Hide and Seek Part 34

Mat opened the box for an instant, on his way to the barber's; and, taking out the false key, (which, though made of baser metal, was almost as bright as the original), put it carefully into his waistcoat pocket.

He then stopped at an oil and candle shop, and bought a wax taper and a box of matches. "The garden door's safest: I'll chance it with the garden-door," thought Mat, as he sat down in the shaving-shop chair, and ordered the barber to operate on his chin.

Punctually at seven o'clock Mr. Blyth's visitors rang at his bell.

When they entered the studio, they found Valentine all ready for them, with his drawing-board at his side, and his cartoon-sketch for the proposed new picture of Hercules bringing to King Eurystheus the Erymanthian Boar, lying rolled up at feet. He said he had got rid of his headache, and felt perfectly well now; but Zack observed that he was not in his good spirits. Mat, on his side, observed nothing but the garden door, towards which he lounged carelessly as soon as the first salutations were over.

"This way, my dear sir," said Valentine, walking after him. "I have taken down the drawing you were so good as to admire this morning, as I said I would. Here it is on this painting-stand, if you would like to look at it."

Mat, whose first glance at the garden door had a.s.sured him that it was bolted and locked for the night, wheeled round immediately: and, to Mr.

Blyth's great delight, inspected the sketch of the old five-barred gate with the most extraordinary and flattering attention. "Wants doing up, don't it?" said Mat, referring to the picturesquely-ruinous original of the gate represented. "Yes, indeed," answered Valentine, thinking he spoke of the creased and ragged condition of the paper on which the sketch was made; "a morsel of paste and a sheet of fresh paper to stretch it on, would make quite another thing of it." Mat stared. "Paste and paper for a five-barred gate? A nice carpenter _you_ would make!"

he felt inclined to say. Zack, however, spoke at that moment: so he left the sketch, and wisely held his tongue.

"Now, then, Mat, strip to your chest, and put your arms in any position Blyth tells you. Remember, you are going to be drawn as Hercules; and mind you look as if you were bringing the Erymanthian Boar to King Eurystheus, for the rest of the evening," said young Thorpe, composedly warming himself at the fire.

While Mat awkwardly, and with many expressions of astonishment at the strange piece of service required from him by his host, divested himself of his upper garments, Valentine unrolled on the floor the paper cartoon of his cla.s.sical composition; and, having refreshed his memory from it, put his model forthwith into the position of Hercules, with a chair to hold instead of an Erymanthian Boar, and Zack to look at as the only available representative of King Eurystheus. This done, Mr. Blyth wasted some little time, as usual, before he began to work, in looking for his drawing materials. In the course of his search over the littered studio table, he accidentally laid his hand on two envelopes with enclosures, which, after examining the addresses, he gave immediately to young Thorpe.

"Here, Zack," he said, "these belong to you. The large envelope contains your permission to draw at the British Museum. The small one has a letter of introduction inside, presenting you, with my best recommendations, to my friend, Mr. Strather, a very pleasing artist, and the Curator of an excellent private Drawing Academy. You had better call tomorrow, before eleven. Mr. Strather will go with you to the Museum, and show you how to begin, and will introduce you to his drawing academy the same evening. Pray, pray, Zack, be steady and careful. Remember all you have promised your mother and me; and show us that you are now really determined to study the Art in good earnest."

Zack expressed great grat.i.tude for his friend's kindness, and declared, with the utmost fervor of voice and manner, that he would repair all his past faults by unflagging future industry as a student of Art. After a little longer delay Valentine at last collected his drawing materials, and fairly began to work; Mat displaying from the first the most extraordinary and admirable steadiness as a model. But, while the work of the studio thus proceeded with all the smoothness and expedition that could be desired, the incidental conversation by no means kept pace with it. In spite of all that young Thorpe could say or do, the talk lagged more and more, and grew duller and duller. Valentine was evidently out of spirits, and the Hercules of the evening had stolidly abandoned himself to the most inveterate silence. At length Zack gave up all further effort to be sociable, and left the painting-room to go up stairs and visit the ladies. Mat looked after him as he quitted the studio, and seemed about to speak--then glancing aside at the bureau, checked himself suddenly, and did not utter a word.

Mr. Blyth's present depression of spirits was not entirely attributable to a certain ominous reluctance to leave home, which he had been vainly trying to shake off since the morning. He had a secret reason for his uneasiness which happened to be intimately connected with the model, whose Herculean chest and arms he was now busily engaged in drawing.

The plain fact was, that Mr. Blyth's tender conscience smote him sorely, when he remembered the trust Mrs. Thorpe placed in his promised supervision over her son, and when he afterwards reflected that he still knew as little of Zack's strange companion, as Zack did himself. His visit to Kirk Street, undertaken for the express purpose of guarding the lad's best interests by definitely ascertaining who Mr. Mathew Marksman really was, had ended in--what he was now ashamed to dwell over, or even to call to mind. "Dear, dear me!" thought Mr. Blyth, while he worked away silently at the outline of his drawing, "I ought to find out whether this very friendly, good-natured, and useful man is fit to be trusted with Zack; and now the lad is out of the room, I might very well do it. Might? I will!" And, acting immediately on this conscientious resolve, simple-hearted Mr. Blyth actually set himself to ask Mat the important question of who he really was!

Mat was candor itself in answering all inquiries that related to his wanderings over the American Continent. He confessed with the utmost frankness that he had been sent to sea, as a wild boy whom it was impossible to keep steady at home; and he quite readily admitted that he had not introduced himself to Zack under his real name. But at this point his communicativeness stopped. He did not quibble, or prevaricate; he just bluntly and simply declared that he would tell nothing more than he had told already.

"I said to the young 'un," concluded Mat, "when we first come together, 'I haven't heard the sound of my own name for better than twenty year past; and I don't care if I never hear it again.' That's what I said to _him._ That's what I say to _you._ I'm a rough 'un, I know; but I hav'n't broke out of prison, or cheated the gallows--"

"My dear sir," interposed Valentine, eagerly and alarmedly, "pray don't imagine any such offensive ideas ever entered my head! I might perhaps have thought that family troubles--"

"That's it," Mat broke in quickly. "Family troubles. Drop it there; and you'll leave it right."

Before Mr. Blyth could make any attempt to s.h.i.+ft the conversation to some less delicate topic, he was interrupted (to his own great relief) by the return of young Thorpe to the studio.

Zack announced the approaching arrival of the supper-tray; and warned "Hercules" to cover up his neck and shoulders immediately, unless he wished to frighten the housemaid out of her wits. At this hint Mr. Blyth laid aside his drawing-board, and Mat put on his flannel waistcoat; not listening the while to one word of the many fervent expressions of grat.i.tude addressed to him by the painter, but appearing to be in a violent hurry to array himself in his coat again. As soon as he had got it on, he put his hand in one of the pockets, and looked hard at Valentine. Just then, however, the servant came in with the tray; upon which he turned round impatiently, and walked away once again to the lower end of the room.

When the door had closed on the departing housemaid, he returned to Mr. Blyth with the feather fan in his hand; and saying, in his usual downright way, that he had heard from Zack of Mrs. Blyth's invalid condition and of her fondness for curiosities, bluntly asked the painter if he thought his wife would like such a fan as that now produced.

"I got this plaything for a woman in the old country, many a long year ago," said Mat, pressing the fan roughly into Mr. Blyth's hands. "When I come back, and thought for to give it her, she was dead and gone.

There's not another woman in England as cares about me, or knows about me. If you're too proud to let your wife have the thing, throw it into the fire. I hav'n't got n.o.body to give it to; and I can't keep it by me, and won't keep it by me, no longer."

In the utterance of these words there was a certain rough pathos and bitter reference to past calamity, which touched Valentine in one of his tender places. His generous instincts overcame his prudent doubts in a moment; and moved him, not merely to accept the present, but also to predict warmly that Mrs. Blyth would be delighted with it.

"Zack," he said, speaking in an undertone to young Thorpe, who had been listening to Mat's last speech, and observing his production of the fan, in silent curiosity and surprise. "Zack, I'll run up stairs with the fan to Lavvie at once, so as not to seem careless about your friend's gift.

Mind you do the honors of the supper table with proper hospitality, while I am away."

Speaking these words, Mr. Blyth bustled out of the room as nimbly as usual. A minute or two after his departure, Mat put his hand into his pocket once more; mysteriously approached young Thorpe, and opened before him the paper containing the Indian tobacco pouch, which was made of scarlet cloth, and was very prettily decorated with colored beads.

"Do you think the young woman would fancy this for a kind of plaything?"

he asked.

Zack, with a shout of laughter, s.n.a.t.c.hed the pouch out of his hands, and began to rally his friend more unmercifully than ever. For the first time, Mat seemed to be irritated by the boisterous merriment of which he was made the object; and cut his tormentor short quite fiercely, with a frown and an oath.

"Don't lose your temper, you amorous old savage!" cried Zack, with incorrigible levity. "I'll take your pouch upstairs to the Beloved Object; and, if Blyth will let her have it, I'll bring her down here to thank you for it herself!" Saying this, young Thorpe ran laughing out of the room, with the scarlet pouch in his hand.

Mat listened intently till the sound of Zack's rapid footsteps died away upstairs--then walked quickly and softly down the studio to the garden door--gently unlocked it--gently drew the bolts back--gently opened it, and ascertained that it could also be opened from without, merely by turning the handle--then, quietly closing it again, left it, to all appearance, as fast for the night as before; provided no one went near enough, or had sufficiently sharp eyes, to observe that it was neither bolted nor locked.

"Now for the big chest!" thought Mat, taking the false key out of his pocket, and hastening back to the bureau. "If Zack or the Painter Man come down before I've time to get at the drawer inside, I've made sure of my second chance with the garden door."

He had the key in the lock of the bureau, as this thought pa.s.sed through his mind. He was just about to turn it, when the sound of rapidly-descending footsteps upon the stairs struck on his quick ear.

"Too late!" muttered Mat. "I must chance it, after all, with the garden door."

Putting the key into his pocket again, as he said this, he walked back to the fireplace. The moment after he got there, Mr. Blyth entered the studio.

"I am quite shocked that you should have been so unceremoniously left alone," said Valentine, whose naturally courteous nature prompted him to be just as scrupulously polite in his behavior to his rough guest, as if Mat had been a civilized gentleman of the most refined feeling and the most exalted rank. "I am so sorry you should have been left, through Zack's carelessness, without anybody to ask you to take a little supper," continued Valentine, turning to the table. "Mrs. Blyth, my dear sir (do take a sandwich!), desires me to express her best thanks for your very pretty present (that is the brandy in the bottle next to you).

She admires the design (spongecake? Ah! you don't care about sweets), and thinks the color of the center feathers--"

At this moment the door opened, and Mr. Blyth, abruptly closing his lips, looked towards it with an expression of the blankest astonishment; for he beheld Madonna entering the painting-room in company with Zack.

Valentine had been persuaded to let the deaf and dumb girl accept the scarlet pouch by his wife; but neither she nor Zack had said a word before him upstairs about taking Madonna into the studio. When the painter was well out of earshot, young Thorpe had confided to Mrs. Blyth the new freak in which he wanted to engage; and, signing unscrupulously to Madonna that she was wanted in the studio, to be presented to the "generous man who had given her the tobacco-pouch," took her out of the room without stopping to hear to the end the somewhat faint remonstrance by which his proposition was met. To confess the truth, Mrs.

Blyth--seeing no great impropriety in the girl's being introduced to the stranger, while Valentine was present in the room, and having moreover a very strong curiosity to hear all she could about Zack's odd companion--was secretly anxious to ascertain what impressions Madonna would bring away of Mat's personal appearance and manners. And thus it was that Zack, by seizing his opportunity at the right moment, and exerting a little of that cool a.s.surance in which he was never very deficient, now actually entered the painting-room in a glow of mischievous triumph with Madonna on his arm.

Valentine gave him a look as he entered which he found it convenient not to appear to see. The painter felt strongly inclined, at that moment, to send his adopted child upstairs again directly; but he restrained himself out of a feeling of delicacy towards his guest--for Mat had not only seen Madonna, but had hesitatingly advanced a step or two to meet her, the instant she came into the room.

Few social tests for a.n.a.lyzing female human nature can be more safely relied on than that which the moral investigator may easily apply, by observing how a woman conducts herself towards a man who shows symptoms of confusion on approaching her for the first time. If she has nothing at all in her, she awkwardly forgets the advantage of her s.e.x, and grows more confused than he is. If she has nothing but brains in her, she cruelly abuses the advantage, and treats him with quiet contempt. If she has plenty of heart in her, she instinctively turns the advantage to its right use, and forthwith sets him at his ease by the timely charity of a word or the mute encouragement of a look.

Now Madonna, perceiving that the stranger showed evident signs, on approaching her, of what appeared like confusion to her apprehension, quietly drew her arm out of Zack's, and, to his unmeasured astonishment, stepped forward in front of him--looked up brightly into the grim, scarred face of Mat--dropped her usual curtsey--wrote a line hurriedly on her slate--then offered it to him with a smile and a nod, to read if he pleased, and to write on in return.

"Who would ever have thought it?" cried Zack, giving vent to his amazement; "she has taken to old Rough and Tough, and made him a prime favorite at first sight!"

Valentine was standing near, but he did not appear to hear this speech.

He was watching the scene before him closely and curiously. Accustomed as he was to the innocent candor with which the deaf and dumb girl always showed her approval or dislike of strangers at a first interview--as also to her apparent perversity in often displaying a decided liking for the very people whose looks and manners had been previously considered certain to displease her--he was now almost as much surprised as Zack, when he witnessed her reception of Mat. It was an infallible sign of Madonna's approval, if she followed up an introduction by handing her slate of her own accord to a stranger. When she was presented to people whom she disliked, she invariably kept it by her side until it was formally asked for.

Eccentric in everything else, Mat was consistently eccentric even in his confusion. Some men who are bashful in a young lady's presence show it by blus.h.i.+ng--Mat's color sank instead of rising. Other men, similarly affected, betray their burdensome modesty by fidgeting incessantly.--Mat was as still as a statue. His eyes wandered heavily and vacantly over the girl, beginning with her soft brown hair, then resting for a moment on her face, then descending to the gay pink ribbon on her breast, and to her crisp black silk ap.r.o.n with its smart lace pockets--then dropping at last to her neat little shoes, and to the thin bright line of white stocking that just separated them from the hem of her favorite grey dress. He only looked up again, when she touched his hand and put her slate pencil into it. At that signal he raised his eyes once more, read the line she had written to thank him for the scarlet pouch, and tried to write something in return. But his hand shook, and his thoughts seemed to fail him, he gave her back the slate and pencil, looking her full in the eyes as he did so. A curious change came over his face at the same time--a change like that which had altered him so remarkably in the hosier's shop at Dibbledean.

"Zack might, after all, have made many a worse friend than this man,"

thought Mr. Blyth, still attentively observing Mat. "Vagabonds don't behave in the presence of young girls as he is behaving now."

With this idea in his mind, Valentine advanced to help his guest by showing Mat how to communicate with Madonna. The painter was interrupted, however, by young Thorpe, who, the moment he recovered from his first sensations of surprise began to talk nonsense again, at the top of his voice, with the mischievous intention of increasing Mat's embarra.s.sment.

While Mr. Blyth was attempting to silence Zack by leading him to the supper table, Madonna was trying her best to rea.s.sure the great bulky, sunburnt man who seemed to be absolutely afraid of her! She moved to a stool, which stood near a second table in a corner by the fireplace; and sitting down, produced the scarlet pouch, intimating by a gesture that Mat was to look at what she was now doing. She then laid the pouch open on her lap, and put into it several little work-box toys, a Tonbridge silk-reel, an ivory needle case, a silver thimble with an enameled rim, a tiny pair of scissors, and other things of the same kind--which she took first from one pocket of her ap.r.o.n and then from another. While she was engaged in filling the pouch, Zack, standing at the supper-table, drummed on the floor with his foot to attract her attention, and interrogatively held up a decanter of wine and a gla.s.s. She started as the sound struck on her delicate nerves; and, looking at young Thorpe directly, signed that she did not wish for any wine. The sudden movement of her body thus occasioned, shook off her lap a little mother-of-pearl bodkin case, which lay more than half out of one of the pockets of her ap.r.o.n. The bodkin case rolled under the stool, without her seeing it, for she was looking towards the supper-table: without being observed by Mat, for his eyes were following the direction of her's: without being heard by Mr. Blyth, for Zack was, as usual, chattering and making a noise.

When she had put two other little toys that remained in her pockets into the pouch, she drew the mouth of it tight, pa.s.sed the loops of the loose thongs that fastened it, over one of her arms, and then, rising to her feet, pointed to it, and looked at Mat with a very significant nod.

The action expressed the idea she wished to communicate, plainly enough:--"See," it seemed to say, "see what a pretty work-bag I can make of your tobacco-pouch!"

But Mat, to all appearance, was not able to find out the meaning of one of her gestures, easy as they were to interpret. His senses seemed to grow more and more perturbed the longer he looked at her. As she curtseyed to him again, and moved away in despair, he stepped forward a little, and suddenly and awkwardly held out his hand. "The big man seems to be getting a little less afraid of me," thought Madonna, turning directly, and meeting his clumsy advance towards her, with a smile. But the instant he took her hand, her lips closed, and she s.h.i.+vered through her whole body as if dead fingers had touched her. "Oh!" she thought now, "how cold his hand is! how cold his hand is!"