Hide and Seek Part 13

Nothing was more characteristic of Mrs. Blyth's warm sympathies and affectionate consideration for Madonna than this little action. The kindest people rarely think it necessary, however well practiced in communicating by the fingers with the deaf, to keep them informed of any ordinary conversation which may be proceeding in their presence. Wise disquisitions, witty sayings, curious stories, are conveyed to their minds by sympathizing friends and relatives, as a matter of course; but the little chatty nothings of everyday talk, which most pleasantly and constantly employ our speaking and address our hearing faculties, are thought too slight and fugitive in their nature to be worthy of transmission by interpreting fingers or pens, and are consequently seldom or never communicated to the deaf. No deprivation attending their affliction is more severely felt by them than the special deprivation which thus ensues; and which exiles their sympathies, in a great measure, from all share in the familiar social interests of life around them.

Mrs. Blyth's kind heart, quick intelligence, and devoted affection for her adopted child, had long since impressed it on her, as the first of duties and pleasures, to prevent Madonna from feeling the excluding influences of her calamity, while in the society of others, by keeping her well informed of every one of the many conversations, whether jesting or earnest, that were held in her presence, in the invalid-room.

For years and years past, Mrs. Blyth's nimble fingers had been accustomed to interpret all that was said by her bedside before the deaf and dumb girl, as they were interpreting for her now.

"Just stop me, Lavvie, if I miss anything out, in making sure that I've got all that's wanted for everybody's drawing lesson," said Valentine, preparing to reckon up the list of his materials correctly, by placing his right forefinger on his left thumb. "First, there's the statue that all my students are to draw from--the Dying Gladiator. Secondly, the drawing-boards and paper. Thirdly, the black and white chalk.

Fourthly,--where are the port-crayons to hold the chalk? Down in the painting-room, of course. No! no! don't trouble Madonna to fetch them.

Tell her to poke the fire instead: I'll be back directly." And Mr. Blyth skipped out of the room as nimbly as if he had been fifteen instead of fifty.

No sooner was Valentine's back turned than Mrs. Blyth's hand was pa.s.sed under the pretty swan's-down coverlet that lay over her couch, as if in search of something hidden beneath it. In a moment the hand reappeared, holding a chalk drawing very neatly framed. It was Madonna's copy from the head of the Venus de' Medici--the same copy which Zack had honored with his most superlative exaggeration of praise, at his last visit to the studio. She had not since forgotten, or altered her purpose of making him a present of the drawing which he had admired so much. It had been finished with the utmost care and completeness which she could bestow upon it; had been put into a very pretty frame which she had paid for out of her own little savings of pocket-money; and was now hidden under Mrs. Blyth's coverlet, to be drawn forth as a grand surprise for Zack, and for Valentine too, on that very evening.

After looking once or twice backwards and forwards between the copyist and the copy, her pale kind face beaming with the quiet merriment that overspread it, Mrs. Blyth laid down the drawing, and began talking with her fingers to Madonna.

"So you will not even let me tell Valentine who this is a present for?"

were the first words which she signed.

The girl was sitting with her back half turned on the drawing; glancing at it quickly from time to time with a strange shyness and indecision, as if the work of her own hands had undergone some transformation which made her doubt whether she was any longer privileged to look at it.

She shook her head in reply to the question just put to her, then moved round suddenly on her chair; her fingers playing nervously with the fringes of the coverlet at her side.

"We all like Zack," proceeded Mrs. Blyth, enjoying the amus.e.m.e.nt which her womanly instincts extracted from Madonna's confusion; "but you must like him very much, love, to take more pains with this particular drawing than with any drawing you ever did before."

This time Madonna neither looked up nor moved an inch in her chair, her fingers working more and more nervously amid the fringe; her treacherous cheeks, neck, and bosom answered for her.

Mrs. Blyth touched her shoulder gaily, and, after placing the drawing again under the coverlet, made her look up, while signing these words;

"I shall give the drawing to Zack very soon after he comes in. It is sure to make him happy for the rest of the evening, and fonder of you than ever."

Madonna's eyes followed Mrs. Blyth's fingers eagerly to the last letter they formed; then rose softly to her face with the same wistful questioning look which they had a.s.sumed before Valentine, years and years ago, when he first interfered to protect her in the traveling circus. There was such an irresistible tenderness in the faint smile that wavered about her lips; such a sadness of innocent beauty in her face, now growing a shade paler than it was wont to be, that Mrs.

Blyth's expression became serious the instant their eyes met. She drew the girl forward and kissed her. The kiss was returned many times, with a pa.s.sionate warmth and eagerness remarkably at variance with the usual gentleness of all Madonna's actions. What had changed her thus? Before it was possible to inquire or to think, she had broken away from the kind arms that were round her, and was kneeling with her face hidden in the pillows that lay over the head of the couch.

"I must quiet her directly. I ought to make her feel that this is wrong," said Mrs. Blyth to herself; looking startled and grieved as she withdrew her hand wet with tears, after trying vainly to raise the girl's face from the pillows. "She has been thinking too much lately--too much about that drawing; too much, I am afraid, about Zack."

Just at that moment Mr. Blyth opened the door. Feeling the slight shock, as he let it bang to after entering, Madonna instantly started up and ran to the fireplace. Valentine did not notice her when he came in.

He bustled about the neighborhood of the Dying Gladiator, talking incessantly, arranging his port-crayons by the drawing-boards, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the lamps that lit the model. Mrs. Blyth cast many an anxious look towards the fireplace. After the lapse of a few minutes Madonna turned round and came back to the couch. The traces of tears had almost entirely disappeared from her face. She made a little appealing gesture that asked Mrs. Blyth to be silent about what had happened while they were alone; kissed, as a sign that she wished to be forgiven, the hand that was held out to her; and then sat down quietly again in her accustomed place.

At the same moment a voice was heard talking and laughing boisterously in the hall. Then followed a long whispering, succeeded by a burst of giggling from the housemaid, who presently ascended to Mrs. Blyth's room alone, and entered--after an explosion of suppressed laughter behind the door--holding out at arm's length a pair of boxing-gloves.

"If you please, sir," said the girl, addressing Valentine, and t.i.ttering hysterically at every third word, "Master Zack's down stairs on the landing, and he says you're to be so kind as put on these things (he's putting another pair on hisself) and give him the pleasure of your company for a few minutes in the painting-room."

"Come on, Blyth," cried the voice from the stairs. "I told you I should bring the gloves, and make a fighting man of you, last time I was here, you know. Come on! I only want to open your chest by knocking you about a little in the painting-room before we begin to draw."

The servant still held the gloves away from her at the full stretch of her arm, as if she feared they were yet alive with the pugilistic energies that had been imparted to them by their last wearer. Mrs. Blyth burst out laughing, Valentine followed her example. The housemaid began to look bewildered, and begged to know if her master would be so kind as to take "the things" away from her.

"Did you say, come up stairs?" continued the voice outside. "All right; I have no objection, if Mrs. Blyth hasn't." Here Zack came in with his boxing-gloves fitted on. "How are you, Blyth? These are the pills for that sluggish old liver of yours that you're always complaining of. Put 'em on. Stand with your left leg forward--keep your right leg easily bent--and fix your eye on me!"

"Hold your tongue!" cried Mr. Blyth, at last recovering breath enough to a.s.sert his dignity as master of the new drawing-school. "Take off those things directly! What do you mean, sir, by coming into my academy, which is devoted to the peaceful arts, in the att.i.tude of a prize-fighter?"

"Don't lose your temper, my dear fellow," rejoined Zack; "you will never learn to use your fists prettily if you do. Here, Patty, the boxing lesson's put off till to-morrow. Take the gloves up-stairs into your master's dressing-room, and put them in the drawer where his clean s.h.i.+rts are, because they must be kept nice and dry. Shake hands, Mrs.

Blyth: it does one good to see you laugh like that, you look so much the better for it. And how is Madonna? I'm afraid she's been sitting before the fire, and trying to spoil her pretty complexion. Why, what's the matter with her? Poor little darling, her hands are quite cold!"

"Come to your lesson, sir, directly," said Valentine, a.s.suming his most despotic voice, and leading the disorderly student by the collar to his appointed place.

"Hullo!" cried Zack, looking at the Dying Gladiator. "The gentleman in plaster's making a face--I'm afraid he isn't quite well. I say, Blyth, is that the statue of an ancient Greek patient, suffering under the prescription of an ancient Greek physician?"

_"Will_ you hold your tongue and take up your drawing-board?" cried Mr.

Blyth. "You young barbarian, you deserve to be expelled my academy for talking in that way of the Dying Gladiator. Now then; where's Madonna?

No! stop where you are, Zack. I'll show her her place, and give her the drawing-board. Wait a minute, Lavvie! Let me prop you up comfortably with the pillows before you begin. There! I never saw a more beautiful effect of light and shade, my dear, than there is on your view of the model. Has everybody got a port-crayon and two bits of chalk? Yes, everybody has. Order! order! order!" shouted Valentine, suddenly forgetting his a.s.sumed dignity in the exultation of the moment. "Mr.

Blyth's drawing academy for the promotion of family Art is now open, and ready for general inspection. Hooray!"

"Hooray!" echoed Zack, "hooray for family Art! I say, Blyth, which chalk do I begin with--the white or the black? The black--eh? Do I start with the what's his name's wry face? and if so, where am I to begin? With his eyes, or his nose, or his mouth, or the top of his head, or the bottom of his chin--or what?"

"First sketch in the general form with a light and flowing stroke, and without attention to details," said Mr. Blyth, ill.u.s.trating these directions by waving his hand gracefully about his own person. "Then measure with the eye, a.s.sisted occasionally by the port-crayon, the proportion of the parts. Then put dots on the paper; a dot where his head comes; another dot where his elbows and knees come, and so forth.

Then strike it all in boldly--it's impossible to give you better advice than that--strike it in, Zack; strike it in boldly!"

"Here goes at his head and shoulders to begin with," said Zack, taking one comprehensive and confident look at the Dying Gladiator, and drawing a huge half circle, with a preliminary flourish of his hand on the paper. "Oh, confound it, I've broken the chalk!"

"Of course you have," retorted Valentine. "Take another bit; the Academy grants supplementary chalk to ignorant students, who dig their lines on the paper, instead of drawing them. Now, break off a bit of that bread-crumb, and rub out what you have done. 'Buy a penny loaf, and rub it all out,' as Mr. Fuseli once said to me in the Schools of the Royal Academy, when I showed him my first drawing, and was excessively conceited about it."

"I remember," said Mrs. Blyth, "when my father was working at his great engraving, from Mr. Sc.u.mble's picture of the 'Fair Gleaner Surprised,'

that he used often to say how much harder his art was than drawing, because you couldn't rub out a false line on copper, like you could on paper. We all thought he never would get that print done, he used to groan over it so in the front drawing-room, where he was then at work.

And the publishers paid him infamously, all in bills, which he had to get discounted; and the people who gave him the money cheated him. My mother said it served him right for being always so imprudent; which I thought very hard on him, and I took his part--so hara.s.sed too as he was by the tradespeople at that time."

"I can feel for him, my love," said Valentine, pointing a piece of chalk for Zack. "The tradespeople have hara.s.sed _me_--not because I could not pay them certainly, but because I could not add up their bills. Never owe any man enough, Zack, to give him the chance of punis.h.i.+ng you for being in his debt, with a sum to do in simple addition. At the time when I had bills (go on with your drawing; you can listen, and draw too), I used, of course, to think it necessary to check the tradespeople, and see that their Total was right. You will hardly believe me, but I don't remember ever making the sum what the shop made it, on more than about three occasions. And, what was worse, if I tried a second time, I could not even get it to agree with what I had made it myself the first time.

Thank Heaven, I've no difficulties of that sort to grapple with now!

Everything's paid for the moment it comes in. If the butcher hands a leg of mutton to the cook over the airey railings, the cook hands him back six and nine--or whatever it is--and takes his bill and receipt. I eat my dinners now, with the blessed conviction that they won't all disagree with me in an arithmetical point of view at the end of the year. What are you stopping and scratching your head for in that way?"

"It's no use," replied Zack; "I've tried it a dozen times, and I find I can't draw a Gladiator's nose."

"Can't!" cried Mr. Blyth, "what do you mean by applying the word 'can't'

to any process of art in _my_ presence? There, that's the line of the Gladiator's nose. Go over it yourself with this fresh piece of chalk.

No; wait a minute. Come here first, and see how Madonna is striking in the figure; the front view of it, remember, which is the most difficult.

She hasn't worked as fast as usual, though. Do you find your view of the model a little too much for you, my love?" continued Valentine, transferring the last words to his fingers, to communicate them to Madonna.

She shook her head in answer. It was not the difficulty of drawing from the cast before her, but the difficulty of drawing at all, which was r.e.t.a.r.ding her progress. Her thoughts would wander to the copy of the Venus de Medici that was hidden under Mrs. Blyth's coverlid; would vibrate between trembling eagerness to see it presented without longer delay, and groundless apprehension that Zack might, after all, not remember it, or not care to have it when it was given to him. And as her thoughts wandered, so her eyes followed them. Now she stole an anxious, inquiring look at Mrs. Blyth, to see if her hand was straying towards the hidden drawing. Now she glanced shyly at Zack--only by moments at a time, and only when he was hardest at work with his port-crayon--to a.s.sure herself that he was always in the same good humor, and likely to receive her little present kindly, and with some appearance of being pleased to see what pains she had taken with it. In this way her attention wandered incessantly from her employment; and thus it was that she made so much less progress than usual, and caused Mr. Blyth to suspect that the task he had set her was almost beyond her abilities.

"Splendid beginning, isn't it?" said Zack, looking over her drawing.

"I defy the whole Royal Academy to equal it," continued the young gentleman, scrawling this uncompromising expression of opinion on the blank s.p.a.ce at the bottom of Madonna's drawing, and signing his name with a magnificent flourish at the end.

His arm touched her shoulder while he wrote. She colored a little, and glanced at him, playfully affecting to look very proud of his sentence of approval--then hurriedly resumed her drawing as their eyes met. He was sent back to his place by Valentine before he could write anything more. She took some of the bread-crumb near her to rub out what he had written--hesitated as her hand approached the lines--colored more deeply than before, and went on with her drawing, leaving the letters beneath it to remain just as young Thorpe had traced them.

"I shall never be able to draw as well as she does," said Zack, looking at the little he had done with a groan of despair. "The fact is, I don't think drawing's my forte. It's color, depend upon it. Only wait till I come to that; and see how I'll lay on the paint! Didn't you find drawing infernally difficult, Blyth, when you first began?"

"I find it difficult still, Master Zack," replied Mr. Blyth. "Art wouldn't be the glorious thing it is, if it wasn't all difficulty from beginning to end; if it didn't force out all the fine points in a man's character as soon as he takes to it. Just eight o'clock," continued Valentine, looking at his watch. "Put down your drawing-boards for the present. I p.r.o.nounce the sitting of this Academy to be suspended till after tea."

"Valentine, dear," said Mrs. Blyth, smiling mysteriously, as she slipped her hand under the coverlid of the couch, "I can't get Madonna to look at me, and I want her here. Will you oblige me by bringing her to my bedside?"

"Certainly, my love," returned Mr. Blyth, obeying the request. "You have a double claim on my services to-night, for you have shown yourself the most promising of my pupils. Come here, Zack, and see what Mrs. Blyth has done. The best drawing of the evening--just what I thought it would be--the best drawing of the evening!"