Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

-I like her-but I like people best who don't want me to be fond of them. I like Grace Davenport better, though she declares that I am not her friend; and I like Symonds better, though I know Symonds' pet is Wattie."

"But you ought to like Miss Silver better because she tries to make you love her, oughtn't you, Prissy?"

"Why ought I, papa? Why ought I to care for one person more than another?"

"Oh, metaphysical Prissy!"

"Meta, what, papa? Why do you use such funny words?"

"But about Miss Silver, Prissy. You wouldn't like her to go away, would you u?"

"She isn't going away, I know," said Miss Prissy. confidently. "You can't know that."

"Yes, I can, papa."

"But why should you be so sure?" "Because I am; that is why, papa."

"Go away!" cried Dr Norman, half impatient, half admiring. "You are a pretentious pussy, that is what you are, and a pretentious pussy who talks of much she doesn't understand."

In spite of being thus taken down, Prissy would come to Dr Norman and her sister again and again with little stories of Miss Silver. Miss Silver was always doing some wonderful thing or other in the child's eyes, and she could not understand how it was that no one else saw as much as she did.

One day-oh, monstrous !-she happened to go into Miss. Silver's bedroom, and found a stocking with such a big hole in it lying on a chair! "You may laugh if you please, Miss Laura, but I saw it; I did see it!" Another day she pounced upon Miss Silver to give her a shower of kisses on account of some piece of benevolence or other," and what do you think Miss Silver was writing? She was writing Dear Perry, how can you be such a fool?-wasn't that very rude of her?" On a third occasion, Miss Prissy happened to be passing by the open door of Regy's room: Kitty was busily packing Regy's things for Eton,-"And what do you think she let Regy do

when she was sitting on the portmanteau to press it down? She let him put on her slipper that had fallen off!" Laura used to turn very red, and work herself up into a pretty little passion at hearing this; and the sisters would be enemies for five minutes.

"It is so mean, so unladylike, so babyish, to tittle-tattle as you do, Prissy," she would say; "if you do that when you are older, people will hate you."

"I like to be hated sometimes," Prissy replied, vindictively. "Oh! very well, then; I will let you make yourself as disagreeable as you like."

Dr Norman came in during one of these little scenes, and, seeing the children both flushed with temper, and hearing "Kitty, Kitty," nothing but Kitty on their tongues, grew very

severe.

"You are the eldest, Laura; and it is you on whom the responsibility of such conduct rests. If I see any more of this kind of thing, I shall tell Miss Silver she had better go, till you can both be more amiable."

This threat sounded awful even in Prissy's ears, for Kitty had managed to make herself necessary to her in many ways. Prissy had never had such dolls' toilettes before the arrival of Miss Silver-never such dolls' cushions, carpets, and cradle furniture-never such doll's parties. So Prissy exercised a little self-control for the next few days, and Dr Norman heard no more scolding and crying.

Meantime Regy went away, and Kitty felt as if a great burden had slipped off her shoulders. She liked the lad, and appreciated his admiration for herself, but his budding sentimentality bored her. She had begun to find that it was not an easy matter to be everybody's heroine; she had too many threads in her hand, and was always on the point of making a false stitch, and letting one of the threads go wrong altogether. Regy gone, there remained one person less to please systematically all day long, and consequently the day's work became

less onerous.

The perfection of art is to conceal art, and Miss Silver, who

had lived among artists, and learned, parrot-wise, a good many artistic dogmas, now began to apply them. She was careful to subdue her bright colours, so as not to hurt cultivated eyes; and she took good care to have her gaiety subdued, and her sadness never too solemn.

For instance, when Dr Norman once found her on the point of crying, she dashed an impatient hand across her bright eyes, and said—

"How absurd I am, Dr Norman, to trouble myself about my future, when every one is so good, and everything pleasant here, and you wish me to stay.”

66

“Of course I wish you to stay," Dr Norman said, with some concern; and I think I understood from Laura that you liked it.'

[ocr errors]

"Above everything," Kitty said, eagerly. "I have few friends-none who are rich enough to offer me such a home as this-and if you found me half-crying just now, it was because I was thinking of all the kindness I cannot repay."

Dr Norman, seeing that her eyes were full, gave her a hearty shake of the hand, and hurried away.

Kitty had not confessed the real cause of her tears; which was a letter lying snugly in her pocket. It had come that day from Paradise Place, and ran as follows :—

"DEAR KITTY,

"I would run down to see you, only I know how provoked you would be. O Kitty it isn't your staying away that will ever make me a steady fellow. I just get into a devil-me-care sort of way, and my money is spent three times over before it is half-earned. I shall never get money or credit whilst you stay away, Kitty, never; and I am losing my chances of ever getting a name, and holding my own against the dealers. That picture of mine, the Corot sort of thing with big trees full of yellow sunset-you remember it, I daresay-is finished now, and not worth a five-pound note. I got desponding and bilious over it, and daubed it with yellow till it is half-like a London fog, and half-like a sandpit

after heavy rains. If you were to come back I might perhaps alter it a little, but it will never be worth much. I went out with Crosbie Carrington the other night. They stood me a supper at Evans', and I believe I drank too much. O Kitty, Kitty you will bring worse things on me than this if you stay away longer, and get half-an-inch farther off us every day. "PERRY."

!

Whilst Kitty was reading this letter, she saw a vision of Perry writing it. She could see him sitting at his threelegged writing-table in his shirt sleves, his fair hair pulled desperately over his brows, his toilette utterly reckless, his beard untrimmed, the atmosphere surrounding him dingy, dusty, painty. He would be sure to look very pale, having kept late hours; and she thought she could see him biting his nails between each sentence, and trying to be more sorry than indignant, and more pitiful than tender. Perry was as dear to Kitty as a kitten is dear to a child; and thinking of him. in this mood she shed a few tears.

CHAPTER IX.

MRS CORNFORD ACTS THE PART OF CONSOLER.

MRS CORNFORD was ready to cry herself at seeing her adopted son Perry in such a state of despondency. She did her utmost to console him for Kitty's lengthened absence, and, what was better still, to cure him of his passion. But both tasks seemed as helpless as that of Sisyphus; and Perry, who was as unstable as water when he had a fair chance of success, was dogged to any degree when his chances were those of little boys fishing for big fish with bent pins. He could have painted marvellous pictures with only a very little more study and care; he could have won fortune, friends, plenty of good things, had he chosen ; but he chose to prefer Kitty to all, just because Kitty alone was inaccessible. It was the old story. What

little lad of six does not prefer his papa's riding-whip to any of his own toys, for the simple reason he must not play with it? Perry knew well enough what little hold he had upon Kitty's affections. She called herself a friendless girl, and used formerly to comfort him by saying that she had no one but him to care about her. But he knew well enough that no one was less friendless than she. She lived, indeed, upon an income of friendliness. She drew constant cheques upon that bank, and not one had been dishonoured yet. She had neither kith nor kin, it is true, but she had adopted brothers, uncles, sisters, aunts, and all the men he knew adored her. Who could help adoring her-if not for her wit, for her beauty; if not for her beauty, for her sprightliness; if not for her sprightliness, for her fine carriage? Moreover, Perry appreciated character, though he had so little himself, and seeing how Kitty could conquer and rule people, winding their wills like silk round her fingers, and how, being conquered and ruled, people adored her, he was ready to let his adoration go any length. If she threw him off, after having plighted her troth to him, he would have his revenge—to that his mind was fully made up.

Perry's studio seemed to take colour and shape from his dreary mood. The carved oak cabinet grew blackish and funereal looking, the dingy statuettes threw up their arms or veiled their faces in despair, the lay figure grew more and more dishevelled and tragic, the palette showed nothing but dismal greys and browns, the picture on the easel was a mere bit of passionate sky blurred with big drops of rain like tears. There was a bunch of dead flowers in a broken vase, an empty bird-cage hanging in the window, a broken guitar resting against the mantelpiece, a faded pink neck-ribbon—precious relic of some holiday with Kitty-was fastened to the cracked mirror. Nothing could have looked more wilfully despondent than Perry's studio at this epoch. Perry himself caught the woe-begone aspect of things. He had ever been pale, but he was now flushed at times, and the flush had an unhealthy look about it; or he was ashy white, with dark circles under his

« НазадПродовжити »