Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (127 page)

They unanimously asserted that the young lady’s face was the nearest living approach they had ever seen to that immortal “Madonna” face, which has for ever associated the idea of beauty with the name of RAPHAEL. The resemblance struck everybody alike, even those who were but slightly conversant with pictures, the moment they saw her. Taken in detail, her features might be easily found fault with. Her eyes might be pronounced too large, her mouth too small, her nose not Grecian enough for some people’s tastes. But the general effect of these features, the shape of her head and face, and especially her habitual expression, reminded all beholders at once, and irresistibly, of that image of softness, purity, and feminine gentleness, which has been engraven on all civilized memories by the “Madonnas” of Raphael.

It was in consequence of this extraordinary resemblance, that her own English name of Mary had been, from the first, altered and Italianized by Mr. and Mrs. Blyth, and by all intimate friends, into “Madonna.” One or two extremely strict and extremely foolish people objected to any such familiar application of this name, as being open, in certain directions, to an imputation of irreverence. Mr. Blyth was not generally very quick at an answer; but, on this occasion, he had three answers ready before the objections were quite out of his friends’ mouths.

In the first place, he said that he and his friends used the name only in an artist-sense, and only with reference to Raphael’s pictures. In the next place, he produced an Italian dictionary, and showed that “Madonna” had a second meaning in the language, signifying simply and literally, “My lady.” And, in conclusion, he proved historically, that “Madonna” had been used in the old times as a prefix to the names of Italian women; quoting, for example, “Madonna Pia,” whom he happened to remember just at that moment, from having once painted a picture from one of the scenes of her terrible story. These statements silenced all objections; and the young lady was accordingly much better known in the painter’s house as “Madonna” than as “Mary.”

On now entering the studio, she walked up to Valentine, laid a hand lightly on each of his shoulders, and so lifted herself to be kissed on the forehead. Then she looked down on his palette, and observing that some colours were still missing from it, began to search for them directly in the painting-box. She found them in a moment, and appealed to Mr. Blyth with an arch look of inquiry and triumph. He nodded, smiled, and held out his palette for her to put the colours on it herself. Having done this very neatly and delicately, she next looked round the room, and at once observed the bust of Venus placed on the office stool.

At the same time, Mr. Blyth, who saw the direction taken by her eyes, handed to her a port-crayon with some black chalk, which he had been carefully cutting to a point for the last minute or two. She took it with a little mock curtsey, pouting her lip slightly, as if drawing the Venus was work not much to her taste — smiled when she saw Valentine shaking his head, and frowning comically at her — then went away at once to the drawing-board, and sat down opposite Venus, in which position she offered as decided a living contradiction as ever was seen to the assertion of the classical idea of beauty, as expressed in the cast that she was about to copy.

Mr. Blyth, on his side, set to work at last on the Landscape; painting upon the dancing Bacchantes in the foreground of his picture, whose scanty dresses stood sadly in need of a little brightening up. While the painter and the young lady are thus industriously occupied with the business of the studio, there is leisure to remark on one rather perplexing characteristic of their intercourse, so far as it has yet proceeded on this particular winter’s morning.

Ever since Madonna has been in the room, not one word has she spoken to Valentine; and not one word has Valentine (who can talk glibly enough to himself) spoken to her. He never said “Good morning,” when he kissed her — or, “Thank you for finding my lost colours,” — or, “I have set the Venus, my dear, for your drawing lesson to-day.” And she, woman as she is, has actually not asked him a single question, since she entered the studio! What can this absolute and remarkable silence mean between two people who look as affectionately on each other as these two look, every time their eyes meet!

Is this one of the Mysteries of the painter’s fireside?

Who is Madonna?

What is her real name besides Mary?

Is it Mary Blyth?

Some years ago, an extraordinary adventure happened to Valentine in the circus of an itinerant Equestrian Company. In that adventure, and in the strange results attending it, the clue lies hidden, which leads to the Mystery of the painter’s fireside, and reveals the story of this book.

CHAPTER III. MADONNA’S CHILDHOOD.

In the autumn of 1838, Mrs. Blyth’s malady had for some time past assumed the permanent form from which it seldom afterwards varied. She now suffered little actual pain, except when she quitted a recumbent posture. But the general disorganisation produced by almost exclusive confinement to one position, had, even at this early period, begun to work sad changes in her personal appearance. She suffered that mortifying misfortune just as bravely and resignedly as she had suffered the first great calamity of her incurable disorder. Valentine never showed that he thought her altered; Valentine’s kindness was just as affectionate and as constant as it had ever been in the happier days of their marriage. So encouraged, Lavinia had the heart to bear all burdens patiently; and could find sources of happiness for herself, where others could discover nothing but causes for grief.

The room she inhabited was already, through Valentine’s self-denying industry, better furnished than any other room in the house; but was far from presenting the same appearance of luxury and completeness to which it attained in the course of after-years.

The charming maple-wood and ivory bookcase, with the prettily-bound volumes ranged in such bright regularity along its shelves, was there certainly, as early as the autumn of 1838. It would not, however, at that time have formed part of the furniture of Mrs. Blyth’s room, if her husband had not provided himself with the means of paying for it, by accepting a certain professional invitation to the country, which he knew before, and would enable him to face the terrors of the upholsterer’s bill.

The invitation in question had been sent to him by a clerical friend, the Reverend Doctor Joyce, Rector of St. Judy’s, in the large agricultural town of Rubbleford. Valentine had produced a water-colour drawing of one of the Doctor’s babies, when the family at the Rectory were in London for a season, and this drawing had been shown to all the neighbours by the worthy clergyman on his return. Now, although Mr. Blyth was not over-successful in the adult department of portrait-art, he was invariably victorious in the infant department. He painted all babies on one ingenious plan; giving them the roundest eyes, the chubbiest red cheeks, the most serenely good-humored smiles, and the neatest and whitest caps ever seen on paper. If fathers and their male friends rarely appreciated the fidelity of his likenesses, mothers and nurses invariably made amends for their want of taste. It followed, therefore, almost as a matter of course, that the local exhibition of the Doctor’s drawing must bring offers of long-clothes-portrait employment to Valentine. Three resident families decided immediately to have portraits of their babies, if the painter would only travel to their houses to take the likenesses. A bachelor sporting squire in the neighbourhood also volunteered a commission of another sort. This gentleman arrived (by a logical process which it is hopeless to think of tracing) at the conclusion, that a man who was great at babies, must necessarily be marvelous at horses; and determined, in consequence, that Valentine should paint his celebrated cover-hack. In writing to inform his friend of these offers, Doctor Joyce added another professional order on his own account, by way of appropriate conclusion to his letter. Here, then, were five commissions, which would produce enough — cheaply as Valentine worked — to pay, not only for the new bookcase, but for the books to put in it when it came home.

Having left his wife in charge of two of her sisters, who were forbidden to leave the house till his return, Mr. Blyth started for the rectory; and once there, set to work on the babies with a zeal and good-humour which straightway won the hearts of mothers and nurses, and made him a great Rubbleford reputation in the course of a few days. Having done the babies to admiration, he next undertook the bachelor squire’s hack. Here he had some trouble. The sporting gentleman would look over him while he painted; would bewilder him with the pedigree of the horse; would have the animal done in the most unpicturesque view; and sternly forbade all introduction of “tone,” “light and shade,” or purely artistic embellishment of any kind, in any part of the canvas. In short, the squire wanted a sign-board instead of a picture, and he at last got what he wanted to his heart’s content.

One evening, while Valentine — still deeply immersed in the difficulties of depicting the cover-hack — was returning to the Rectory, after a day’s work at the Squire’s house, his attention was suddenly attracted in the high street of Rubbleford, by a flaming placard pasted up on a dead wall opposite the market-house.

He immediately joined the crowd of rustics congregated round the many-coloured and magnificent sheet of paper, and read at the top of it, in huge blue letters: — ”JUBBER’S CIRCUS. THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD.” After this came some small print, which nobody lost any time in noticing. But below the small print appeared a perfect galaxy of fancifully shaped scarlet letters, which fascinated all eyes, and informed the public that the equestrian company included “MISS FLORINDA BEVERLEY, known,” (here the letters turned suddenly green) “wherever the English language was known, as The Amazonian Empress of Equitation.” This announcement was followed by the names of inferior members of the Company; by a program of the evening’s entertainments; by testimonials extracted from the provincial press; by illustrations of gentlemen with lusty calves and spangled drawers, and of ladies with smiling faces, shameless petticoats, and pirouetting legs. These illustrations, and the particulars which preceded them were carefully digested by all Mr. Blyth’s neighbours; but Mr. Blyth himself passed them over unnoticed. His eye had been caught by something at the bottom of the placard, which instantly absorbed his whole attention.

In this place the red letters appeared again, and formed the following words and marks of admiration: —

    
THE MYSTERIOUS FOUNDLING!

    
AGED TEN YEARS!!

    
TOTALLY DEAF AND DUMB!!!

Underneath came an explanation of what the red letters referred to, occupying no less than three paragraphs of stumpy small print, every word of which Valentine eagerly devoured. This is what he read: —

“Mr. Jubber, as proprietor of the renowned Circus, has the honour of informing the nobility, gentry, and public, that the above wonderful Deaf and Dumb Female Child will appear between the first and second parts of the evening’s performances. Mr. J. has taken the liberty of entitling this Marvel of Nature, The Mysterious Foundling; no one knowing who her father is, and her mother having died soon after her birth, leaving her in charge of the Equestrian Company, who have been fond parents and careful guardians to her ever since.

“She was originally celebrated in the annals of Jubber’s Circus, or Eighth Wonder of the World, as The Hurricane Child of the Desert; having appeared in that character, whirled aloft at the age of seven years in the hand of Muley Ben Hassan, the renowned Scourer of Sahara, in his daring act of Equitation, as exhibited to the terror of all England, in Jubber’s Circus. At that time she had her hearing and speech quite perfect. But Mr. J. deeply regrets to state that a terrific accident happened to her soon afterwards. Through no fault on the part of The Scourer (who, overcome by his feelings at the result of the above-mentioned frightful accident, has gone back to his native wilds a moody and broken-hearted man), she slipped from his hand while the three horses bestrode by the fiery but humane Arab were going at a gallop, and fell, shocking to relate, outside the Ring, on the boarded floor of the Circus. She was supposed to be dead. Mr. Jubber instantly secured the inestimable assistance of the Faculty, who found that she was still alive, and set her arm, which had been broken. It was only afterwards discovered that she had utterly lost her sense of hearing. To use the emphatic language of the medical gentlemen (who all spoke with tears in their eyes), she had been struck stone deaf by the shock. Under these melancholy circumstances, it was found that the faculty of speech soon failed her altogether; and she is now therefore Totally Deaf AND Dumb — but Mr. J. rejoices to say, quite cheerful and in good health notwithstanding.

“Mr. Jubber being himself the father of a family, ventures to think that these little particulars may prove of some interest to an Intelligent, a Sympathetic, and a Benevolent Public. He will simply allude, in conclusion, to the performances of the Mysterious Foundling, as exhibiting perfection hitherto unparalleled in the Art of Legerdemain, with wonders of untraceable intricacy on the cards, originally the result of abstruse calculations made by that renowned Algebraist, Mohammed Engedi, extending over a period of ten years, dating from the year 1215 of the Arab Chronology. More than this Mr. Jubber will not venture to mention, for ‘Seeing is Believing,’ and the Mysterious Foundling must be seen to be believed. For prices of admission consult bottom of bill.”