CHAPTER III.

THE SCULPTOR’S PUPIL.

AS his visitor drove away, Antonio went back to the room, where Ida still stood at the window, to which she had hastened to watch Mrs. Tregoning’s departure. He did not address her, but stood in silence for a while, gazing with mournful eyes on the marble image of his wife.

Ida knew that his mind was in the past, and she said nothing till, with a deep sigh, he turned to quit the room, when she arrested him with the question:

“Father, were you vexed because I wished to go to Mrs. Tregoning’s?”

“No, not vexed,” he said; “but—do you really care to visit her?”

“Oh, I should like it so much,” she said earnestly. “Mrs. Tregoning is so kind. And you know I never go anywhere. Not that I mind that. I like best to stay at home with you, but it would be a change—just for once.”

“Oh, woman, woman!” said her father half sadly, half playfully. “I thought you wiser than your sex, my Ida, but you have the woman’s weakness after all—the love of change, the craving for excitement. Your mother had it not. She had the woman’s virtue as defined by Plato—'to order her house and keep what is within doors and obey her husband.’”

“Ah yes,” said Ida, giving him an arch look, “but you do not know how my mother may have felt when she was my age. And it is not mere love of change which makes me wish to see more of Mrs. Tregoning. My heart has gone out to her. I know she will be my friend, and I have no one to counsel me, save my faithful old Marie, who, you say yourself, is not over-wise. When Mrs. Tregoning put her arms about me and kissed me, I seemed to know for a moment what it would be to have a mother.”

“It is enough,” said her father, gently; “you shall go to Mrs. Tregoning’s whenever you like.”

She would have thanked him, but he had gone; and the next minute she heard the door of his private room close behind him.

Ida continued to stand before the window, till she was roused from the train of thought into which she had fallen by the entrance of a stout, comely woman in the prime of life, with black hair, small black sparkling eyes, and a somewhat ruddy complexion, harmonising well with her look of shrewd good-nature. Her abundant coils of hair were surmounted by all imposing-looking cap of stiff snowy muslin, and she wore a black gown of neatest make and fit.

This was Marie Lehmann, Ida’s quondam nurse, but now the housekeeper and chief factotum of the sculptor’s establishment. Antonio had met with her in Rome, whither he had betaken himself with his infant daughter, shortly after his wife’s death. When the English nurse whom he had brought with him turned home-sick, and prayed to be allowed to return to her own country, Marie had taken her place, and devoted herself to the motherless babe with all the ardour of her warm, passionate nature. She was French by birth, but had passed most of her life in Italy. She loved the warmth and brilliance and gaiety of Southern life, but she loved her little Ida better. And when the sculptor resolved to return to England, she was not to be dissuaded from accompanying the child.

With remarkable ease, she accommodated herself to the change of country. She declared frankly that she detested London, with its fog and smoke, its dreary lack of spectacles, and its dull, unsociable citizens. Yet she continued to live there contentedly and even merrily. She won the sculptor’s confidence by her warm devotion to her charge, and he held her in high esteem, whilst the child loved her, and clung to her as if she had been her mother.

Marie had now for some years been the wife of Fritz Lehmann, Nicolari’s chief workman, who had served him even longer than Marie. She had tested her lover’s devotion in a long-protracted courtship ere she would consent to wed him, with the stipulation that he should never ask her to leave her young lady. There was ample room for Marie and her husband in the sculptor’s large old house, and Antonio was well pleased that they should dwell under his roof, Marie taking the general superintendence of domestic matters as well as acting as Ida’s faithful duenna. Marie, with her quick, voluble tongue and French shrewdness and impetuosity, presented a striking contrast to her husband, who was slow and sententious in speech, and of a most equable temper.

Marie came into the room and began to gather the tea-things together, as though she had come with the sole purpose of carrying them away. But Ida knew better. She divined that Marie was curious to hear about the lady-visitor who had just taken her departure, and that it was with the hope of having a chat she had taken upon herself the duty which was Anne’s. Ida was not unwilling to gratify her. She had lost none of her affection for her old nurse as she grew into girlhood.

“Well, Marie,” she said, “did you see our visitor?”

“Yes, Miss Ida,” Marie answered briskly. “I saw her, for I was at my window when she passed out and got into her carriage. A gracious-looking lady, but so tall and thin, so very English!”

“What would you have her?” Ida asked. “Mrs. Tregoning 'is’ English. She was an intimate friend of my mother, Marie.”

“Indeed!” said Marie, looking interested. “She has not been here before in my time that I know, for I never forget people. She looks a real lady, far more of a lady than that duchess who was here the other day, and spoke to me as if I were not worthy to breathe the same air.”

“Yes, Mrs. Tregoning is a lady,” said Ida, thoughtfully; “she has come to live in London, and she wishes me to visit her.”

“Ah, that is good!” exclaimed Marie, raising her hands with a quick gesture of delight. “It will be well for you, Miss Ida, to have such a lady for your friend. She will take you out, perhaps, and show you a little of the world, and that is what you want. Often have I said to Fritz that it was monstrous a young girl like you should lead such a dull life, shut up within the walls of this house like a nun in a convent. You might as well be old and ugly, instead of being as fair and fresh as a snowdrop.”

“How you talk, Marie!” returned Ida, smiling. “I am no prisoner; do I not walk out every day when the weather is fine?”

“Yes, but an hour’s walk along the Embankment, or a visit to the shops, what is that?” asked Marie, quickly. “You want lively companions, amusements, gaiety. Youth is the time for pleasure. As I say, you might as well be old and ugly—”

“I am content,” said Ida, yet a little sigh escaped with the words. “My father has no one but me to care for him and cheer him. I do not wish for pleasures that he could not share.”

“But you ought to wish for them,” persisted the Frenchwoman; “it is unnatural that you should be content to lead so quiet a life, old before you are young. Ah, who comes here? Can it be Master Wilfred at last?”

The sound of a latch-key being pushed into the hall-door had caught her ear. It was followed by the noise of some one entering the house and closing the door behind him with considerable energy.

“Yes, it is Wilfred—at last,” said Ida; “he comes now the light is gone.”

The next minute the individual thus named came quickly into the room, with the air of one quite at home there. He was a young man in his twenty-second year, but so boyish was his mien that most persons would have taken him for younger. Of middle height, and slightly made, he was generally insignificant in appearance, with bluish-grey eyes, a snub nose, a light drooping moustache, half concealing the weakness of the mouth, and a chin of retreating tendency. The upper was the better half of the face, for the forehead was good, indicating both intelligence and capacity, and the light-brown hair above had a becoming curl. A face not commended by description, yet not unpleasing by virtue of a vivid brightness of expression, the look of one on excellent terms with himself, and disposed to be equally amiable towards others.

“Good morning, Ida,” he said, with a bow and smile which expressed a trifle too much self-assurance.

“Good morning, Wilfred, if it is not too late,” she replied; “where have you been all day?”

“Not at work, evidently,” he said, with a little laugh; “I have been down to the docks with the governor, to look over a new steamer. We had luncheon on board, and he would stop to talk to a lot or old cronies, so you see it has taken a big slice out of my day.”

“A big slice indeed,” said Ida smiling. “When will your Clytie be finished, if you take so many holidays?”

“Ah, when!” he said lightly. “Of course you are horribly shocked at my idleness. But don’t be afraid, Ida. I shall finish it in a few days, when once I set to work in real earnest. Stay, Marie, don’t take the tea away. I should be glad of a cup.”

“But this is cold, Master Wilfred,” she said; “if you wait a minute, I will bring you some fresh tea.”

“Ah, thanks; that will be better,” he said. “Now, Ida, I will make you a drawing of a curious being I saw down at the docks. It is really worth one’s while to go there for the sake of new ideas.”

He had seated himself on the edge of the table, and now searching his pockets, he produced pencil and paper, and with a few rapid strokes executed a comical sketch of an old Hindoo whom he had seen selling ointment. His sketch accomplished, he tossed it to Ida; apparently she was accustomed to unceremonious treatment from this young man. He now turned his attention to the snowdrops on the mantelshelf and began to rearrange them with his long slender fingers. His white shapely hands with their dexterous artist fingers were the chief beauty Nature had bestowed on him. After touching and retouching the flowers, he finally abstracted two or three, and fastened them in his button hole.

“Oh, thief!” exclaimed Ida. “To steal my snowdrops before my very eyes!”

“It is not stealing,” returned Wilfred, coolly. “I know you would wish me to have them.”

“You might at least have asked my permission before helping yourself,” said Ida. “But I fear you are incorrigible. From your earliest days, every one about you has conspired to spoil you.”

“As if I were capable of being spoiled!” replied the young man. “My mother, by the way, gives you all the credit for that sort of thing.”

“Does she think that I spoil you?” exclaimed Ida, with an air of amazement. “What a mistake! I verily believe that I am the only person who speaks the truth to you and tries to correct your faults.”

“You are always speaking of my faults,” said Wilfred, with perfect serenity. “You think me lazy because I do not stick at work as your father does. But I do not believe in constant plodding. I think there should be pauses for inspiration. An artist is not like a shoemaker, who can work at any or every time. It would be better for your father if he had not worked so incessantly. He has worn-out his eyes.”

“No, no, not so!” exclaimed the girl, with a look of distress. “Not worn them out, Wilfred. They will be better soon. It cannot be otherwise.”

“Yes, yes, of course; I did not mean that they really worn-out,” said Wilfred, hastily. “Have you been posing as Psyche to-day?”

“Yes,” she said, “I stood twice. The work has made progress. But I must tell you what a wonderful thing has happened. We have had a visitor to-day.”

“That is nothing very remarkable,” he said.

“Oh, but I do not mean a visitor to the studio,” she said; “a visitor who came to see us, a lady who knew my mother.” And she went on to give him an account of Mrs. Tregoning’s visit.

He listened with interest.

“I am glad she has invited you to visit her,” he remarked when she had told him all there was to tell.

“So am I,” said Ida. “But why are you glad?”

“It will do you so much good to get out a little,” he replied.

“Why, that is just what Marie has been saying!” exclaimed Ida. “What makes you think it will do me good?”

“Oh, I can hardly explain,” he said nonchalantly. “But it would be a good thing for you to mix more with other people. You know, Ida—although, of course, I think you perfection—you are very different from most girls of your age.”

“Am I?” she said, looking a little surprised. “How so? In what way do I differ from them?”

“In every way,” was the sweeping reply; “you look, speak, and act quite differently from most girls. There is a quaintness about you—I rather admire it, but still, you won’t be offended with me for saying it?—Most persons would call you—'old-fashioned.’”

“Why should I be offended?” she asked, looking smilingly at him. “Is it such a dreadful thing to be old-fashioned? Would you like me better if I squeezed in my waist, wore a large crinolette, and frizzed my hair?”

“Of course not. Indeed, I cannot fancy you like that. But still, if you were more with other girls—” He hesitated, at a loss how to express himself.

Ida took up his broken sentence.

“I might grow like them, and then you would admire me more,” she said, laughing. “Ah, here comes Marie with the tea. I will ask her opinion. Marie, tell me, am I so very old-fashioned?”

The question started the Frenchwoman off on a dissertation far too diffuse to be recorded here.

Wilfred listened with amusement for a while, interjecting many ludicrous comments, then, wearying of Marie’s chatter, he drank his tea and betook himself to the studio.

Ida and Wilfred had been friends from the days of their childhood, when Wilfred’s parents lived in the house adjoining the sculptor’s. Wilfred was the youngest of his family. His parents had lost several children, and a gap of ten years divided him in age from the youngest of the three sisters older than himself who completed the family. It was not strange that the boy, so much younger than the rest, should be almost idolised by his parents and become the pet of his three fond sisters.

Ida had not been wrong in saying that they had all combined to spoil him, for seldom was child more indulged. As he had no companion of his own age at home, his parents had been glad that he should find one in their neighbour’s motherless little girl. The children became warmly attached to each other, and as Antonio liked ever to have his little Ida at hand, and Master Wilfred insisted on having as much of her company as possible, it came to pass that it was most often in the sculptor’s home that the children played together. Even as a child, Ida was allowed the run of the studio. And since she was more gentle and careful in her ways than most children, she did little mischief there.

Wilfred, who was more meddlesome, was less welcome in the studio. It was a place he loved. The sculptor’s work had a strong fascination for the boy. He loved to watch Antonio as he moulded his models, or Fritz as he worked at the rough marble.

Nothing pleased him more than to have a lump of the moist clay given to him and be allowed to make of it what he would. And the forms which the little hands modelled in imitation of the sculptor’s work had so much merit that they attracted Antonio’s attention and he declared that the boy was a born sculptor. Wilfred had already decided that when he grew up, he would be a sculptor like Mr. Nicolari, and the idea proved to be more than a transient boyish fancy. As he approached manhood, he made his parents aware that he intended to live for Art, and that it was vain for them to seek to dissuade him from his purpose.

To his father, a prosperous ship-broker who had looked forward to his son’s helping him in his business, this decision of Wilfred’s was a sore vexation. William Ormiston knew little about Art and cared less. He had an idea that it was a pursuit only suited for persons of weak capacity, deficient in the strong common-sense and keen-sighted shrewdness on which he prided himself. He could not understand why his son should wish to be a sculptor. The chances of success in such a calling were so slight, the prizes it offered so uncertain. And when such an excellent business position awaited Wilfred, if he would but step into it! The lad must be demented! Very reluctantly did he yield his consent, wrung from him by his wife’s pleadings and Wilfred’s passionate protestations, to his son’s becoming the sculptor’s pupil. He gave in, but it was with the hope that Wilfred would ere long weary of his Art and come willingly to his right place in his father’s office.

There was ground for such hope, for Wilfred did not devote himself to Art with the whole-souled enthusiasm which would have pleased the sculptor. Antonio found in his pupil no second self. The hopes and fears and high resolves which had animated his early efforts were not experienced by Wilfred. The indulgence and luxury with which the lad had been reared had spoiled him for hard work. Wilfred had always as much money at his command as he needed for the gratification of his somewhat expensive tastes and habits. If he loved Art, he loved pleasure better, and its pursuit often drew him from the studio, to the despair of Nicolari, who saw in his pupil real talent, and was distressed that he should follow his high calling in such unsteady, dilettante fashion.

“He might excel me if he would,” Antonio would sometimes say plaintively. “When I was his age, I could not do as he does. The lad is really clever, but his cleverness will come to naught through his abominable laziness.”

Ida would gently shake her head when she heard her father say that Wilfred might excel him. The sculptor could not be satisfied with his own achievements. But Ida felt that Wilfred’s work would never bear comparison with her father’s. Clever though the young man undoubtedly was, his skill was inspired by no spark of the divine fire of genius, and Ida could see this as her father could not. She had no illusions where Wilfred was concerned. They had grown up together almost like brother and sister. He was the only young companion she had ever had, and he was dear to her, but she was well aware of his faults. Though Wilfred, by no means always sweet-tempered at home, was never other than kind and pleasant to Ida.

Ida thought much of Mrs. Tregoning during the remainder of the day. Her coming had made an agreeable break in the placid flow of the girl’s existence, for, serene and contented as she generally was, there were times when Ida felt the monotony of her life to be irksome. Something had happened at last. She had a presentiment that Mrs. Tregoning’s visit was eventful, and the future would not be just what the past had been. She looked eagerly for the lady’s coming again, but Ida’s patience was to be tried, for the visit was not repeated so soon as she expected.

When three weeks had passed without bringing her, Ida was conscious of considerable disappointment. Had her mother’s friend forgotten her? At last, some days later, came a note from Mrs. Tregoning which set Ida’s heart at rest. It ran as follows:—

“Westfield Road, Kensington.

“DEAREST IDA,—I have not forgotten you, although I have given you cause to think so. Since I saw you, I have been much engaged with matters of business, domestic details, or receiving and visiting old friends, and have found it impossible to get to Chelsea. And now I have fallen ill with a touch of bronchitis, and my doctor forbids my leaving the house whilst this cold wind lasts. Will you take pity on me, Ida, and come and spend to-morrow here? Tell your father I shall be deeply grateful to him if he will spare you to me for to-morrow. I take luncheon at one o’clock, but pray come as early as you can. With much love from—

“Your Friend,

“ELIZABETH TREGONING.”

Antonio made no difficulty about sparing his daughter, and Ida, usually so tranquil in mind, felt strangely excited as she looked forward to the morrow’s pleasure.