The Lovels of Arden by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ebook offline reader txt) 📕

replied Mrs. Brobson stiffly. That hour's parading in the gardens, without any relief from her subordinate, had soured her temper, and inclined her to look with unfavourable eyes upon the conduct of her mistress. Clarissa felt that she had excited the suspicion of her servant, and that all her future meetings with her brother would involve as much plotting and planning as would serve for the ripening of a political conspiracy.

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CHAPTER XXXIII.


ONLY A PORTRAIT-PAINTER.

While Clarissa was pondering on that perplexing question, how she was to see her brother frequently without Mr. Granger's knowledge, fortune had favoured her in a manner she had never anticipated. After what Mr. Fairfax had said to her about Austin Lovel's "set," the last thing she expected was to meet her brother in society--that fast Bohemian world in which she supposed him to exist, seemed utterly remote from the faultless circle of Daniel Granger's acquaintance. It happened, however, that one of the dearest friends to whom Lady Laura Armstrong had introduced her sweet Clarissa was a lady of the Leo-Hunter genus--a certain Madame Caballero, _née_ Bondichori, a little elderly Frenchwoman, with sparkling black eyes and inexhaustible vivacity; the widow of a Portuguese wine-merchant; a lady whose fortune enabled her to occupy a first floor in one of the freestone palaces of the Champs Elysées, to wear black velvet and diamonds in perpetuity, and to receive a herd of small lions and a flock of admiring nobodies twice a-week. The little widow prided herself on her worship of genius. All members of the lion tribe came alike to her: painters, sculptors, singers; actors, and performers upon every variety of known and unknown musical instruments; budding barristers, who had won forensic laurels by the eloquent defence of some notorious criminal; homoeopathic doctors, lady doctresses, or lawyeresses, or deaconesses, from America; and pretty women who had won a kind of renown by something special in the way of eyebrows, or arms, or shoulders.

To these crowded saloons Mr. Granger brought his wife and daughter one evening. They found a great many people assembled in three lofty rooms, hung with amber satin, in the remotest and smallest of which apartments Madame Caballero made tea _à l'anglaise_, for her intimates; while, in the largest, some fearful and wonderful instrumental music was going on, with the very smallest possible amount of attention from the audience. There was a perpetual buzz of conversation; and there was a considerable sprinkling of curious-looking people; weird men with long unkempt hair, strong-minded women, who counterbalanced these in a manner by wearing their hair preternaturally short. Altogether, the assembly was an usual one; but Madame Caballero's guests seemed to enjoy themselves very much. Their good spirits may have been partly due to the fact that they had the pleasing anticipation of an excellent supper, furnished with all the choicest dainties that Chevet can provide; for Madame Caballero's receptions were of a substantial order, and she owed a good deal of her popularity to the profusion that distinguished the commissariat department.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger made their way to the inner room by and by. It was the prettiest room of the three, with a great semi-circular window overlooking nothing particular in the daytime, but making a handsome amber-hung recess at night. Here there was a sea-coal fire _à l'anglaise_, and only a subdued glimmering of wax candles, instead of the broad glare in the larger saloons. Here, too were to be found the choicest of Madame Caballero's guests; a cabinet minister, an ambassador, a poet of some standing, and one of the most distinguished soprano's of the season, a fair-haired German girl, with great pathetic blue eyes.

Even in this society Madame Caballero was rejoiced to see her sweet Mrs. Granger and her charming Miss Granger, who was looking unutterably stiff, in mauve silk and white lace. The lady and her friends had been talking of some one as the Grangers entered, talking rapturously.

"_J'en raffole!_" exclaimed Madame; "such a charming young man, gifted with talents of the most original order."

The ambassador was looking at a portrait--the likeness of Madame Caballero herself--a mere sketch in oils, with a mark of the brush upon it, but remarkable for the _chic_ and daring of the painter's style, and for that idealised resemblance which is always so agreeable to the subject.

Clarissa's heart gave a little throb. The picture was like one she had seen on the easel in the Rue du Chevalier Bayard.

"_Mais c'est charmant!_" exclaimed the ambassador; and the adjective was echoed in every key by the rest of the little coterie.

"I expect him here this evening," said Madame; "and I shall be very much gratified if you will permit me to present him to your excellency."

The ambassador bowed. "Any _protégée_ of Madame's," he said, and so on.

Mr. Granger, who was really a judge of art, fastened on to the picture immediately.

"There's something fresh in the style, Clary," he said. "I should like this man to paint your portrait. What's the signature? Austin! That's hardly a French name, I should think--eh, Madame Caballero?"

"No," replied Madame; "Mr. Austin is an Englishman. I shall be charmed if you will allow him to paint Mrs. Granger; and I'm sure he will be delighted to have such a subject."

There was a good deal of talk about Mr. Austin's painting, and art in general. There were some half dozen pictures of the modern French school in this inner room, which helped to sustain the conversation. Mr. Granger talked very fair French, of a soundly grammatical order; and Clarissa's tongue ran almost as gaily as in her schoolgirl days at Belforêt. She was going to see her brother--to see him shining in good society, and not in the pernicious "set" of which George Fairfax had spoken. The thought was rapture to her. They might have a few minutes' talk to themselves, perhaps, before the evening was over. That interview in the Rue du Chevalier Bayard had been so sadly brief, and her heart too full for many words.

Austin Lovel came in presently, looking his handsomest, in his careful evening-dress, with a brilliant light in his eyes, and that appearance of false brightness which is apt to distinguish the man who is burning the candle of life at both ends. Only by just the faintest elevation of his eyebrows did he betray his surprise as he looked at his sister; and his air, on being presented to her a few moments afterwards, was perfect in its serene unconsciousness.

Mr. Granger talked to him of his picture pleasantly enough, but very much as he would have talked to his architect, or to one of his clerks in the great Bradford establishment. There was a marked difference between the tone of the rich English trader and the German ambassador, when he expressed himself on the subject of Mr. Austin's talent; but then the Englishman intended to give the painter a commission, and the German did not.

"I should like you to paint my wife--and--and--my daughter," said Mr. Granger, throwing in Sophia as an after-thought. It would be only civil to have his daughter's portrait painted, he thought.

Mr. Austin bowed. "I shall be most happy," he said. Clarissa's eyes sparkled with delight. Sophia Granger saw the pleased look, and thought, "O, the vanity of these children of perdition!" But she did not offer any objection to the painting of her own likeness.

"When shall we begin?" asked Mr. Granger.

"My time is entirely at your disposal."

"In that case, the sooner the thing is done the better. My wife cannot come to your studio--she has so many claims upon her time--but that would make no difficulty, I suppose?"

"Not at all. I can paint Mrs. Granger in her own rooms as well as in mine, if the light will serve."

"One of our drawing-rooms faces the north," answered Mr. Granger, "and the windows are large--larger than I like. Any loss of time which you may suffer in accommodating Mrs. Granger must, of course, be considered in the price of your pictures."

"I have only one price for my pictures," replied Mr. Austin, with a loftiness that astonished his patron. "I charge fifty guineas for a portrait of that kind--whether it is painted for a duke or a grocer in the Rue St. Honoré."

"I will give you a hundred guineas for each of the pictures, if they are successes," said Mr. Granger. "If they are failures, I will give you your own price, and make you a present of the canvasses."

"I am not a stoic, and have no objection to accept a premium of a hundred guineas from so distinguished a capitalist as Mr. Granger," returned Austin Lovel, smiling. "I don't think Mrs. Granger's portrait will be a failure," he added confidently, with a little look at Clarissa.

Sophia Granger saw the look, and resented it. The painter had said nothing of her portrait. It was of Clarissa's only that he thought. It was a very small thing; but when her father's wife was concerned, small things were great in the eyes of Miss Granger.

There was no opportunity for confidential talk between Austin Lovel and his sister that evening; but Clarissa went home happy in the expectation of seeing her brother very often in the simplest, easiest way. The portraits would take some time to paint, of course; indeed Austin might make the business last almost as long as he liked.

It was rather hard, however, to have to discuss her brother's merits with Mr. and Miss Granger as if he had been a stranger; and Clarissa had to do this going home in the carriage that night, and at breakfast next morning. The young man was handsome, Mr. Granger remarked, but had rather a worn look--a dissipated look, in point of fact. That sort of people generally were dissipated.

Mrs. Granger ventured to say that she did not think Mr. Austin looked dissipated--a little worn, perhaps, but nothing more; and that might be the effect of hard work.

"My dear Clary, what can you know of the physiology of dissipation? I tell you that young man is dissipated. I saw him playing _écarté_ with a Frenchman just before we left Madame Caballero's; and, unless I am profoundly mistaken, the man is a gambler."

Clarissa shuddered. She could not forget what George Fairfax had said to her about her brother's ways, nor the fact that her remittances had seemed of so little use to him. He seemed in good repute too, and talked of fifty guineas for a picture with the utmost coolness. He must have earned a good deal of money, and the money must have gone somewhere. In all the details of his home there was evidence of extravagance in the past and poverty in the present.

He came at eleven o'clock on the second morning after Madame Caballero's reception; came in a hired carriage, with his easel and all the paraphernalia of his art. Mr. Granger had made a point of being present at this first sitting, much to the discomfiture of Clarissa, who was yearning for a long uninterrupted talk with her brother. Even when Mr. Granger was absent, there would be Miss Granger, most likely, she thought, with vexation; and, after all, these meetings with Austin would be only half meetings. It would be pleasant only to see him, to hear his voice; but she was longing to talk freely of the past,