Elizabeth's Pretenders/Part 3/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

About ten o'clock the next morning—the rain had cleared off, the sun was shining brightly—Elizabeth saw from her window what she told Hatty was "a study in furs," walk into the house in which Alaric had his painting room. The French Jew had arrayed himself in a sealskin cap and coat, the morning being cold, while an orange cache-nez gave the accent of colour which he held essential to the intonation of his good looks.

"What do you say to this?" he began, as he entered the studio. "The treatment of the seal-skin would give you a fine opportunity, eh? Something à la Rembrandt? Do you fancy it?"

"You are not venerable enough to be painted à la Rembrandt, "said Baring, smiling. Then humouring the man's vanity with an implied and pardonable compliment, he continued, "I want to devote myself entirely to your head; to think of nothing else at first; to make it palpitating with life; to get those rich tones of the flesh which are so rare, and so splendid, from a painter. The dress, the background, will take care of themselves. Plain black, as unobtrusive as possible, and a grey wall, I fancy. But those are after-considerations."

He placed his sitter in various lights, looked at him at various angles, till he had satisfied himself which was the most favourable aspect the Jew should wear for posterity. Melchior showed no impatience. Vanity, like charity, covers a multitude of—ennuis. And when the sketch was once begun, he talked away amusingly enough of men at Monte Carlo, and their mis-adventures—no, he corrected himself,—their madam-adventures, their cheatings, and pilferings, and quarrels. The painter noted the hard, wicked sparkle in his sitter's eyes, which had never obtruded itself on his attention before. To give full force and character to the face, that expression must be transferred to his canvas.

Of course Melchior had determined that nothing should prevent his breakfasting with the Baring trio at the table d'hôte. The thought paramount in his mind during the two hours he sat to Alaric was how he should meet the English girl who fired his passion three weeks or a month before, supposing she recognized him. He had been too precipitate on that occasion. She had been offended. He must learn Baring's exact position towards her, before deciding how the secret he had surprised could be best turned to his own advantage. This he foresaw might be difficult. The case, apparently, was a complicated one. A girl art-student—and, therefore presumably poor—purchasing clandestinely the picture of this man, whose sister was her friend, and with whom she must be living on terms of some intimacy. His vicious imagination would probably have suggested the very closest intimacy, had not all the probabilities of the mystery been against such a supposition. For one fact he did clearly elicit in reply to his direct question; Alaric had no idea who was the present owner of his "Venetian Senator."

Though her cough was no better, Hatty appeared at breakfast; for, as she said, the sun was hot, and thoroughly warmed the dining-room; and she was sure it could do her no harm to come downstairs. Her real motives—curiosity, and reluctance that Elizabeth should appear, even momentarily, in a false position, as Alaric's companion—she did not reveal. In America such a chance would cause no animadversion; but she had been long enough on the Continent to know that here it was not so. This stranger mast not misjudge her friend or Alaric, which a Frenchman of Monsieur Melchior's stamp was so likely to do. She was nearer the truth than she imagined, poor little woman! and Elizabeth was possibly a gainer in consideration at the unscrupulous millionaire's hands.

Without her hat he thought her even handsomer than he had in Jacob's shop; her head, with its waving black hair, was so finely shaped, and rose so nobly from its stem. Nothing could be simpler than her dress, and she did not wear an ornament of any description, in notable contrast to the bejewelled ladies whose society he mostly frequented, and so many of whom fluttered round him at Monte Carlo.

She bowed gravely, without a gleam of recognition, as Alaric presented the gorgeous Jew to Miss Shaw, and suggested that she should sit between them at table. Hatty was coughing so much that it was better to place her on the other side of her brother, where she need not talk. But she found occasion to whisper to him in the course of the meal, after screwing her head round several times, and glaring at the stranger through her pince-nez—

"I don't like his face, Ally. I am sorry. I hope he is better than he looks."

On the other side, Melchior had opened the conversation with infinite discretion. There was nothing in his tone or manner, at first, to recall the impudent individual in Jacob's shop, on whom she had bestowed no more than an indignant glance, and who had passed straightway out of her mind. Towards the end of breakfast he fell into that snare of the underbred, and became more familiar.

"You don't know Monte Carlo? You must come over with Mr. Baring and breakfast with me there, and I will take you round the tables. You shall play for me, if you like, and———"

"I should not like it at all, thank you," she interrupted.

"Why not? I am having a wonderful run of luck. I won again last night. If you play for me, we'll go shares. What do you say to that, mademoiselle?"

Elizabeth checked the impetuous rejoinder that rose to her lips. She did not wish to offend Alaric Baring's sitter. She must let him down gently.

"Miss Baring is not strong enough to go to Monte Carlo, and I do not leave her."

"What a beautiful case of female devotion! "Here he showed his brilliant white teeth. "It is a pity, for you might make a lot of friends there; and then, if you sent your pictures over, we'd get up a raffle for them. Will you show me your work presently?"

"If you wish it. But you mast not expect much. I am only a student, at present."

Thus began the acquaintance. Of course he bought her "Old Peasant Woman" for the very modest sum she asked; and though Hatty and Alaric were both pleased at this, the artist herself hardly experienced more than a qualified sense of gratification. Her first picture sold! Why was she not more elated? The explanation was not far to seek. She had a secret conviction that her picture was not bought for its intrinsic merit, but in order that the purchaser should make himself "pleasant." She revolted against that. She wished she could refuse to part with the picture; but how to do so, without betraying to the Barings the fact that she was indifferent to the money! And in proportion as Melchior grew more familiar, she became less tolerant of his vulgarity. Still she contrived, with some self-restraint, to be perfectly civil to him. And at last he departed.

Then she and Alaric were left alone; and they looked at each other. At last he said—

"One would like all one's transactions with a man like that to be purely business ones. One does not feel like receiving him as a friend."

"Why should one?"

"It is difficult to avoid. If he insists on breakfasting here after his sittings, how can I prevent him?"

"You can't," she said quickly. "As a patron of the Arts, "she added, laughing, "we must both be grateful to him; but in any other light, I think—I think I had rather not see too much of him."

"You shall not, if I can help it. He is a man who has not lived much with ladies, I fancy. But as a model he is invaluable. A splendid head for colour!"

"A sort of vulgar Mephistopheles. I suppose he will 'paint' well; but I should not like to do it."

"I am glad you were not called upon," he said, smiling, "because I mean to make a fine thing of him."

When Hatty was alone with her brother later in the day, she eyed him narrowly as she observed—

"Your Jew friend admires Elizabeth Shaw very much, I am sure."

"She does not return the compliment," he returned coolly.

"I thought her wonderfully patient with him, considering. Of course it was on your account, Ally. But I have known girls begin in that way and end by—by toleration."

"What are you driving at, my astute Hatty? You are not insulting Miss Shaw by supposing that for the value of Melchior's wealth she would ever marry him, if he asked her?"

She saw that her desire to rouse a little wholesome jealousy in his mind had carried her too far.

"No," she replied, taking off her pince-nez and wiping it, the more clearly to scrutinize Alaric's face; "only I think a man of that kind might presume upon her tolerance, and that, I am sure, you would be sorry for. I take back all I said yesterday, about wishing you to be intimate with him."

"You need not be afraid; I don't much like him. But until his portrait is finished I suppose he will be here every day, so we must make the best of him."

We believe the devil to be sharp-sighted, but his disciples, at least, are occasionally baffled by conduct of which they cannot even conceive the mainsprings. Melchior watched Alaric Baring and Elizabeth closely. He had seldom before come into contact with a man of the American painter's temperament; never with a woman pure-minded and independent of action, with a pride and force of will to conceal her natural inclinations, as Elizabeth did before him. He had come prepared to find that the girl nourished a hopeless passion for the painter, whose cold nature probably did not respond to hers; or it might be just the contrary. As the brother of her friend she might be anxious to help him in every way, short of giving him the love he asked. For love, as conceived by Melchior, was nothing but an animal passion, which could not long support the strain of companionship without possession. The attitude of these two persons towards each other did not fit in with either of these theories. He found the man and girl apparently mutually cool and friendly, with no evidence of restraint, no expression of unacknowledged misery, no attempt to attract on either side. The women were friends, and the English one, with that whimsical benevolence of which he had heard before now, chose secretly to purchase her friend's brother's picture—with money how obtained? How? Oh, she had probably a rich lover, who occasionally gave her leave of absence to indulge her eccentricity and romance by wandering about alone, ostensibly to study painting. This would hardly be possible, indeed, were the lover a Frenchman; but the English were such a strange nation, there was no saying what one of them would not do. It was this conclusion to which the astute Jew arrived after the third or fourth day.

The portrait being ready painted in Alaric Baring's mind, its progress on canvas was rapid. There was no hesitation, no "pentimento." He knew what he wanted to do, and each stroke told. Elizabeth felt a glow of pleasure when she saw it after the fourth sitting. It seemed to her a really masterly portrait, finely modelled, and instinct with life. Melchior, who stood by, asked if she thought it did him justice. She replied that it almost persuaded her to become an impressionist, it was so admirable. It was the finest work she had seen of Mr. Baring's. Finer than the "Venetian Senator?" he inquired, watching her with a curious smile. Yes, finer than the "Venetian Senator," she answered, without wincing.

At this moment Alaric was called out of the room, and Melchior, taking advantage of his absence, said rapidly in a low voice—

"If you think this the finer picture, mademoiselle, shall we exchange?"

"Exchange! What do you mean?" She turned sharply round.

"You possess the 'Venetian Senator,'" he whispered, smiling.

She flushed to the roots of her hair. "Who told you so? Not Mr. Baring?"

"No; I learnt it by accident."

"And you have told no one?"

"No one," he replied, still with that Satanic smile. "The secret is ours. It is delightful to have a secret with you. I am sorry for poor Baring, as I showed by ordering this portrait. You and I together may help him and his sister to live, eh? You have some one who supplies you with money?"—this with a peculiarly offensive leer—"and you are charitable. Well, let me be your banker, instead of that other one. The Barings shall have all they want, and not know where it comes from."

Before she had time to more than flash an indignant rejoinder from, her dark eyes, Alaric was in the room again. He glanced from one to the other.

"My sister would be glad to speak to you, Miss Shaw." And Elizabeth, without another word, without even bowing to Melchior, swept from the room.

The difficulty in which she found herself placed was great. This detestable Jew's insult did not trouble her; but his knowledge of her secret, his possible betrayal, did. She would not for the world that Alaric Baring should learn the truth; it would vitiate their pleasant position of equality that she should appear as his benefactress, and she clung so strongly to the desire that this one man, at least, should not think of her as rich, until——— There she broke off; she would not put a limit to the length of his ignorance. But had she not registered a mental vow that she would marry no man who asked her, knowing her wealth? It was from opposite causes to those which made her register that vow, though arriving at the same result, that she dreaded this knowledge reaching the proud sensitive American. She knew him well now; she had not a doubt as to how he would behave, even if he grew to care for her—and sometimes she had a curious belief she could hardly account for, that he was beginning to care for her—supposing he discovered she was an heiress. Far from seeking her then, he would flee from her. If he had not asked her when he believed her to be poor, he would scorn to do so when he knew her to be rich.

She was greatly exercised all that afternoon as to how she should next meet Melchior—how she should act towards him. The idea of trying to conciliate, or of temporizing with him, was hateful to her. Almost equally so that of appealing to his generosity. Yet, if she declined to have anything further to say to him, she felt sure that he would revenge himself by betraying her to Alaric Baring. It might even lead to an altercation between the two men. What was she to do?

Fate decided the question painfully; but, for the time, decisively. That same evening Hatty had a severe attack of hemorrhage. A doctor was called in, and Elizabeth passed the night by her friend's bedside. For days she lay there utterly prostrate; and all Elizabeth's meals were served to her in Hatty's room. Her brother was, of course, useless. He came in and out, looking sternly anxious, his hands rammed far down into his pockets, his eyes beneath corrugated brows questioning Elizabeth's, and few words passing between them. She was a famous nurse—no trained one could be better; inaccessible, apparently, to fatigue, full of resource, swift and noiseless in movement, and ever ready to bend down and answer her patient's little fluttering whisper with a hopeful smile. She took occasion to tell Alaric that if he could not look a little less gloomy, he had better keep away.

All question of Elizabeth's leaving Hatty's room to join the table d'hôte being disposed of, a masterly inactivity as regarded Melchior seemed the wisest course to pursue. She meditated more than once, in the course of that week, writing to him; but the difficulty of composing such a letter as, without offending, should silence him, withheld her. The portrait, Alaric told her, would in a couple more sittings be complete, as far as Melchior was concerned. His presence, which grated on the American more than ever now, could be dispensed with, for some finishing touches to the dress. Sore troubled at heart for his sister, whose true condition he now for the first time realized, he felt ill disposed to listen to this Israelite's narration of his exploits on the Bourse, his successes with fair ladies, and the advances that were made to him on all sides.

"Take my word for it, Mr. Baring, every woman has her price," he said one day.

"I quite agree with you. Only, fortunately, it is often one that is not to be paid in gold," was the reply.

It must not be supposed that this man, who, thanks to his acute brain, and his want of principle, combined with an extraordinary run of "luck," had generally succeeded in obtaining most things for which he had striven, would sit down patiently under the reverse with which Miss Baring's illness threatened the plot that had relieved the monotony of gambling for him in his little holiday at Monte Carlo. As the week wore on, and Elizabeth did not appear at breakfast, he became indignant. He had been cheated of the object he had had in view in coming here. And the worst of it was, he could not proclaim his indignation to the pale, red-bearded man opposite, palette in hand, silently piercing him with those steel-grey eyes under the corrugated brows. He could look for no sympathy or help there.

Yet something he was resolved to do, the day before his last sitting, and only two before his departure for Paris. He would see her, coûte que coûte. He had not yet made up his mind exactly what he would say to her; bat his proposals should be generous—even extravagant, if stimulated by difficulty. Nay, if the worse came to the worst, he thought he would propose marriage; for was he not genuinely "in love"? And, being so unused to opposition, even this last desperate resource might be preferable to utter failure. How should he obtain an interview? He argued thus. It was impossible that she should remain the whole day long in that sick-room, without exercise, sunshine, fresh air. He slipped a napoleon into the head-waiter's hand, and in reply to his inquiries learnt that for the last three or four days the English young lady on the third floor had walked out alone rather late in the afternoon, and had always taken the same direction,—up the hill towards the Italian frontier. He did not remain to breakfast that morning, greatly to Alaric's relief, but returned to Mentone some hours later, and after interviewing his friend the waiter, whom he had appointed to meet him, and learning that the English young lady had already started for her usual walk up the hill, he hastened to follow her.