Traditions of Lancashire Volume II Part 62

"One month! Ay, by the wand of Hermes, in one month, under my teaching, shalt thou have thy desire. I watched thy bargain with the dealer yonder, and have had pity on thy youth and misfortunes."

"Humph--compa.s.sion! And the price?" again inquired Conrad, with an anxious yet somewhat dubious expression of tone.

"The price? Once every month shalt thou paint me a picture."

"Is that all?"

"All."

Now Conrad began to indulge some pleasant fancies. Dreams of hope and ambition hovered about him; but he soon grew gloomy and desponding as heretofore. He waxed incredulous.

"One month? Nothing less than a miracle! The time is too short.

Impossible!"

"That is my business. I have both the will and the power. Is it a bargain?"

Conrad again drained the cup, and things looked brighter. He felt invigorated. His courage came afresh, and he answered firmly--

"A bargain."

"Give me thy hand."

"O mein Herr--not so hard. Thy grip is like a smithy vice."

"Beg pardon of thy tender extremities. To-morrow then, at this hour, we begin." Immediately after which intimation the stranger departed.

Conrad returned to his own dwelling. He felt restless, uneasy.

Apprehensions of coming evil haunted him. Night was tenfold more appalling. Horrid visions kept him in continual alarm.

He arose feverish and unrefreshed. Yesterday's bargain did not appear so pleasant in his eyes; but fear gave way apace, and ere the appointed hour he was in his little workroom, where the mysterious instructor found him in anxious expectation. He drew the requisite materials from under his cloak, a well-primed canvas already prepared.

The pallet was covered, and Conrad sat down to obey his master's directions.

"What shall be our subject?" inquired the pupil.

"A head. Proceed."

"A female?"

"Yes. But follow my instructions implicitly."

Conrad chalked out the outline. It was feebly, incorrectly drawn: but the stranger took his crayon, and by a few spirited touches gave life, vigour, and expression to the whole. Conrad was in despair.

"Oh that it were in my power to have done this!" he cried, putting one hand on his brow, and looking at the picture as though he would have devoured it.

"Now for colour," said the stranger; and he carefully directed his pupil how to lay in the ground, to mingle and contrast the different tints, in a manner so far superior to his former process, that Conrad soon began to feel a glow of enthusiasm. His fervour increased, the latent spark of genius was kindled. In short, the unknown seemed to have imbued him with some hitherto unfelt attributes--invested him either with new powers, or awakened his. .h.i.therto dormant faculties. As before, by a few touches, the crude, spiritless ma.s.s became living and breathing under the master's hand. Not many hours elapsed ere a pretty head, respectably executed, appeared on the canvas. Conrad was in high spirits.

He felt a new sense, a new faculty, as it were, created within him. He worked industriously. Every hour seemed to condense the labour and experience of years. He made prodigious advances. His master came daily at the same time, and at length his term of instruction drew to a close. The last morning of the month arrived; and Conrad, unknown to his neighbours, had attained to the highest rank in his profession.

His paintings, all executed under the immediate superintendence of the stranger, were splendid specimens of art.

In the year ----, all Paris was moved with the extraordinary performances of a young artist, whose portraits were the most wonderful, and his miniatures the most exquisite, that eyes ever beheld. They looked absolutely as though endowed with life--real flesh and blood to all appearance; and happy were those who could get a painting from his hand. The price was enormous, and the marvellous facility with which they were despatched was not the least extraordinary part of the business. There was a mystery, too, about him, provokingly delightful, especially to the female portion of the community. In place of living in a gay and fashionable part of the city, his lodging was in a miserable garret, overlooking one of the gloomiest streets of the metropolis. His manners, too, were forbidding and reserved. Instead of exhibiting the natural buoyancy of his years, he looked careworn and dejected; nor was he ever known to smile.

After a period whispers got abroad that several of his female subjects came to strange and untimely deaths. They were seized with some dangerous malady, accompanied by frightful delusions. In general they fancied themselves possessed. Wailings, shrieks, and horrible blasphemies proceeded from the lips of the sufferers. These reports were doubtless exaggerated, the marvellous being a prodigiously acc.u.mulative and inventive faculty; yet enough remained, apparently authentic, to justify the most unfavourable suspicions.

About this time a young Italian lady of a n.o.ble house arrived on a visit to her brother in the suite of the Florentine emba.s.sy. This princely dame, possessed of great wealth and beauty, was not long unprovided with lovers; one especially, a handsome official in the royal household, De Vessey by name, and as gallant a cavalier as ever lady looked upon. But her term of absence being nigh expired, the lovers were in great perplexity; and nothing seemed so likely to contribute to their comfort during such unavoidable separation as a miniature portrait of each from the hands of this inimitable painter.

Leonora sat first, and the lover was in raptures. Hour by hour he watched the progress of his work in a little gloomy chamber, where the artist, like some automaton fixture, was always found in the same place, occupied too as it might seem without intermission.

"The gaze of that strange painter distresses me inexpressibly," said Leonora to her companion, as they went for the last time to his apartment. "I have borne it hitherto without a murmur, but words cannot describe the reluctance with which I endure his glance; yet while I feel as though my very soul abhorred it, it penetrates--nay, drinks up and withers my spirit. Though I shrink from it, some influence or fascination, call it as thou wilt, prevents escape; I cannot turn away my eyes from his terrible gaze."

"Thou art fanciful, my love," said De Vessey; "the near prospect of our parting makes thee apt to indulge these gloomy impressions. Be of good cheer; nothing shall harm thee in my presence. 'Tis the last sitting; put on a well-favoured aspect, I beseech thee. Remember, this portraiture will be my only solace during the long long hours of thine absence."

As they entered the artist's chamber, the picture lay before him, which he seemed to contemplate with such absorbing intensity that he was hardly aware of their entrance. He did not weep, but grief and pity were strangely mingled in his glance. It was but for a moment; he quickly resumed his usual att.i.tude and expression. Whether the previous conversation had made her lover liable to take the tone and character of her own thoughts, we know not; but for the first time he fancied Leonora's apprehensions were not entirely without excuse. He looked on the artist, and it excited almost a thrill of apprehension.

But speedily chiding himself for these untoward fancies, he felt that little was apparent either in look or manner but what the painter's peculiar and unexampled genius might sufficiently explain.

Suddenly his attention was riveted on the lady. He saw her lips quiver and turn pale as though she would have swooned. In a moment he was at her side. The support seemed to re-animate the fainting maiden, her head drooping on his shoulder. Almost gasping for utterance, she whispered, "Take me hence, I want breath--air, air!" De Vessey lifted her in his arms and bore her forth into the open doorway. Trembling, shuddering, and looking round, the first words she uttered were--

"We are watched--by some unseen being in yonder chamber, I am persuaded. Didst not mark an antique, dismal-looking ebony cabinet immediately behind the painter?"

"I did, and admired its exquisite workmanship, as though wrought by some cunning hand."

"As I fixed my eyes on those little traceries, it might be fancy, but methought I saw the bright flash of a human eye gazing on me."

"Oh! my Leonora, indulge not these gloomy impressions. Throw off thy wayward fancies. 'Tis but the reflex image the mind mistakes for outward realities. When disordered she discerns not the substance from the shadow. Thou art well-nigh recovered. Come, come, let us in.

To-day is the last of our task; prithee take courage and return."

"On one condition only; if thou take the chair first, and note well an open scroll to the right where those fawns and satyrs are carved."

"Agreed. And now shake off thy fears, my love."

De Vessey led her again to the apartment, and as though without consideration sat down, his face directly towards the cabinet. He fixed his eyes thereon a few seconds only, when Leonora saw him start up suddenly with a troubled aspect and grasp the hilt of his sword.

Then turning to the painter he said, sternly--

"So!--We have intruders here, I trow."

"Intruders? None!" was the artist's reply, without betraying either surprise or alarm.

"That we'll see presently," said the cavalier, hastening to the cabinet; which, with hearty good-will, he essayed to open.

"Why this outrage?" inquired the painter, colouring with a hectic flush.

"Because 'tis my good pleasure," was the haughty reply. The door resisted his utmost efforts. "Doubtless held by some one within. Open, or by this good sword I'll make a pa.s.sage through both door and carcase."

The hinges slowly gave way, the folding-doors swung open, and displayed a grinning skeleton.

"Ah! what lodger is this?"

"Mine art requires it," said the painter, with a ghastly smile; but in that smile was an expression so fearful, yet mysterious, that even De Vessey quailed before it. Another miniature portrait, a precise copy of the one in hand, hung from the neck of the skeleton.