Charles Auchester Volume II Part 27

"Indeed, I am very hungry, and so is my friend Mr. Auchester."

"He always looks so, Mademoiselle!" replied the Chevalier, mirthfully, "but I do really think he might be elegant enough to tell me your name: he has forgotten to do so in his embarra.s.sment. I cannot guess whether it be English, French, or German,--Italian, Greek, or Hebrew."

"I am called Clara Benette, sir; that is my name."

"It is not Benette,--La Benetta benedetta! Carlomein, why hast thou so forgotten? Allow me to congratulate you, Mademoiselle, on possessing the right to be so named. And for this do I give you joy,--that not for your gifts it has been bestowed, nor for that genius which is alone of the possessor, but for that goodness which I now experience, and feel to have been truly ascribed to you."

He stood to her and held out his hand; calmly she gave hers to it, and gravely smiled.

"Sir, I thank you the more because I _know_ your name. I hope you will excuse me for keeping you so long without your breakfast."

He laughed again, and again sat down; but his manner, though of that playful courtliness, was quite drawn out to her. He scarcely looked at Laura; I did not even believe that he was aware of her presence, nor was _I_ aware of the power of his own upon her. After ten minutes Thone entered and went up to Clara. She motioned to us all then, and we arose; but as she looked at Seraphael first, he took her out and into the dining-room. The table was snowed with damask; flowers were heaped up in the centre,--a bowl of honeysuckles and heartsease; the dishes here were white bread, brown bread, golden b.u.t.ter, new-laid eggs in a nest of moss, the freshest cream, the earliest strawberries; and before the chair which Clara took, stood a silver chocolate-jug foaming, and coffee above a day-pale spirit-lamp. On the sideboard were garnished meat, and poultry already carved, the decanters, and still more flowers; it was a feast raised as if by magic, and unutterably tempting at that hour of the day. Clara asked no questions of her chief guest, but pouring out both chocolate and coffee, offered them both; he accepted the former, nor refused the wing of a chicken which Thone brought, nor the bread which Clara asked me to cut. I was perfectly astounded; she had helped herself also, and was eating so quietly, after administering her delicious cups all round, that no one thought of speaking. At last Starwood, by one of those unfortunate chances that befall timid people, spoke, and instantly turned scarlet, dropping his eyes forthwith, though he only said, "I never saw the Chevalier eat so much." Clara answered, with her fork in her dimpled hand, "That is because you gentlemen have had a long drive; it always raises the appet.i.te to come out of London into the country. You cannot eat too much here."

"Do you think I shall find a house that will hold me and my younger son," said Seraphael presently, pointing at Starwood his slight finger, "and a servant or two?"

"If you like to send my servant, sir, she will find out for you."

"No, perhaps you will not dislike to drive a little way with us. I know Carl will be so glad!"

"We shall be most pleased, sir," she answered, quite quietly, though there was that in his expression which might easily have fluttered her. I could not at all account for this eflish mood, though I had been witness to freaks and fantasies in my boy days. Never had I seen his presence affect any one so little as Clara. Had she not been of a loveliness so peculiarly genial, I should have called her cold; as it was, I felt he had never made himself more at home with any one in my sight. While, having graciously deferred to her the proposal for an instant search, he sauntered out into the little front garden, she went for her bonnet, and came down in it,--a white straw, with a white-satin ribbon and lining, and a little white veil of her own work, as I could tell directly I caught her face through its wavering and web-like tracery. Seraphael placed her in the carriage, and then looked back.

"Oh, Laura--that is, Miss Lemark--is not coming," observed Miss Benette; this did not strike me except as a rather agreeable arrangement, and off we drove. Fritz, Seraphael's own man, was on the box,--a perfect German, of very reserved deportment, who, however, one could see, would have allowed Seraphael to walk upon him. His heavy demonstrations about situations and suitabilities made even Clara laugh, as they were met by Seraphael's wayward answers and skittish sallies. We had a very long round, and then went back to dinner with our lady; but Seraphael, by the time the moon had risen, fell into May-evening ecstasies with a very old-fashioned tenement built of black wood and girded by a quickset hedge, because it suddenly, in the silver shine, reminded him of his own house in Germany, as he said. It was so near the cottage that two persons might even whisper together over the low and moss-greened garden-wall.

The invitation of Miss Lawrence I could not forget, even through the intenser fascination spread about me. I returned with Seraphael to town again, and again to the country; he having thither removed his whole effects,--so important, though of so slight bulk, they consisting almost entirely of scored and other compositions, which were safely deposited in a little empty room of the rambling house he had chosen. This room he and Starwood and I soon made fit to be seen and inhabited, by our distribution of all odd furniture over it, and all the conveniences of the story. Three large country scented bed-rooms, with beds big enough for three chevaliers in each, and two drawing-rooms, were all that we cared for besides. Seraphael was only like a child that night that is preparing for a whole holiday: he wandered from room to room; he shut himself into pantry, wine-cellar, and china-closet; he danced like a day-beam through the low-ceiled sitting-chambers, and almost threw himself into the garden when he saw it out of the window. It was the wildest place,--the walks all sown with gra.s.s, an orchard on a bank all moss, forests of fruit-trees and moss-rose bushes, and the great white lilies in ranks all round the close-fringed lawn; all old-fashioned flowers in their favorite soils, a fountain and a grotto, and no end of weeping-ashes, arbors bent from willows, and arcades of nut and filbert trees. The back of the house was veiled with a spreading vine--too luxuriant--that shut out all but fresh green light from the upper bed-rooms; but Seraphael would not have a spray cut off, nor did he express the slightest dissatisfaction at being overlooked by the chimneys and roof-hung windows of Clara's little cottage, which peeped above the hedge. The late inhabitant and present owner of the house, an eccentric gentlewoman who abjured all innovation, had desired that no change should pa.s.s upon her tenement during her absence for a sea-side summer; even the enormous mastiff, chained in the yard to his own house, was to remain barking or baying as he listed; and we were rather alarmed, Starwood and I, to discover that Seraphael had let him loose, in spite of the warnings of the housekeeper, who rustled her scant black-silk skirts against the doorstep in anger and in dread. I was about to make some slight movement in deprecation, for the dog was fiercely strong and of a tremendous expression indeed, but he only lay down before the Chevalier and licked the leather of his boots, afterwards following him over the whole place until darkness came, when he howled on being tied up again until Seraphael carried him a bone from our supper-table. Our gentle master retired to rest, and his candle-flame was lost in the moonlight long before I could bring myself to go to bed. I can never describe the satisfaction, if not the calm, of lying between two poles of such excitement as the cottage and that haunted mansion.

CHAPTER XIII.

Seraphael had desired me to stay with him, therefore the next morning I intended to give up my London lodgings on the road to Miss Lawrence's square, or rather out of the road. When I came downstairs into the sun-lit breakfast-room, I found Starwood alone and writing to his father, but no Chevalier. Nor was he in his own room, for the sun was streaming through the vine-shade on the tossed bed-clothes, and the door and window were both open as I descended. Starwood said that he had gone to walk in the garden, and that we were not to wait for him. "What! without his breakfast?" said I. But Starwood smiled such a meaning smile that I was astonished, and could only sit down.

We ate and drank, but neither of us spoke. I was anxious to be off, and Star to finish his letter; though as we both arose and were still alone, he yet looked naughty. I would not pretend to understand him, for if he has a fault, that darling friend of mine, it is that he sees through people rather too soon, construing their intentions before they inform experience.

I could not make up my mind to ride, but set off on foot along the sun-glittering road, through emerald shades, past gold-flecked meadows, till through the mediant chaos of brick-fields and dust-heaps I entered the dense halo surrounding London,--"smoke the tiara of commerce," as a pearl of poets has called it. The square looked positively lifeless when I came there. I almost shrank from my expedition, not because of any fear I had on my own account, but because all the inhabitants might have been asleep behind the glaze of their many windows.

I was admitted noiselessly and as if expected, shown into the drawing-room, so large, so light and splendid in the early sun. All was noiseless, too, within; an air of affluent calm pervaded as an atmosphere itself the rich-grouped furniture, the piano closed, the stools withdrawn. I was not kept two minutes; Miss Lawrence entered, in the act of holding out her hand. I was instantly at home with her, though she was one of the grandest persons I ever saw. She accepted my arm, and, not speaking, took me to a landing higher, and to a room which appeared to form one of a suite; for a curtain extended across one whole side,--a curtain as before an oratory in a dwelling-house.

Breakfast was outspread here; on the walls, a pale sea-green, shone delectable pictures in dead-gold frames,--pictures even to an inexperienced eye pure relics of art. The windows had no curtains, only a broad gold cornice; the chairs were damask, white and green; the carpet oak-leaves, on a lighter ground. It was evidently a retreat of the lesser art,--it could not be called a boudoir; neither ornament nor mirror, vase nor book-stand, broke the prevalent array. I said I had breakfasted, but she made me sit by her and told me,--

"I have not, and I am sure you will excuse me. One must eat, and I am not so capable to exist upon little as you are. Yet you shall not sit, if you would rather see the pictures, because there are not too many to tire you in walking round. Too many together is a worse mistake than too few."

I arose immediately, but I took opportunity to examine my entertainer in pauses as I moved from picture to picture. She wore black brocaded silk this morning, with a Venetian chain and her watch, and a collar all lace; her hair, the blackest I had ever seen except Maria's, was coiled in snake-like wreaths to her head so small behind while it arched so broadly and benevolently over her n.o.ble eyes. She was older than I had imagined, and may have been forty at that time; the only observation one could retain about the fact being that her gathered years had but served to soften every crudity of an extremely decided organization, and to crown wisdom with refinement.

She soon pushed back her cup and plate, and came to my side. She looked suddenly, a little anxiously at me.

"You must be rather curious to know why I asked you to come to me to-day; and were you not a gentleman, you would have been also curious, I fancy, to know why I could not see you on Tuesday. I want you to come this way."

I followed; she slid the curtain along its rings, and we entered the oratory. I know not that it was so far unlike such precinct, for from thence art reared her consecrated offerings to the presence of every beauty. I felt this, and that the artist was pure in heart, even before her entire character faced my own. The walls here, of the same soft marine shade, were also lighted by pictures,--the strangest, the wildest, the least a.s.sorted, yet all according.

A peculiar and unique style was theirs; each to each presented the atmosphere of one imagination. Dark and sombrous woods, moon-pierced, gleamed duskly from a chair where they were standing frameless; resting against them, a crowd of baby faces cl.u.s.tered in a giant flower-chalice; a great lotus was the hieroglyph of a third. On the walls faces smiled or frowned,--huge profiles; dank pillars mirrored in rushy pools; fragments of heathen temples; domes of diaphanous distance in a violet sky; awful palms; dread oceans, with the last ghost-shadow of a wandering wreck. I stood lost, unaccustomed either to the freaks or the triumphs of pictorial art; I could only say in my amaze, "Are these all yours? How wonderful!" She smiled very carelessly.

"I did not intend you to look at those, except askance, if you were kind enough. I keep them to advertise my own deficiencies and to compare the present with the past. The present is very aspiring, and _for_ the present devours my future. I hope it will dedicate itself thereunto. I wish you to come here, to this light."

She was placed before an immense easel to the right of a large-paned window, where the best London day streamed above the lower dimness. An immense sheet of canvas was turned away from us upon the easel; but in a moment she had placed it before us, and fell back in the same moment, a little from me.

Nor shall I ever forget that moment's issue. I forgot it was a picture, and all I could feel was a trance-like presence brought unto me in a day-dream of immutable satisfaction. On either side, the clouds, light golden and lucid crimson, pa.s.sed into a central sphere of the perfect blue. And reared into that, as it were the empyrean of the azure, gleamed in full relief the head, life-sized, of Seraphael.

The bosom white-vested, the regal throat, shone as the transparent depths of the moon, not moonlight, against the blue unshadowed. The clouds deeper, heavier, and of a dense violet, were rolled upon the rest of the form; the bases of those clouds as livid as the storm, but their edges, where they flowed into the virgin raiment, sun-fringed, glittering. The visage was raised, the head thrown back into the ether; but the eyes were drooping, the snow-sealed lips at rest. The mouth faint crimson, thrilling, spiritual, appalled by its utter reminiscence; the smile so fiery-soft just touched the lips unparted. No symbol strewed the cloudy calm below, neither lyre, laurel-wreathed, nor flowery chaplet; but on either side, where the clouds disparted in wavering flushes and golden pallors, two hands of light, long, lambent, life-like, but not earthly, held over the brow a crown.

Pa.s.sing my eye among the cloud-lights,--for I cannot call them shadows,--I could just gather with an eager vision, as one gathers the thready moon-crescent in a mid-day sky, that on either side a visage gleamed, veiled and drenched also in the rose-golden mist.

One countenance was dread and glorious, of sharp-toned ecstasy that cut through the quivering medium,--a self-sheathed seraph; the other was mild and awful, informed with steadfast beauty, a shining cherub.

They were Beethoven and Bach, as they might be known in heaven; but who, except the musician, would have known them for themselves on earth? It was not for me to speak their names,--I could not utter them; my heart was dry,--I was thirsty for the realization of that picture promise.

The crown they uplifted in those soft, shining hands was a circle of stars gathered to each other out of that heavenly silence, and into the azure vague arose that brow over which the conqueror's sign, suspended, shook its silver terrors. For such awful fancies shivered through the brain upon its contemplation that I can but call it _transcendental_,--beyond expression; the feeling, the fear, the mystery of starlight pressed upon the spirit and gave new pulses to the heart. The luminous essence from the large white points seemed rained upon that forehead and upon the deep tints of the G.o.d-like locks; they turned all clear upon their orbed cl.u.s.ters, they melted into the radiant halo which flooded, yet as with a glory one could not penetrate, the impenetrable elevation of the lineaments.

I dared only gaze; had I spoken, I should have wept, and I would not disturb the image by my tears. I soon perceived how awfully the paintress had possessed herself of the inspiration, the melancholy, and the joy. The crown, indeed, was grounded upon rest, and of unbroken splendor; but it beamed upon the aspect of exhaustion and longing strife, upon lips yet thirsty, and imploring patience.

I suppose my silence satisfied the artist; for before I had spoken, or even unriveted my gaze, she said, herself--

"That I have worked upon for a year. I was allowing myself to dream one day--just such a day as this--last spring; and insensibly my vision framed itself into form. The faces came before I knew,--at least those behind the clouds; and having caught them, I conceived the rest. I could not, however, be certain of my impressions about the chief countenance, and I waited with it unfinished enough until the approach of the season, for I knew he was coming now, and before he arrived I sent him a letter to his house in Germany. I had a pretty business to find out the address, and wrote to all kinds of persons; but at last I succeeded, and my suit was also successful. I had asked him to sit to me."

"Then you had not known him before? You did not know him all those years?"

"I had seen him often, but never known him. Oh, yes! I had seen his face. You have a tolerable share of courage: could you have asked him such a favor?"

"You see, Miss Lawrence, I have received so many favors from him without asking for them. Had I possessed such genius as yours, I should not only have done the same, but have felt to do it was my duty. It is a portrait for all the ages, not only for men, but for angels."

"Only for angels, if fit at all; for that face is something beyond man's utmost apprehension of the beautiful. It must ever remain a solitary idea to any one who has received it. You will be shocked if I tell you that his beauty prevails more with _me_ than his music."

"But is it not the immediate consequence of such musical investment?"

"I believe, on the contrary, that the musical investment, as you charmingly express it, is the direct consequence of the lofty organization."

"That is a new notion for me; I must turn it over before I take it home. I would rather consider the complement of his gifts to be that heavenly heart of his which endows them each and all with what must live forever in unaltered perfection."

"And it pleases me to feel that he is of like pa.s.sions with us, protected from the infraction of laws celestial by the image of the Creator still conserved to his mortal nature, and stamping it with a character beyond the age. But about his actual advent. He answered my letter in person. I was certainly appalled to hear of his arrival, and that he was downstairs. I was up here muddling with my brushes, without knowing what to be at; up comes my servant--

"'Mr. Seraphael.'

"Imagine such an announcement! I descend, we meet,--for the first time in private except, indeed, on the occasion when his shadow was introduced to me, as you may remember. He was in the drawing-room, pale from travelling, full of languor left by sea-sickness, looking like a spirit escaped from prison. I was almost ashamed of my daring, far more so than alarmed. I thought he was about to appoint a day; but no. He said,--

"'I am at your service this morning, if it suits you; but as you did not favor me with your address, I could not arrange beforehand. I went to my music-sellers and asked them about you. I need not tell you that you were known there, and that I am much obliged to them.'

"Actually it was a fact that I had not furnished him with my address; but I was perfectly innocent of my folly. What could I do but not lose a moment? I asked him to take refreshment; no, he had breakfasted, or dined, or something, and we came up here directly. I never saw such behavior. He did not even inquire what I was about, but sat, like a G.o.d in marble, just where I had placed him,--out there. You perceive that I have lost the eyes, or at least have rendered them up to mystery. Well, when, having caught the outline of the forehead, and touched the temples, I descended to those eyes, and saw they were full upon me, I could do nothing with them. I cannot paint light, only its ghost; nor fire, only its shade. His eyes are at once fire and light,--I know not of which the most; or, at least, that which is the light of fire. Even the streaming lashes scarcely tempered the radiance there. I let them fall, and veiled what one scarcely dares to meet,--at least I. He sat to me for hours; but though I knew not how the time went, and may be forgiven for inconsideration, I had no idea that he was going straight to the committee of the choir-day on the top of that sitting. I kept him long enough for what I wanted, and as he did not ask to see the picture, I did not show it him. He shall see it when it is finished."

"What finish does it require? I see no change that it can need to carry out the likeness, which is all we want."