50. CHAPTER L.
HOW VERTY DISCOVERED A PORTRAIT, AND WHAT ENSUED.
For some time the young man remained motionless and silent,
thinking of Redbud, and smiling with the old proverbial delight
of lovers, as the memory of her bright sweet face, and kind eyes,
came to his thoughts.
There was now no longer any doubt, assuredly, that he was
what was called “in love” with Redbud; Verty said as much to
himself, and we need not add that when this circumstance occurs,
the individual who comes to such conclusion, is no longer his
own master, or the master of his heart, which is gone from him.
For as it is observable that persons often imagine themselves
affected with material ailments when there is no good ground for
such a supposition; so, on the other hand, is it true that those
who labor under the disease of love are the last to know their
own condition. As Verty, therefore, came to the conclusion
that he must be “in love” with Redbud, we may form a tolerably
correct idea of the actual fact.
Why should he not love her? Redbud was so kind, so tender;
her large liquid eyes were instinct with such deep truth and goodness;
in her fresh, frank face there was such radiant joy, and
purity, and love! Surely, a mortal sin to do otherwise than love
her! And Verty congratulated himself on exemption from this
sad sin of omission.
He sat thus, looking with his dreamy smile through the window,
across which the shadows of the autumn trees flitted and played.
Listlessly he took up a pen, nibbed the feather with his old odd
smile, and began to scrawl absently on the sheet of paper lying
before him.
The words he wrote there thus unconsciously, were some
which he had heard Redbud utter with her soft, kind voice,
which dwelt in his memory.
“Trust in God.”
This Verty wrote, scarcely knowing he did so; then he threw
down the pen, and reclining in the old lawyer's study chair, fell
into one of those Indian reveries which the dreamy forests seem
to have taught the red men.
As the young man thus reclined in the old walnut chair, clad
in his forest costume, with his profuse tangled curls, and smiling
lips, and half-closed eyes, bathed in the vagrant gleams of golden
sunlight, even Monsignor might have thought the picture not unworthy
of his pencil. But he could not have reproduced the
wild, fine picture; for in Verty's face was that dim and dreamy
smile which neither pencil nor words can describe on paper or
canvas.
At last he roused himself, and waked to the real life around
him—though his thoughtful eyes were still overshadowed.
He looked around.
He had never been alone in Mr. Rushton's sanctum before,
and naturally regarded the objects before him with curiosity.
There was an old press, covered with dust and cobwebs, on
the top of which huge volumes of Justinian's Institutes frowned
at the ceiling; a row of shelves which were crammed with law
books; an old faded carpet covered with ink-splotches on his
right hand, splotches evidently produced by the lawyer's habit of
shaking the superfluous ink from his pen before he placed it
upon the paper; a dilapidated chair or two; the rough walnut
desk at which he sat, covered with papers, open law volumes,
and red tape; and finally, a tall mantel-piece, on which stood a
half-emptied ink bottle—which mantel-piece rose over a wide
fire-place, surrounded with a low iron fender, on which a dislocated
pair of tongs were exposed in grim resignation to the evils
of old age.
There was little to interest Verty in all this—or in the old
iron-bound trunks in the corners.
But his eye suddenly falls on a curtain, in the recess farthest
from the door—the edge of a curtain; for the object which this
curtain conceals, is not visible from the chair in which he sits.
Verty rises, and goes into the recess, and looks.
The curtain falls over a picture—Verty raises it, and stands
in admiration before the portrait, which it covered.
“What a lovely child!” he exclaims. “I have never seen a
prettier little girl in all my life! What beautiful hair she has!”
And Verty, with the curtain in his left hand, blows away the
dust from the canvas.
The portrait is indeed exquisite. The picture represents a
child of two or three years of age, of rare and surpassing beauty.
Over its white brow hang long yellow ringlets—the eyes dance
and play—the ripe, ruddy lips, resembling cherries, are wreathed
with the careless laughter of infancy. The child wears a little
blue frock which permits two round, fat arms to be seen; and
one of the hands grasps a doll, drawn to the life. There is so
much freshness and reality about the picture, that Verty exclaims
a second time, “What a lovely little girl!”
Thus absorbed in the picture, he does not hear a growling
voice in the adjoining room—is not conscious of the heavy step
advancing toward the room he occupies—does not even hear
the door open as the new comer enters.
“Who can she be!” murmurs the young man; “not Mr.
Rushton's little daughter—I never heard that he was married, or
had any children. Pretty little thing!”
And Verty smiled.
Suddenly a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a gruff,
stern voice said:
“What are you doing, sir?”
Verty turned quickly; Mr. Rushton stood before him—gloomy,
forbidding, with a heavy frown upon his brow.
“What are you prying into?” repeated the lawyer, angrily;
“are you not aware, sir, that this is my private apartment?
What has induced you to presume in such a manner?”
Verty was almost terrified by the sternness of these cold words,
and looked down. Then conscious of the innocence of his action,
raised his eyes, and said:
“I came in to give you the copy of the deed, sir,—and saw
the curtain—and thought I would—”
“Pry into my secrets,” said Mr. Rushton; “very well, sir!”
“I did not mean to pry,” said Verty, proudly; “I did not
think there was any harm in such a little thing. I hope, sir,
you will not think I meant anything wrong,” added Verty—
“indeed I did not; and I only thought this was some common
picture, with a curtain over it to keep off the dust.”
But the lawyer, with a sudden change of manner, had turned
his eyes to the portrait; and did not seem to hear the exclamation.
“I hope you will not think hard of me, Mr. Rushton,” said
Verty; “you have been very good to me, and I would not do
anything to offend you or give you pain.”
No answer was vouchsafed to this speech either. The rough
lawyer, with more and more change in his expression, was gazing
at the fresh portrait, the curtain of which Verty had thrown
over one of the upper corners of the frame.
Verty followed the look of Mr. Rushton; and gazed upon the
picture.
“It is very lovely,” he said, softly; “I never saw a sweeter
face.”
The lawyer's breast heaved.
“And what ringlets—I believe they call 'em,” continued Verty,
absorbed in contemplating the portrait;—“I love the pretty
little thing already, sir.”
Mr. Rushton sat down in the chair, which Verty had abandoned,
and covered his face.
“Did you know her?—but oh, I forgot!—how wrong in me!”
murmured Verty; “I did not think that she might be—Mr.
Rushton—forgive my—”
The lawyer, with his face still covered, motioned toward the
door.
“Must I go, sir?”
“Yes—go,” came from the lips which uttered a groan—a
groam of such anguish, that Verty almost groaned in unison.
And murmuring “Anna! Anna!” the lawyer shook.
The young man went toward the door. As he opened it, he
heard an exclamation behind him.
He turned his head.
“What's this!” cried the lawyer, in a tone between a growl
and a sob.
“What, sir?”
“This paper.”
“Sir?”
“This paper with—with—`Trust in God' on it; did you
write it?”
“I—I—must—yes—I suppose I did, sir,” stammered Verty,
almost alarmed by the tone of his interlocutor.
“What did you mean?”
“Nothing, sir!”
“You had the boldness to write this canting—hypocritical—”
“Oh, Mr. Rushton!”
“You wrote it?”
“Yes, sir; and it is right, though I did'nt mean to write it—
or know it.”
“Very grand!”
“Sir?”
“You bring your wretched—”
“Oh, I did'nt know I wrote it even, sir! But indeed that is
not right, sir. All of us ought to trust in God, however great
our afflictions are, sir.”
“Go!” cried the lawyer, rising with a furious gesture—
“away, sir! Preach not to me—you may be right—but take
your sermons elsewhere. Look there, sir! at that portrait!—
look at me now, a broken man—think that—but this is folly!
Leave me to myself!”
And strangling a passionate sob, the lawyer sank again into
his chair, covering his face.
