CHAPTER VIII.
THE SON OF THE HONORABLE CRAVEN BLACK.
Upon the morning of the day on which Neva Wynde and Lord Towyn so strangely encountered each other upon the dingy packet-boat—an encounter that was destined to be fateful—a scene transpired in one of the London suburbs to which we would call the attention of the reader.
In an upper room, in one of the dingiest houses of one of the dingiest crescents at New Brompton, a young man, a mere youth, was engaged in painting a picture. The room was bare and comfortless, with threadbare carpet, decrepit and worn-out furniture, and springless sofa-bed—one of the poorest rooms, in fact, a lodging-house of the fourth rate can furnish. There were two windows without curtains, and provided only with torn and faded blue paper shades, rolled up and confined with cotton cord. A few ashes were in the grate, showing that although the season was summer, a fire had lately burned there.
The picture which the youth was painting stood upon an easel before one of the windows, and was but little better than a daub. It had been sketched by a bold and vigorous hand, but was faulty in conception and ill-colored. The light upon it was bad, and the hand that wielded the brush was trembling and impatient, weakened by fasting and emotions.
The painter looked a mere boy, although he was full twenty years of age. His complexion was florid, his eyes hazel in hue, and he wore his brown hair long, artist fashion, and tossed back from his high white forehead. He was handsome, with an honest look in his eyes, and a pleasant mouth, but his chin was short, and weak in its expression, and his countenance betrayed a character full of good and noble impulses, yet with a weakness, indecision, and irresolution that might yet prove fatal to him.
He was dressed in a shabby velveteen jacket, daubed with paints and out at the elbows. His garments, like his lodging, betrayed poverty of the most unmitigated description.
This young man was Rufus Black, the only son of Craven Black who was Lady Wynde’s lover. And it was Rufus Black whom his father and Lady Wynde had planned should marry Neva Wynde, and thus play into their hands, enabling them to possess themselves of a portion of Neva’s noble fortune.
As Mr. Black had said, he had quarrelled with his son some weeks before, and cast him off, penniless and destitute of friends, to shift for himself. He had drifted to his present lodgings, and was trying to keep soul and body together by painting wretched pictures, which he sold to a general dealer for wretched pay.
“The picture don’t suit me,” he said, pushing back his chair, that he might get a better view of the painting. “It’s only a daub, but it’s as good as the pay. I’ve been three days at it, and it won’t bring me in even the fifteen shillings I got for the last. It will do to stop up a chimney-place, I suppose—and I had such grand ideas of my art, and of my talents! I meant to achieve fame and fortune, and here I am without food or fuel, with the rent due, and with my soul so fettered by these cares, so borne down by despair and remorse, that I am incapable of work. I am gone to the dogs, as my father told me to go—but, oh, why did I not travel the downward road alone? Why must I drag her down with me?”
A despairing look gathered on his face; the tears filled his eyes; a sob escaped him. He looked haggard, worn and despairing. He was in no condition for work, yet he resumed his task with blinded eyes, and painted on at random with feverish haste.
He had grown somewhat calmer, with the calmness of an utter despair, when the door opened, and a girl came in bearing a large basket heavily loaded. She was a slender young creature, not more than seventeen years old, and her pale face and narrow chest betrayed a tendency to consumption. Her complexion was of a clear olive tint; her hair was of a blue-black color, and was worn in braids; her eyes were dark and loving, with an appealing expression in them; and, despite the circumstances of her lot, she maintained a hopeful, sunshiny spirit and a sunshiny countenance.
She was the young music-teacher for whose sake Rufus Black had quarrelled with his father. She was the last member of a large family who had all died of consumption. She had lost her situation in a ladies’ school about the time that Rufus had separated himself from his father; and after the young man had abandoned his parent, he had hastened to her and begged her to marry him. He was full of hope, ambitious, determined to achieve fame and fortune by his painter’s brush, and she was weak and worn, sorrowful and nearly ill, and quite penniless. Believing in his talents and ability to support them both, she had accepted the refuge he offered her, and one week after Craven Black had turned his son adrift, the young pair were married, and moved into their present dingy quarters.
They had joined their poverty together, and soon discovered that the achievement of fame and wealth was uphill work. Rufus was fresh from his university, unused to work for his bread, and he had overrated his talent for painting, as he presently discovered. He found it hard work to sell his poor efforts, and he could not paint enough at first to bring him in twenty shillings a week. It was now three months since his marriage, and one by one his books, his better articles of clothing, his watch, and other trinkets, had been sold or pledged to buy necessaries or pay the rent. Upon this morning they had had no breakfast.
“How big your eyes are, Rufus!” laughed the young wife, throwing off her battered little hat. “You look as if I had brought you some priceless treasure; but you well may, for I have the nicest little breakfast we have had for a week.”
“Where did you get it?” inquired the young artist, his thin cheeks flushing with an eagerness he would have concealed. “Have you prevailed on the grocer to give us credit?”
“No, I could not do that,” and the young wife shook her head. “I’m afraid his heart is as hard as the nether mill-stone we read about. He thinks I’m a humbug—a cheat! But our landlady, Mrs. McKellar, you know, has faith in your picture, and I borrowed two shillings of her. See what a sumptuous repast we shall have,” and she proceeded to display the contents of her basket, unpacking them swiftly. “Here’s two-pence worth of coffee, a pennyworth of milk, a threepenny loaf, and a superb rasher of ham of the kind described by the Irishman as ‘a strake of fat and a strake of lane.’ And here’s a bundle of wood to boil the coffee; and I’ve gone to the extravagance of a sixpenny pot of jam, your appetite is so delicate. And now for breakfast.”
She piled her wood skillfully in the grate, put on her coffee-pot and frying pan, and lighted her fire.
Then while her breakfast was cooking, she laid her table with her scanty ware, and bustled about like an incarnate sunbeam, and no one would have suspected that she too was weak and hungry, and that she was sick at heart and full of dread for the future.
“So breakfast is provided for,” murmured Rufus Black, in a tone in which it would have been hard to tell which predominated, relief or bitterness. “I began to fear we should fast to-day, as we did yesterday.”
The young wife turned her rasher of ham in the pan, and put her small allowance of coffee in the pot, before she answered gravely:
“Rufus, I think I might get another situation to teach music. I have good references, you know. I don’t like being so utterly dependent upon you. You have not been used to work. I’m afraid we did very wrong in getting married.”
“What else could we do?” demanded Rufus Black. “I could not see you working yourself to death, Lally, when a little care would save you. You had to go out of doors in all weathers, and you were going into a galloping consumption. I expected to be able to support you, but I’m only a useless fellow, after all. I thought I had talent, but it has turned out like the fairy money—it has turned to dead leaves at the moment of using it. I have a university education, and would be thankful for a situation as usher in a dame’s school. I am willing to dig ditches, only I’m not strong enough. Oh, Lally, little wife, what is to become of us?”
Lally Black—she had been christened Lalla by her romantic mother, after the heroine of Moore’s poem, but her name had lost its romantic sound through years of every-day use—approached her young husband, and softly laid her cheek against his. She stroked his hand gently as she said:
“It is I who am useless, Rufus. You ought to have married a rich wife instead of a poor little music-teacher. I’m afraid you’ll reproach me in your heart some day for marrying you—there, there, dear boy! I did not mean it. I know you will never regret our marriage, let what will be the result!”
She caressed him tenderly, and then hurried to the fire intent upon her breakfast. The coffee was steaming, and the ham was cooked. The busy little housewife made a round of toast, and then announced that breakfast was ready. Rufus drew up his chair to the table, and Lally waited upon him, and was so gay and bright and hopeful that he became infected with her spirit.
But when the delicious breakfast was over he became grave and haggard again, and bowed his face on his hand and sat in silence, while she washed the dishes and carefully put away the remnants of the meal. Then she came to him and sat on his knee, and drew his hand from his face, and whispered:
“Rufus, is your father rich?”
“He has some three or four hundred pounds a year—that’s all,” answered Rufus. “Why do you ask?”
“Could he not assist us a little, if he wished?” ventured Lally. “I have no relative to apply to. I had a great-aunt who married a rich man, and I think she lives in London, but I don’t know her name, and she probably never heard of me, so I can’t write or go to her. Let us humble ourselves to your father, dear—”
“To what purpose?” interposed Rufus half fiercely. “My father is a mercenary, villainous—Don’t stop me, Lally. I am telling the truth, if he is my father. Thank God, I took after my poor mother. My father does not know we are married, and I dare not tell him. If I fear anybody in this world, I fear my father.”
“But he must know some time of our marriage,” urged the young wife. “You make me afraid, dear, that we did wrong in marrying. We are too young, and I had to work for my living. Your father could never forgive me, and accept me as his daughter. My family is of no account, and yours is good. People think of all these things, and you will be looked down upon for your unfortunate, ill-starred marriage. Oh, Rufus, if we could undo what we have done, it might be well for us.”
The young husband endeavored to console his wife, and he had brought back her bright hopefulness, when the postman’s knock was heard on the street door. A sudden hope thrilled them both. They listened breathlessly, and not in vain. Presently the housemaid’s heavy tread was heard on the stairs, and she entered the room, bringing a letter.
When she had departed, Rufus opened the letter, and the young couple perused it together. It was dated Wyndham village, and had been written by Craven Black, and contained simply an announcement that the father desired to be reconciled to his son; that he saw a way in which he could make Rufus a rich man; and he begged his son, if he also desired a reconciliation and wealth, and was willing to submit himself to his father’s will, to come to him at once by the earliest train. Between the leaves of the letter was a ten-pound note.
“You will go, of course?” cried the young wife excitedly.
“I wish I knew what he meant,” muttered Rufus irresolutely.
“He is your father, dear, and you will go,” urged Lally. “For my sake, you will go. And Rufus, I beg you to yield to his wishes. They will not be unreasonable, I am sure. Say you will go!”
Rufus hesitated. He knew that when with his father, he was a coward without a will of his own. What if he should be driven into some act he should hereafter repent? Yet at last he consented to go to his father, and an hour later he divided his money with his wife, giving her the larger share, and took his departure. At that last moment a horrible misgiving came over him, and he ran back and kissed the little sunshiny face he loved, and then he went out again and made his way to the station, with a death-like pall upon his soul.