spontaneous.
“So it seemed to me – an eccentric and interesting story – but pray do not wound me by speaking of trouble. I only wish you knew half the pleasure it has been to me to get it to show you. May I hold the lamp near for a moment while you look at it?” he said, indicating a tiny lamp which stood on a pier-table, showing a solitary gleam, like a lighthouse, through the gloom; “you could not possibly see it in this faint twilight.”
The lady assented. Had Mr. Longcluse ever felt happier?
CHAPTER XI
THE TELEGRAM ARRIVES
Mr. Longcluse placed the little oval enamel, set in gold, in Miss Arden's fingers, and held the lamp beside her while she looked.
“How beautiful! – how very interesting!” she exclaimed. “What suffering in those thin, handsome features! What a strange enthusiasm in those large hazel eyes! I could fancy that monk the maddest of lovers, the most chivalric of saints. And did he really suffer that incredible fate? Did he really die of love?”
“So they say. But why incredible? I can quite imagine that wild shipwreck, seeing what a raging sea love is, and how frail even the strongest life.”
“Well, I can't say, I am sure. But your own novelists laugh at the idea of any but women – whose business it is, of course, to pay that tribute to their superiors – dying of love. But if any man could die such a death, he must be such as this picture represents. What a wild, agonised picture of passion and asceticism! What suicidal devotion and melancholy rapture! I confess I could almost fall in love with that picture myself.”
“And I think, were I he, I could altogether die to earn one such sentence, so spoken,” said Mr. Longcluse.
“Could you lend it to me for a very few days?” asked the young lady.
“As many – as long as you please. I am only too happy.”
“I should so like to make a large drawing of this in chalks!” said Alice, still gazing on the miniature.
“You draw so beautifully in chalks! Your style is not often found here – your colouring is so fine.”
“Do you really think so?”
“You must know it, Miss Arden. You are too good an artist not to suspect what everyone else must see, the real excellence of your drawings. Your colouring is better understood in France. Your master, I fancy, was a Frenchman?” said Mr. Longcluse.
“Yes, he was, and we got on very well together. Some of his young lady pupils were very much afraid of him.”
“Your poetry is fired by that picture, Miss Arden. Your copy will be a finer thing than the original,” said he.
“I shall aim only at making it a faithful copy; and if I can accomplish anything like that, I shall be only too glad.”
“I hope you will allow me to see it?” pleaded Longcluse.
“Oh, certainly,” she laughed. “Only I'm a little afraid of you, Mr. Longcluse.”
“What can you mean, Miss Arden?”
“I mean, you are so good a critic in art, every one says, that I really am afraid of you,” answered the young lady, laughing.
“I should be very glad to forfeit any little knowledge I have, if it were attended with such a misfortune,” said Longcluse. “But I don't flatter; I tell you truly, a critic has only to admire, when he looks at your drawings; they are quite above the level of an amateur's work.”
“Well, whether you mean it or not, I am very much flattered,” she laughed. “And though wise people say that flattery spoils one, I can't help thinking it very agreeable to be flattered.”
At this point of the dialogue Mr. Vivian Darnley – who wished that it should be plain to all, and to one in particular, that he did not care the least what was going on in other parts of the room – began to stumble through the treble of a tune at the piano with his right hand. And whatever other people may have thought of his performance, to Miss Alice Arden it seemed very good music indeed,