The Boy Artist Part 1

The Boy Artist.

by F.M. S.

CHAPTER I.

THE PICTURE.

"Oh, Madge, just stay as you are; there--your head a little more turned this way."

"But, Raymond, I can't possibly make the toast if I do."

"Never mind the toast; I shan't be many minutes," said the boy who was painting in the window, while he mixed some colours in an excited, eager manner.

"The fire is very hot. Mayn't I move just to one side?"

"No; it is the way that the firelight is falling on your hair and cheek that I want. Please, Madge; five minutes."

"Very well," and the patient little sister dropped the toasting-fork, and folded her hands in her lap, with the scorching blaze playing on her forehead and cheek, and sparkling in her deep brown eyes.

The boy went on with rapid, bold strokes, while a smile played over his compressed lips as he glanced at Madge every few moments.

"The very thing I have been watching for--that warm, delicious glow--that red light slanting over her face;--glorious!" and he shook back the hair from his forehead, and worked on unconscious of how the minutes flew by.

"Raymond, it is very hot."

"There--one moment more, please, Madge."

One minute--two--three, fled by, and then Raymond threw down his brush and came over to his sister's side.

"Poor little Madge," and he laid his hand coaxingly on her silky hair.

"Perhaps you have made my fortune."

This was some small consolation for having roasted her face, and she went to look at the picture. "I'm not as pretty as that, Raymond."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FACES IN THE FIRE."]

"Well, artists may idealize a little; may they not?"

"Yes. What is this to be called?"

"Faces in the Fire."

"Shall you sell it?"

"I shall try."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COTTAGE IN THE COUNTRY.]

Raymond Leicester had not a prepossessing face; it was heavy, and to a casual observer, stupid. He had dark hazel eyes, shaded by an overhanging brow and rather sweeping eyelashes; a straight nose, and compressed lips, hiding a row of defective teeth; a high ma.s.sive forehead and light hair, which was seldom smooth, but very straight.

This he had a habit of tossing back with a jerk when he was excited; and sometimes the dull eyes flashed with a very bright sparkle in them when he caught an idea which pleased him,--for Raymond was an artist, not by profession, but because it was in his heart to paint, and he could not help himself. He was sixteen now, and Madge was twelve. Madge was the only thing in the world that he really cared for, except his pictures.

Their mother was dead, Madge could hardly remember her; but Raymond always had an image before him of a tender, sorrowful woman, who used to hold him in her arms, and whisper to him, while the hot tears fell upon his baby cheeks,--"_You_ will comfort me, my little son. _You_ will take care of your mother and of baby Madge." And he remembered the cottage in the country where they had lived, the porch where the rose-tree grew, the orchard and the moss-grown well, the tall white lilies in the garden that stood like fairies guarding the house, and the pear-tree that was laden with fruit.

He remembered how his mother had sat in that porch with him, reading stories to him out of the Bible, but often lifting her sad pale face and looking down the road as if watching for some one.

And then there came a dark, dreary night, when the wind was howling mournfully round the cottage and their mother lay dying. She had called Raymond to her, and had pressed her cold lips on his forehead, telling him to take care of Madge; and if his father ever came, to say that she had loved him to the end, and she had prayed G.o.d to bless him and to take care of her children. Then she had died, and the neighbours told Raymond that he was motherless.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DYING MOTHER.]

He recollected how the sun shone brightly on the day that she was buried, and that he and Madge stood by the grave crying, when she was put down in the cold earth; and that a man rode up to the paling of the quiet green churchyard, and threw the reins over his horse's neck, and came with hurried footsteps to the grave just as the last sod was thrown upon the coffin; and how this man had sobbed and cried, and had caught them in his arms, and said, "My poor little motherless ones," and had kissed them and cried again so piteously and wildly, that the clergyman had stopped in the service and had tried to comfort him. And when the funeral was over, and the neighbours were taking the little ones home, how the man had held them tightly and said, "No; mine now, never to leave me again. I am their father. Margaret, I will try to make up to them what I withheld from you; is it too late?"

This was the father whom their mother had spoken of with her dying breath; but who had come too late to implore her forgiveness for having left her in want, while he squandered his money upon his own pleasure.

But now, in the impulse of grief and remorse, he had determined to act differently, and returned to London with his children.

Here they had lived ever since. Their father had returned to his old gay life, and left the children very much to take care of themselves.

Sometimes carelessly kind to them, more often harsh and impatient, Mr.

Leicester supposed that he fulfilled the vow which he had made about her children, beside his wife's grave.

Raymond and Madge had no very definite idea as to what their father did with his time. From time to time they changed their lodgings, always coming to some quieter ones, and now they had got to the highest flight of a tall house in a very shady street. Their father was not at home very often, but they did not mind this much, and were very happy together.

Raymond made a little money by drawing pictures for a cheap periodical, and with this he bought materials for his darling pursuit. Madge watched him and gloried in him, and dusted the rooms, and laid the table for meals, and mended his clothes, and thought hopefully of the time when Raymond should be a famous painter, and she should leave the dingy London lodging and live in the fresh breezy country which her brother told her about.

Madge was not beautiful; her little face was sallow and pinched: but she had two pretty things about her. One was her hair, which was of a rich warm brown colour, with a dash of chestnut in it, and when unbound it fell in ripples nearly to her feet; the other was her eyes--large, l.u.s.trous, brown eyes--with an intense earnestness in them, seldom to be seen in one so young. These eyes appeared in every one of Raymond's pictures, for they haunted him.

"Now, Raymond, come to breakfast," Madge said when she had finished making the toast.

He did not appear to hear her, for he went to a little distance and surveyed his picture with his head on one side.

Madge poured out the tea, and then came over to him, laid her hand on his which held the brush, and said entreatingly, "Come."

"Well, it is too bad," he said laughingly, "first to make you roast your face, and then to keep you from eating your breakfast;" and he laid down his brush and pallette and came to the table; but he ate hurriedly and soon returned to his work.

Madge put away the things and brought her sewing to the window, where she sat all the morning watching Raymond's busy fingers. Then she went out to the colour-shop at the end of the next street, to buy something which her brother wanted, and to see if the picture he had left there was sold.

Alas! it was still in the window along with several others; a few butchers' boys, working-men, and ragged little girls were eagerly pressing their faces against the gla.s.s looking at the pictures, but none of them were likely to be purchasers. Raymond's picture was called "The Welcome." There was a cottage room, and an open door, through which a working man was coming in, while a little girl sprang to meet him. The girl had Madge's eyes; but no one in that wondering throng knew that.

They were saying how well the workman's dress and the tools which he carried were done.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUSY FINGERS.]

Madge went into the shop. Mr. Jeffery was talking to a gentleman who stood by the counter; but he turned to serve her as soon as she appeared.

She laid down her money and took her tiny parcel, then said falteringly, while the colour came into her pale cheeks, "Please, sir, is my brother's picture sold yet?"

"No, my dear, nor likely to be," said Mr. Jeffery, laughing.

"Poor Raymond," thought Madge, and as she turned away, she raised her hand to brush away the tears which filled her eyes.

The gentleman who had been standing, now stepped forward and opened the door for the little girl to go out.