An Original Belle Part 9

Good-night. I shall be absent for a time,--going to West Point to be coached a little by my friend Captain Varrum."

He drew himself up, saluted her a la militaire, right-about-faced with the stiffness of a ramrod, and was departing, when a light hand touched his arm, and Marian said, with a look so kind and sympathetic that his eyes fell before it: "Report to me occasionally, Captain Strahan. There are my colors;" and she gave him a white rose from her belt.

His mouth quivered slightly, but with a rather faltering laugh he replied, as he put the rose to his lips, "Never let the color suggest that I will show the white feather;" and then he began his military career with a precipitate retreat.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHARMED BY A CRITIC.

"WHAT next?" was Marian's wondering query after Mr. Strahan's departure. The change of motive which already had had no slight influence on her own action and feeling had apparently ushered in a new era in her experience; but the sense of novelty in personal affairs was quite lost as she contemplated the transformation in the mercurial Strahan, who had apparently been an irredeemable fop.

That the fastidious exquisite should tramp through Virginia mud, and face a battery of hostile cannon, appeared to her the most marvellous of human paradoxes. An hour before she would have declared the idea preposterous. Now she was certain he would do all that he had said, and would do it in the manner satirical and deprecatory towards himself which she had suggested.

Radical as the change seemed, she saw that it was a natural one as he had explained it. If there was any manhood in him the times would evoke it. After all, his chief faults had been youth and a nature keenly sensitive to certain social influences. Belonging to a wealthy and fashionable clique in the city, he had early been impressed by the estimated importance of dress and gossip. To excel in these, therefore, was to become pre-eminent. As time pa.s.sed, however, the truth, never learned by some, that his clique was not the world, began to dawn on him. He was foolish, but not a fool; and when he saw young fellows no older than himself going to the front, when he read of their achievements and sufferings, he drew comparisons. The result was that he became more and more dissatisfied.

He felt that he was anomalous, in respect not only to the rural scenery of his summer home, but to the times, and the conviction was growing that the only way to right himself was to follow the host of American youth who had gone southward. It was a conviction to which he could not readily yield, and which he sought to disguise by exaggerating his well-known characteristics. People of his temperament often shrink from revealing their deeper feelings, believing that these would seem to others so incongruous as to call forth incredulous smiles. Strahan was not a coward, except in the presence of ridicule. This had more terrors for him than all the guns of the Confederacy; and he knew that every one, from his own family down, would laugh at the thought of his going to the war.

In a way that puzzled him a little he felt that he would not care so much if Marian Vosburgh did not laugh. The battle of which he had read to-day had at last decided him; he must go; but if Marian would give him credit for a brave, manly impulse, and not think of him as a ludicrous spectacle when he donned the uniform, he would march away with a light heart. He did not a.n.a.lyze her influence over him, but only knew that she had a peculiar fascination which it was not in his impressionable nature to resist.

Thus it may be seen that he only gave an example of the truth that great apparent changes are the result of causes that have long been secretly active.

Marian, like many others, did not sufficiently take this fact into account, and was on the qui vive for other remarkable manifestations.

They did not occur. As her father had predicted, life, in its outward conditions, resumed its normal aspects. Her mother laughed a little, sighed a little, when she heard the story of Mr. Lanniere's final exit; the coquettish kitchen-maid continued her career with undisturbed complacency; and Marian to her own surprise found that, after the first days of her enthusiasm had pa.s.sed, it required the exertion of no little will-power to refrain from her old motives and tactics. But she was loyal to herself and to her implied promise to her father. She knew that he was watching her,--that he had set his heart on the development, in a natural way, of her best traits.

She also knew that if she faltered she must face his disappointment and her own contempt.

She had a horror, however, of putting on what she called "goody-goody airs," and under the influence of this feeling acted much like her old self. Not one of her callers could have charged her with manifesting a certain kind of misleading favor, but her little salon appeared as free from restraint as ever, and her manner as genial and lively. It began to be observed by some, however, that while she partic.i.p.ated unhesitatingly in the light talk of others, she herself would occasionally broach topics of more weight, especially such as related to the progress of the war; and more than once she gave such direction to her conversation with the artist as made his eyes kindle.

Her father was satisfied. He usually came home late on Sat.u.r.day, and some of her gentleman friends who were in the habit of dropping in of a Sunday evening, were soon taught that these hours were engaged.

"You need not excuse yourself on my account," her father had said to her.

"But I shall," was her prompt response. "After all you have done and are doing for me, it's a pity if I can't give you one evening in the week. You are looking after other people in New York; I'm going to look after you; and you shall find that I am a sharp inquisitor. You must reveal enough of the secrets of that mysterious office of yours to satisfy me that you are not in danger."

He soon began to look forward with glad antic.i.p.ation to his ramble by her side in the summer twilight. He saw that what he had done and what he had thought during the week interested her deeply, and to a girl of her intelligence he had plenty to tell that was far from commonplace. She saw the great drama of her country's history unfolding, and not only witnessed the events that were presented to the world, but was taken behind the scenes and shown many of the strange and secret causes that were producing them. Moreover expectation of something larger and greater was constantly raised.

After their walk they would return to the house, and she would sing or read to him until she saw his eyes heavy with the sleep that steals gradually and refreshingly into a weary man's brain.

Mrs. Vosburgh observed this new companionship with but little surprise and no jealousy. "It was time," she said, "that Marian should begin to do something for her father, and not leave everything to me."

One thing puzzled Marian: weeks were pa.s.sing and she neither saw nor heard anything of Lane or Strahan. This fact, in view of what had been said at parting, troubled her. She was not on calling terms with the latter's family, and therefore was unable to learn anything from them. Even his male friends in the neighborhood did not know where he was or what he was doing. Her father had taken the pains to inform himself that Lane was apparently at work in his law-office as usual. These two incipient subjects of the power she hoped to wield seemed to have dropped her utterly, and she was discouraged.

On the last day of June she was taking a ramble in a somewhat wild and secluded place not far from her home, and thinking rather disconsolately that her father had overrated her influence,--that after all she was but a pretty and ordinary girl, like millions of others,--a fact that Lane and Strahan had at last discovered.

Suddenly she came upon the artist, sketching at a short distance from her. As she turned to retreat a twig snapped under her foot, revealing her presence. He immediately arose and exclaimed, "Miss Vosburgh, is it I that you fear, or a glimpse of my picture?"

"Neither, of course. I feared I might dispel an inspired mood.

Why should I intrude, when you have nature before you and the muse looking over your shoulder?"

"Over my left shoulder, then, with a mocking smile. You are mistaken if you fancy you can harm any of my moods. Won't you stay and criticise my picture for me?"

"Why, Mr. Blauvelt, I'm not an art critic."

"Yes, you are,--one of the cla.s.s I paint for. Our best critics are our patrons, cultivated people."

"I should never think of patronizing you."

"Perhaps you might entertain the thought of encouraging me a little, if you felt that I was worth it."

"Now, Mr. Blauvelt, notwithstanding the rural surroundings, you must remember that I was bred in the city. I know the sovereign contempt that you artists have for the opinions of the people. When it comes to art, I'm only people."

"No such generalization will answer in your case. You have as distinct an individuality as any flower blooming on this hillside."

"There are flowers and flowers. Some are quite common."

"None are commonplace to me, for there is a genuine bit of nature in every one. Still you are right: I was conscious of the fragrance from this eglantine-bush here, until you came."

"Oh, then let me go at once."

"I beg that you will not. You are the eglantine in human form, and often quite as briery."

"Then you should prefer the bush there, which gives you its beauty and fragrance without a scratch. But truly your comparison is too far-fetched, even for an artist or a poet, for I suppose they are near of kin. To sensible, matter-of-fact girls, nothing is more absurd than your idealization of us. See how quickly and honestly I can disenchant you. In the presence of both nature and art I am conscious that it is nearly lunch-time. You are far from your boarding-place, so come and take your luck with us. Mamma will be glad to see you, and after lunch I may be a more amiable critic."

"As a critic, I do not wish you to be amiable, but honest severity itself. That you stumbled upon me accidentally in your present mood is my good fortune. Tell me the faults in my picture in the plainest English, and I will gratefully accept your invitation; for the hospitality at your cottage is so genial that bread and cheese would be a banquet. I have a strong fancy for seeing my work through your eyes, and so much faith in you that I know you will tell me what you think, since I ask you to do so."

"Why have you faith in me?" she asked, with a quick, searching glance.

"I belong somewhat to the impressionist school, and my impression of you leads to my words."

"If you compel me to be honest, I must say I'm not capable of criticising your picture. I know little of art, and nothing of its TECHNIQUE."

"Eyes like yours should be able to see a great deal, and, as I said, I am possessed by the wish to know just what they do see. There is the scene I was sketching, and here the canvas. Please, Miss Marian."

"It will be your own fault, now, if you don't like what I say,"

laughed the young girl, with ready tact, for a quick glance or two had already satisfied her that the picture was not to her taste.

"My only remark is this, Mr. Blauvelt,--Nature does not make the same impression on me that it does on you. There is the scene, as you say. How can I make you understand what I feel? Nature always looks so natural to me! It awakens within me various emotions, but never surprise,--I mean that kind of surprise one has when seeing a lady dressed in colors that do not harmonize. To my eye, even in gaudy October, Nature appears to blend her effects so that there is nothing startling or incongruous."

"Is there anything startling and incongruous in my picture?"

"I have not said that. You see you have brought me into perplexity, you have taken me beyond my depth, by insisting on having my opinion.

I have read a good many art criticisms first and last. Art is gabbled about a good deal in society, you know, and we have to keep a set of phrases on hand, whether we understand them or not. But since you believe in impressions, and will have mine, it is this as nearly as I can express it. You are under the influence of a school or a fashion in art, and perhaps unconsciously you are controlled by this when looking at the scene there. It seems to me that if I were an artist I should try to get on my canvas the same effects that nature produces, and I would do it after my own fashion and not after some received method just then prevailing. Let me ill.u.s.trate what I mean by a phase of life that I know more about. There are some girls in society whose ambition it is to dress in the latest style. They are so devoted to fashion that they appear to forget themselves, and are happy if their costume reflects the mode of the hour, even though it makes them look hideous. My aim would be to suggest the style rather un.o.btrusively, and clothe myself becomingly.

I'm too egotistical to be ultra-fashionable. Since I, who am in love chiefly with myself, can so modify style, much more should you, who are devoted to nature, make fashion in art subservient to nature."

"You are right. I have worked too much in studios and not enough out of doors. Ever since I have been sketching this summer, I have had a growing dissatisfaction, and a sense of being trammelled. I do believe, as you say, that a certain received method or fashion of treatment has been uppermost in my mind, and I have been trying to torture--nature into conformity. I'll paint this thing all out and begin again."

"No, don't do that. Are not pictures like people a little? If I wanted to improve in some things, it wouldn't do for me to be painted all out. Cannot changes for the better come by softening features here and bringing out others there, by colorings a little more like those before us, and--pardon me--by not leaving so much to the imagination? You artists can see more between the lines than we people can."