Nobelist. Through Deep Waters.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2465, 28 April 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Nobelist. Through Deep Waters.

—« — By INA LEON CASSILIS, Author of " lima Raphael, Actress," " The Young Widower," " AI. Caddie's Carpet Bag," &c, &c. CHAPTER ll.—Continued. "Is the demoiselle, then, so enchanting ?" said Cambaceres. "By my faith, Cambaceres," said Elsinger, raising himself from the lounge into which he had flung himself, I have hitherto thought that you were of adamant with regard to what they call " falling in love," especially since even Teresa Colonna's charms failed to attract you ; but I don't believe you can be so indifferent lo this girl, Agnes de Clifford. She is no ' pink and white beauty,' but (though Grant-Faulkner says she has no Italian blood in her veins nearer than a great grandmother) she has an Italian face, ono of that type you have pourtrayed in your 'Magdalen' at the Orsini Villa—that rich brickdust complexion and real brown hair that you never see outof Italy. Her beauty is really something wonderful ; I can't get her face out of my uiind, and couldn't if I tried—but you will sec her soon, and that will be better than anything I can say." " I hope I shall," said Cambaceres, his artist soul instantly roused to interest; "where did you meet this girl V " At Angus' Gallery; and Joseph Maria ! She paid your ' Raising of Lazarus' a good compliment. She could not get away from it; le mere is of another sort; but thn child is a creature of very different type from the fashionable lady in general. A London season may spoil her ; she seems at present innocent enough about her beauty, but Grant-Faulk-ner tells me she created an extraordinary sensation at Lord 0 -'s ball, where she came out a week or two since." " Pauvre enfant," said Don Cola, ■with a half sigh thnt almost brlied his ironical tone, " that is the way ■way the. freshness is crushed out of the flower, an heiress, beautiful, accomplished, and a child in years, is flung into a blaze of excitement and adulation; how 'many cscapp, how many can escape unharmed from hucli as ordeal ?" " My dear Cambaceres ! you have such fastidious notions! If you want girls to bo like Arcadian shepherd* ssos no wonder you as yet succeeded in escaping the chains of Cupid." " I have no desire to fall into them," returned the AVest Indian, with an abrupt change of countenance that almost startled his companion, " they can be nothing to me but chains indeed. There are better things to live for." " Cambaceres, what do you mean ? You are not wont to be sinister." " Never mind what I mean," said Cambaceres, with an impatience rare in- him, for he had not the wayward and variable humors of his mother's unfortunate race. "You were speaking of Agnes de Clifford ; is she an only child." " Yes, a grievous pity, I think, that it is so for the de Cliffords, of Clifford Ardeley, are one of the oldest families in the North of England (my informant is Grant-Faulk-ner), and the father of this girl died in Italy seventeen years ago, just before Agnes was born ; this wife, Florence Hyde, is a second wife, and Agnes was born in Italy. Sir Selwyn did not appear to know much about the wife; I think he said she was a foreigner; but Sir Hubert seems to have been a queer fellow, hardly ever in England. Lady do Clifford is a very handsome woman, a belle in her youth, I should think, but she will have *o retire into the shade whenever ;«he is in the company of her daughter."

•" Well, I shall sec her in due time,"said Cambaceres, " shall you l>e at the Spanish Ambassador's on Tuesday night, Elsiugcr?" "Moil clier," said the German, smiling, "you seem to forget that J am, after all, but an obscure indi-

victual. It is not often that I find my way among such grandees as that,"

" Oorne with me, then. I am quite at home there, and may bring with me whoever I like ; the society is always good, and to you, who are so fond of the waltz, I may say that there is no lack of pretty partners."

'• Vive Iα valse," said the lighthearted Elsinger; " why is it that you never dance, Catnbaceres V " I don't care for the amusement, , " said the Spanish artist, I have always sympathised with the Turkish view of dancing ; aud, moreover, I do not care to throw tnyself into the whirl of fashionable society.

" Elsinger lifted his eyes to the dark face of the speaker ; he understood the West Indian, but remained silent. A word- —nay, even a look of sympathy would have galled the proud enduring spirit that would not see in a name of European fame —a name morally spotless, the redemption of the stain with which another's sin had darkened it.

Canibaceres first broke the pause that followed, but it was to speak of the subject so dear to both of thorn, and here Elsinger would have been willing to listen to his companion if the latter had suffered it.

They were discussing the merits and demerits of the French school, when the Italian servant came softly in. " Signor mio," said he, halting repectfully. Cambaceres turned around— " Ah, Anselino, what is it ?" Anselino handed his master a card, which the painter glanced at, and rose instantly— " Very well, I will come directly." He looked at his watch. " Corpo di Bacco ! three o'clock. I had not thought it possible. Elsinger, I must go clown to this Lord , how do you pronunce the name 1 look at this card."

" Bathurst," said Elsinger, who spoke English very well, a language with which Cambaceres was but slightly acquainted, "he is a great connoisseur—or is considered so by some ; a pre-Raphaeliti , , I believe."

" Is he? I will not let him detain me long, if I can help it. Can you stop the evening, Elsinger 1 I expect three or four whom you would like to meet. M is one of them, and yoa and he can fight out the pre-Eaphaelite contest to your hearts' content."

" I will stay with the greatest pleasure; and don't be in a hurry with Lord Bathurst, for there is more to occupy me than I can get through in two days."

" Very well,' , said Don Cola; "employ yourself in picking out which of those statuettes on th« table there you would like and keep

it. Aurevoir;" and ho went out, leaving Elsinger turning over the. leaves of a sketch book, pud, lovely as the drawings were, thiuking more of the sketcher than the sketches.

CHAPTER 111. Tho stately rooms at the Spanish Embassy were filling fast when Cola do Canibaccrcs aad Albreeht von Elsinger entered them. The advent of the Spanish artist created eo small sensation, and the guests crowded round the new coiner, some, the few, as he was a total stranger in England, claiming former acquaintance, others eager to be introduced. Cambaceres received the

Mentions showered upon him in a

manner that showed, not only that ho was accustomed to similar attentions, but that, young as he .still was, they had not spoiled him. There was not a particle of pride or of conscious superiority in look, or

bearing. With his usual graceful ease he conversed with one and another, in French, Spanish, Italian, even German, according to the nation of the person addressed, each language being employed with equal ease, apparently. English he spoke but little, and had small cause to resort to, as among that dis-

tinguished company, there were, perhaps, none, even of the English guests, who could not at least understand French. The remarkable beauty of his person, the charm of his voice and of his grave and dignified manner, would in themselves have inevitably attracted attention, especially in such an assembly as the present, even had they not been connected with a name which was, in cultivated circles, on everyone's lips, and Elsinger, who, incapable of jealousy, watched with pleasure the reception accorded by this gathering of the elite of London society to his friend, might have trembled for him had he not seen him pass unscathed through a similar ordeal elsewhere. Cola-Mario was either too proud or too high-souled to feel any thrill of flattered vanity at the adulation of the glittering throngs of cognoscenti savants, and fashionables, who crowded round him in the salons of Rome, Paris, Vienna, and London.

Sir Selwyn Grant-Faulkner was among the first to shake hands with the Spanish ambassador's daughters, two black-eyed senoritas, for whose album the artist had made more

;han one sketch, speedily came up ;o remind him in their liquid Casti-

Han of the clays when he had mot them, among the Pyrenees, and sketched peasants for them, and the senora, their mother, who was very stout, and clung to her Spanish black velvet and flowing lace, drew near to congratulate the artist upon having at length attained the foggy shores of England, uud then tried to .speak to Elsinger who Don Cola introduced to her in German, and breaking

down hopelessly in the attempt, was constrained to resort to French with a decided Castilian accent. " We expect Lady de Clifford and her daughter," said the Spanish ambassador to Oamhaceres, " and your artist soul will have a treat, Don Coin,"

"So my friend Elsinger has already given mo to understand, your Excellency," replied the paj ntcr. "She is certainly the belle," said a young guardsman standing near, aud Dora Isidora, who was leaning on the arm of Sir Selwyn GrantFaulkner tossed her pretty head slightly. "Is she so very beautiful V she said to her companion in an undertone. " She is indeed," replied the baronet, who having no particular reason for flattering the oliveskinned Castilian allowed himself the treat of saying what he thought. " Who is that—there is a stir at the lower end," he continued, looking towards the doors of the salon, " it is Miss de Clifford." He turned to Canibaceres, but the artist had moved away from the spot, and despite his impression with regard to Teresa Colonna the baronet felt a momentary pang as he caught a glimpse of the slender form of Agnes de Clifford in her flowing robes of white satin, and involuntarily he advanced to where the girl stood, already ths centre of a group, but listening apparently to (he conversation of an old man who wore a glittering diplomatic uniform. Lady

de Clifford sat a little distance with a stately dowager, probably discussing the fashions,

Meanwhile the wife of the ambassador sought the young painter, and soon found him in company with her husband, an Austrian general find three or four young ladies.

" Senor Don Cola," said she, tapping him with her fan, "I want you ; you must be introduced to Dona Agnes."

" Senora, at your foot," replied the artist, turning instantly, and the senora led her guest through the gay throng to the group round Agnes. They parted instinctively as they saw who it was drew near, and Cambaceres almost started as he beheld face to face the belle of whom he had heard so enthusiastic a description. Belle ! the name of every frivolous doll of fashion who dances through one season to be eclipsed in the next by another doll—who could call Agnes belle? The senora introduced Cambaceres, and as he was a southern and not an Englishman, he said a few words in Italian as he bowed, and Agnes answered smilingly, and in the same

language,

" Do you take me for Italian, Don Cola? I suppose you fall into the general mistake—•"

" Which your utterance ot the " softEtrusca confirms, Signorina," said the artist. " I believe your countenance betrayed me into the tongue so long familiar to me."

" And to ma, too," she said, "it comes more readily to me than English, so pray do not talk English to me,"

" A needless injunction, Signo rina, I speak very little English."

Pie was taking iu covertly as be spoke every line, every look of the beautiful young face before him. Here was no " lack of mind " or of soul, and the tender dreamy softness of the large dark hazel eyes was saved from tho merely sentimental by their serene depth of expression, by the breadth and thoughtful gravity of the brow, and the firm lines of the month and chin. Agnes seemed an embodiment of the idea of perfect harmony ; even her dress, becoming in its rich simplicity her extreme youth, could hardly have been noticed, except by a woman, as a separate item, but seemed only part of a lovely picture, not marred by the manifest parading of the modiste, or by puffs and false curls ; for the shining silky brown hair, which Klsinger had so much admired rolled in its natural luxuriance of rich waves over her shoulders, without even the ornament of a flower or a string of pearls, and truly, so Oambaccres thought, it needed none. The girl had begun with her bright smile to answer the Spanish painter's last words, when a tall Prussian diplomatist came up to claim her for the first dance, and with a triumphant glance at Oambaceres, who did not see it, and if he had would have cared nothing about it, having no taste for heroics, bore her away among the assembling dancers. " Don Cola, Don Cola, have you no partner ?" said the Spanish ambassador, hurrying up. " Surely —" " Senor, you forget." interrupted tho West Indian, gently. . " I never dance, you know." " Ah, true. Nonsense, isn't it?" turning to the old Austrian, "for a young man like you to abjure dancing—it is not fair to the ladies, indeed." " It really is not, Don Cola," said the Austrian, who, although too old and too stout to indulge in the pastime himself, was too thorough a German to despise it. "What induced you to make so cruel a resolution T "My reasons would hardly save me from practical condemnation," cried Cainbacercs, " since, I am humble enough to own it, I could not go creditably through a quadrille, and am innocent of any stop."

" Dear mo !" said the Austrian, " does not such a, partner as the demoiselle Agnes do UJitford liiako you regret the resolution which has kopt you in such ignorance?"

The artist shook his head, while his eyes sought among the dancers for the figure of Agnes. '■ No, Mein lierr ; it is not in the mazes of a dsmee that one can best enjoy the society of an intelligent woman.'' The Austrian stared—and said no more. Canibaceres, cither carefully or from want of discrimination, took a very wrong headed view of the subject, and so it was useless to argue with him. Tho Spanish ambassador had vanished already, and Don Gobi was turning away when the voice of Lady d<: Clifford addressed him. Accustomed to the easy manners of

Italian society, Florence waved the

stiff formula of introduction, and opened conversation by some every day remark to which the Spanish painter responded in kind.

"So," she said, "I understand that you abjure dancing. Do you then consider us poor votaries of the 'giddy whirl ' very frivolous?"

" Nay, Lady de Clifford—l judge only for myself. But I might retort.

" Hardly. lam old enough to be a wall-flower whenever I like to choose that position ; especially now that Agnes cau take my place. But you cannot claim the same immunity,,'

" The claim and the claimant do not correspond harmoniously," said the painter, with a half smile that pointed the delicate compliment, and by the pleased look in his companion's face he saw that she was by no means insensible to the language of flattery. It is difficult to know at what age women cease to care for the approbation of the opposite sex, and Florence do Clifford, whatever her actual years, was quite young enough in appearance to maintain her position among those mellowed beauties who rank as "fashionable women of the world." She was certainly handsome, with somewhat aquiline features, a clear dark complexion, and a profusion of black tresses, which perhaps her long sojourn in the land of art had taught her to dispose in a more graceful manner than that usually followed by the English maids and matrons who bind themselves in blind slavery to the milliners of Paris. But in the lines of this woman's mouth, in her eyes of the greenish gray, which, whatever the reason, so often accompanies an insincere nature, the keen eye of the artist detected something sinister, which her smile, bright as it was,

rather deepened than dispelled. It war, a smile of society, brilliant but cold, like a magnesium light, and when it passed, as suddedly as it came, it left no light behind it. Cambaccrcs tried, and tried in vain, well pleased to fail, to discover one look, one tone, which could find its echo in the face or voice of Agnes.

" At the risk of appearing a mere doll in your grave estimation, Don Cola," said Lady de Clifford ; " I must own to being still among the rank of those who ' trip the light fantastic toe ; ' but still I can, now and then, drop out of the whirl without being called to account; you cannot, and I have already heard many comments upon your conducts. How did you manage among the waltzing Germans ?"

" I went very little into dancing company, Lady de Clifford, and whoa I did I remained a wallflower, as Ido here. lam content to watch."

" Yes ; I saw you from where I sat just now, looking at the dancers keenly enough. Dona Isidora dances well ; who is her partner '? Do yon know him? I scorn to recognise him." "It is my friend, Von Elsinger— a Gcrmaa painter, madaiue," said the West Indian, as Elsinger whirled past with the pretty Spaniard. "Ah , now I remember; Sir Selwyn Grant-Faulkner introduced him to me at Angus' Gallery a few days ago. By the way, he has. been telling me about your ' Death of Rienzi.' I hope we shall not be kept long without this new treat." " It must be a week or more, replied the artist;" but I should be only too happy if you and your daughter and any friends of yours would honour my studio with a visit." "Thank you—a thousand thanks ; I must thank you more even for my daughter than for myself, for she is an enthusiast in art. Here she is ; " for the quadrille was over, and Agnes was approaching her mother, leaning on the arm of the young Prussian. " Agnes," added Lady de Clifford, " I want you to thank M. de Cambaceres for his kindness in inviting us to visit his studio." Very different to her mother's conventional thanks were those of Agnes. She was too young to society to have lost, if ever with her southern temperament she would lose, the frank earnestness of her nature. Her face lighted up like a sunbeam, with a delight beautiful to see. " Oh ! Signor," she exclaimed, " I hardly know, for my part, how to thank you. Nothing in the world could give me half such a treat; you are too kind." "I£ so, you have made the balance more than equal, Signorina," said the artist, bowing, "by showing me that I have given the pleasure I wished to give."

" Oh ! you know," said Agnes smiling, " I consider llio Pitti Palace with an orchestral band at one end tho acme of happiness."

Florence could not forbear laughing, while the Prussian diplomatist

looked on, trying to appear politely indifferent to a conversation which, having been carried on in Italian, he did not understand, and Agnes,

perceiving this, added quickly in French, " I ought to beg your pardon, M. von Folkenstein, but Italian comes so naturally to me that I forgot all tho world does not comprehend it. Now, they are forming another dance and you are engaged to Dona Miranda do D—

I believe for this,are you not 1" At the s-.mic moment a stately cavalier came up to request the honour of Agnes' hand for the approaching dance, while the Prussian bowed and departed to claim his partner. But Agnes had purposely held herself free from this dance, and declined all attempts to make her join tho waltzers. Lady de Clifford was carried off by the Spanish ambassador's son, and Agues was left alone with the painter, which pleased her well enough, not that she had the remotest idea of flirtation, but she

knew Don Cola could and would

talk to women, even in a ballroom, as if they were something more than pretty toys, and she had all the youthful worship of fame intellect.

Many heads were turned to look after the Spanish painter and his

young campanion as they passed, through the dancing saloon into the adjoining saloon, where several

groups of men and women were already collected, discussing the on dlls of fashion, the last news from France, of the policy of the Government, and Grant-Faulkner

■owned as he heard around him the

involuntary murmur of admiration, and almost unconsciously watched the objects of so much attention as

he saw them pause by a handsome console table on which lay albums and photographs to beguile the guests between dances. They were evidently conversing on some subject which aroused Agnes' interest, for she sat down lifting an earnest attentive face to her companion; yet there was nothing in what Don Colo was saying to terrify even a jealous lover, a character to which Sir Selwyn did not pretend, and Agnes' reply to the West Indian was almost ludicrously at variance with Grant-Faulkner's vague apprehensions.

" You take so high a view on the subject, Don Cola—as Mendelssohn

id of music, and I quite agree with

it; but do you think it possible in the present day for men, still strng-

jling—men, perhaps, of inferior ;alent, to take and consistently lollow the same standard T

She spoke with deference—the deference not of a weak will or an uncertain conviction, but tho graceful deference of youth to experience, and a position which the world had

•ightly accorded to unusual gifts. ;V slight shade, crossed the painter's :aco as he answered—

" The profession of art is now, as a profession, what it used to be ; it is now much more of a profession, much less of a vocation. The walls of the Royal Academy, and of galleries in Paris and elsewhere, are annually covered with paintings, the majority of which mark rather the decadence of art than its maintenance in its aneiest position. The subjects are, for the most part, lamentably slight, the treatment careless, unreal, and lamentably poor. The reason is simple. The artist is a tradesman; he works (often with little talent, and to judge by his efforts, less persever-

ance) for his living; Ido not say for nothing else, but the living by it is too much in the foreground. You will think that I am unduly running down my own profession; I wish I could think so. I wish I could see more than I have yet seen, to make me retract an opinion so hastily formed, and which my dear master, Morella, the first painter in Italy, held before me."

" I should never think that," said Agnes, frankly, "you are as much above such injustice as a man, I am certain, as you were placed above it as an artist, and so far as my limited experience and kuow-

ledge can guide me. I hold, and have often expressed, as I said just now, the same opinion. M. von Elsinger, your friend, agrees with you, I think. Is he a fine painter ?"

" Elsinfcer ah!" said Cambaceres, too true an artist to be ungenerous, if fame had not lifted him above it, " ho is loss known than he deserves to be; I have two of his landscapes in my studio, which, when you honour it with a visit, I will show you.

"Does he paint only landscapes ? "

" Only landscapes; and they are the most beautiful; but then he works; he does not think that a painting' for tho walls of au art gallery can be executed on the principle which guides tho scene painter of tho theatre."

"You are too severe," said Agnes.

" Because I deplore the spirit which, makes such failures iu art not only possible but common," returned the West Indian, "it ia a real grief to me to see the walls of our galleries defaced by works which an Angolo, a Titian, or a Tintoretto would have spurned with their teefc. Do not misunderstand me. I do not conceive that an artist should work for nothing , but that absorbing love of art winch is only known to romance writers; in this profession, as in all others, some of its brightest ornaments are, as a rule, those who must look to it for daily bread. But I do say that, though in a lessor degroo, tho

painter, sculptor, or composer should be like the priest; though ho live by his profession, ho should never livo at the oxpenso of his profession. Art has been called the handmaid of religion. In what sense can it fulfil so noblo a vocation when it panders to a depraved public taste, or is made fasliiouablo instead of true, for tho mere sake of monej' that it will bring ? " " But individuals are rather the victims of, than the responsible agents who bring about the general decadence of One arts," said Agues, regretfully, "a man who paints, as many do, for bread and for bread alone, is to be pitied rather than condemned." " Pitied ! " truly so ; but only as you pity the writer who prostitutes his talents to win from the vicious the money he cannot obtain from the virtuous. Every man is to be pitied who sacrifices principle and tho gifts that God gave him for the daily broad which ifc is hard to yield, and harder still to see others, nearer and dearer, wint But he cannot be held free from blame." " No, oh, no indeed " ! said Agnes, and there was no doubt in the clear, light of the soft dark eyes lifted to the painter's face, "we must at

least be true to our own conscience

I have often wondered how mem can wilfully, with open eyes, lay down principle in the mud before expediency, and see it crushed under their eyes."

" Wondered- J " said the Spaniard, with a grave, almost sorrowful smib; "in a few years time you will rather wonder that in the whirl of life men do not without exception lose tho border-line between

•ig'hfc and wrong,

But I havo no

wish to bo a cynic, and still loss to make you one. I was deploring, however, less tho deliberate pandering to popular and even vicious tastes, which is only the extremist form of the evil of which I complain—that the spirit which places the market before tho art, and popularity before truth. The age when the fine arts could hold the place which they held in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is past, and, whether we regret it or no, will probably never return. But they must not lose step by step any appreciable position if true art is crushed, and obliged to fight for dear life amid a crowd of poor counterfeits which so degrade public tasto that at length those even among the cultivated classes who can exorcise a discriminating judgment will bo, numerically, contemptible. Havo you seen the Academy this year ? "

"No," replied Agues, "I have very slight knowledge of English art. I have been so littlo in England, you know."

" You aro so little of an Englishwoman," said Don Cola, " that you will pardon mo for venturing- to say if you were to plaeo in tho (lallery at Burlington House twenty nobles of Florence of the sixteenth century, and twenty English nobles of our day, they would, as if by instinct, choose different paintings as the objects of their admiration, if indeed the Florentines found much to admire—and that the Italiaus would make the artistic choice."

"I am afraid you are right," said Agnes. " Poor Royal Aca-

demy," sho added, relaxing into a smile ; " you foreign painters are so hard upon it. "You have, at any rate, had the courage of your convictions in refusing the honorary 11. A. degree offered to you."

"Not without pain, believe mo," said Cambaceres, "nor do I hold lightly by the honour o(Vcrod by a society which has included Daniel Maclisc amongst its members ; nor the generosity which could overlook opinions that I did not scruple to express, and repeated in a public speech to the art students in Rome, but it was impossible for me to belie my own language and my own deliberate opinions, which a more intimate acquaintance with the Academy has only strengthened." " I remember that speech at Rome," said Agnes, " and the commotion it made ; it was copied into the art papers and the daily papers of London, and a warfare was carried on for months. I wonder the Academy can forgive you." It was more generous than I am," said Cambarccres," for I Imve not forgotten it, and only the other night, at my own house, I had a tournament with M—on the subject." "With M—? We met him in Florence; and he is a pre-Raphaeiite, too ; you and he will never get on artistically, Signor." " We contrive to keep the peace," Cambaceres, "which is more than Elsinger does, for German like, he gets quite hot." " Well, I hope he won't come across M-—■ here then," said Agues, laughing, " 1 saw him come in about a quarter of an hour ago with his wife; is she not lovely V "A gentle quiet beauty, a little cold ; but she is lovely," answered the West Indian. " You are so fastidious," said Agnes; "your tongue is dubious. Now, look here," turning over the leaves of a large book o£ engravings on the table; "will you toll me what you think of that face V Cola-Maria looked down on the beautiful Italian face before him— I should not need the engraving to give you my opinion of that face, Siguorina," he said, " this is from my own portrait of the original.

No one—least of ai:y an artist— could deny Teresa Colojina's claims to beauty,"

Agnes glanced quickly in his face, then back to the soft engraving

before her ; Cola compared the two Italian countenances, the living one and the picture. How much there was in Agnes which Teresa lacked. The latter, with all the beauty that must charm the eye and might charm the heart, was, after all, but a page, the former was a volume, of which the face was a title page, indicating, but not revealing the rich stores within. ('/'» he continued.)