The Tiger Lily

“Oh, I shall be all right, Mirandy, my little lassie, as soon – ”

“Yes, that you will, sir, because you must get it done, you know. It is lovely.”

“Think so?” said Dale, who felt amused by the poor, thin, smutty little object’s interest in his welfare.

“Think so! Oh, there ain’t no thinking about it. I heard Mr Pacey tell Mr Leerondee that it was the best thing he ever see o’ yours. I do want you to get it done, sir. It seems such a pity for that big bit in the middle not to be painted.”

“Yes, girl; but it must wait.”

“Mr Dale, sir, you won’t think anything, will you?”

“Eh? What about?”

“’Cause of what I’m going to say, sir,” she said bashfully. “I do want you to get that picture well hung, sir, and make your fortune, and get to be a R.A.”

“Thank you. What were you going to say?”

“Only, sir, as I wouldn’t for any one else; no, not if it was for the Prince o’ Wales, or the Dook o’ Edinburgh hisself, but I would for you.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Dale, wondering at the girl’s manner.

“I meant, sir, as sooner – sooner – than you shouldn’t get that picture done and painted proper, I’d come and stand for that there figure myself.” Dale wanted to burst out laughing at the idea of the poor, ill-nurtured, grubby little creature becoming his model for the mature, graceful Juno; but there was so much genuine desire to help him, so much naïve innocency in the poor little drudge’s words, that he contained himself, and before he could think of how to refuse without hurting her feelings, there was a resonant double knock and ring at the front door.

“Why, if it ain’t the postman again,” cried the girl. “He was here just now. I know: it’s one o’ them mail letters, as they calls ’em, from foreign abroad.”

Keren-Happuch was right, for she came panting up directly with a thin paper envelope in her hand, branded “Boston, U.S.A.”

“For you, sir,” she said; and she looked at him wistfully, as in an emotional way he snatched the letter from her hand and pressed it to his lips.

“Salvation!” he muttered, as he turned away to go to the inner room. “God bless you, darling! You are with me once again. I never wanted you worse.”

“It’s from his sweetheart over acrost the seas,” said Keren-Happuch, as she spread her dirty apron on the balustrade, so as not to soil the mahogany with her hand as she leaned upon it to go down, sadly. “And he’s in love, too; that’s what’s the matter with him. Puss, puss, puss!”

There was a soft mew, and a dirty-white cat trotted up to meet her, and leaped up to climb to her thin shoulders, and then rub its head affectionately against her head, to the disarrangement of her dirty cap.

“Ah! don’t stick your claws through my thin clothes. – Yes,” she mused, “he’s in love. Wonder what people feel like who are in love, and whether anybody ’ll ever love me. Don’t suppose any one ever will: I’m such a poor-looking sort o’ thing. But it don’t matter. You like me, don’t you, puss? And them as is in love don’t seem to be very happy after all.”

Chapter Nine.

The Model

Armstrong Dale did not hear the door close. Picture – the Contessa – everything was forgotten, and for the time he was back in Boston. For he had thrown himself into a chair, and torn open the envelope. But he could not rest like that. He wanted room, and he came back to begin striding about his studio, reading as he walked.

But it did not seem to him like reading, for the words he scanned took life and light and tone as he grasped the pure, sweet, trusting words of the writer, breathing her intense love for the man to whom she had plighted her troth. And as in imagination he listened to the sweet breathings of her affection, and revelled in her homely prattle about those he knew, and her hopeful talk of the future, when he would have grown famous and returned home to the honours which would be showered upon him by his people – to the welcome for him in that one true throbbing heart, his own throbbed, too, heavily, and his eyes grew moist and dim.

“God bless you, darling!” he cried passionately; “you have saved me when I was tottering on the brink and ready to fall. The touch of your dear hand has drawn me back when all was over, as I thought. I will keep faith with you, Cornel. Forgive me, love! Heaven help me; how could I be so mad!”

There was a brightness directly after in his eyes, as he carefully bestowed the letter in his pocket-book and placed it in his breast.

“And they say the day of miracles is past, and that there is no magic in the world,” he cried proudly. “Poor fools! they don’t know. Lie there, little talisman. You are only a scrap of paper stained with ink, but you are a charm of the strongest magic. Bah! It was all a passing madness, and I have won. What a silly, weak, morbid state I was in,” he continued, as he stood in front of his picture, and snatched up palette and brushes. “Why, Cornel darling, you have burned up all the clouds with the bright sun of your dear love. And I can finish you now, my good old daub. Jupiter can easily have that hang-dog, cowardly, found-out look imported into his phiz. I feel as if I can see, and do it now. The nymphs are as good as anything I have done. I don’t always satisfy myself, but that background is jolly. I’ve got so much light and sunshine into it, such a dreamy, golden atmosphere effect, that it brightens the whole thing, and what a nuisance it is that old Turner ever lived! If he had never been born, my background would have been grand. As it is – well, it’s only an imitation. No, no; come, old fellow: say, a good bit of work by an honest student of old Turner’s style. Yes,” he continued, drawing back, “I think it will do. Even dear old Joe praised that; he said it wasn’t so bad. Poor old chap! I wish we were friends again. And as for my Juno, I think I can manage her. Montesquieu shall come – esquieu – askew – no, not askew; I’ll get her into a noble, dignified position somehow. I hope she has a good figure. While her face – why, Cornel, my darling, it shall be yours.”

He paused to stand thoughtfully before the great canvas, drawn out upon its easel into the best light cast down from the sky panes above, and let his mahlstick rest upon the picture just above the blank, paint-stained portion left for the principal figure.

“Queer way of working,” he said with a laugh, “finishing the surroundings before putting in the mainspring of my theme. That’s hardly fair, though, for I painted my Juno first – ah! how many times, and rubbed her out. Never mind; she must come strong now to stand out well in front of these figures. She must – she shall.”

He stood there motionless for a few minutes; and then, quite eagerly —

“Why not?” he said. “Too soft, sweet, and gentle-looking? Cornel, darling, it shall be an expiation of a fault, and some day in the future you shall stand before it and gaze in your own true face as I have painted you – made grand, crushing, majestic, full of scorn and contempt, as it would have been, had you stood face to face with me, awaking to the fact that I was utterly lost, unworthy of your love. I can – I will – paint that face, and that day, darling, when you turn to me with those questioning eyes, and tell me you could not have looked like this, you shall know the truth.”

The inspiration was there, and with wonderful skill and rapidity he began to sketch in the face glowing before him in his imagination. No model could have given him the power to paint in so swiftly those lineaments, which began to live upon the canvas as the hours went on. For he was lost to everything but the task before him, and he grew flushed and excited as the noble frowning brow threatened, and then by a few deft touches those wonderful liquid eyes began to blaze with passionate scorn. The ruddy, beautifully curved lips were parted, revealing the glistening teeth; and at last, how long after he could not tell, he shrank away from the great canvas, to gaze at the features he had limned, trembling, awe-stricken, knowing that his work was masterly, but asking himself whether the painting was his, or some occult spiritual deed of which he had been the mere animal mechanism, worked by the powers of evil to blast him for ever.

His lips were parched, his tongue and throat felt dry with the fever which burned within him, as he stood trying to gather the courage to seize a cloth and wipe out the face that gazed at him and made him shrink in his despair.

He dragged his eyes from the canvas, and looked wildly round the great studio, where all was silent as the grave. The bright light had passed away; and he knew that it must be about sunset, for all was cold and grey, save the shadows in the corners of the room, and they were black. Everything was growing dim and misty, save the face upon his canvas, and that stood out with its scornful, fierce anger, though, through it all, so wonderful had been the inspiration beneath whose influence he had worked, there was an intense look of passionate love and forgiveness; the eyes, while scornfully condemning and upbraiding, seemed to say, “I love you still, for you are and always will be mine.”

“Cornel!” he groaned. “Heaven help me! and I have fought so hard. Ah!” he cried, with a sigh of relief, for there were hurried footsteps on the stairs, and the fancied dimness of the studio seemed to pass away as little, meagre Keren-Happuch gave one sharp tap on the door, and then ran in, to stop short, looking wonderingly at the artist’s ghastly, troubled face.

“Oh, Mr Dale, sir, you do work too hard,” she cried reproachfully. Then, in an eager whisper, “It’s all right, sir. The model’s come. I told her she was too late for to-day, but she said she’d see you all the same.”

“Where is she?” said Armstrong, in a voice which startled him.

“In the ’all, sir. I made her wait while I come to know if you’d see her. She’s got on a thick wail, but sech a figger, sir. She’ll do.”

“Send her up,” said Dale, “but tell her I cannot be trifled with like this.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell her you’re in a horful rage ’cause she didn’t come this morning.”

Dale hardly heard the words, but turned away as the girl left the room, to stand gazing at the face which had so magically sprung from the end of his brush; and he still stood gazing dreamily at the canvas when the door was once more opened, there was the rustling of a dress, and Keren-Happuch’s voice was heard, saying snappishly —

“There’s Mr Dale.”

Then the door was shut, and muttering, “Stuck-up, orty minx,” the girl went down to her own region.

Dale did not stir, but still stood gazing at the canvas, fascinated by his work. But his lips moved, and he spoke half-angrily, but in a weary voice.

“I had given you up, Miss Montesquieu. I want you for this figure, but if you cannot keep faith with me – yes,” he said, as his visitor stepped toward him, drawing off her veil – “for this.”

He turned sharply then, as if influenced in some unaccountable way, and started back in horror and despair.

“Valentina!”

“Armstrong!” came in a low, passionate moan, as she flung herself upon his breast – “at last, at last!”

The palette and brushes dropped from his hands – he was but man – and she uttered a low sigh of content as his arms closed round her soft yielding form, and his lips joined hers in a long, passionate, clinging kiss.

Then reason mastered once more, and he thrust her from him.

“No, no,” he gasped; “for God’s sake, go! Why have you come?”