Lucretia | Page 8

his reputed
father; and not to make an unnecessary mystery of this connection,
such was in truth the relationship between Olivier Dalibard and Honore
Gabriel Varney,--a name significant of the double and illegitimate
origin: a French father, an English mother. Dropping, however, the
purely French appellation of Honore, he went familiarly by that of
Gabriel. Half-way down the steps stood the lad, pencil and tablet in
hand, sketching. Let us look over his shoulder: it is his father's
likeness,--a countenance in itself not very remarkable at the first glance,
for the features were small; but when examined, it was one that most
persons, women especially, would have pronounced handsome, and to
which none could deny the higher praise of thought and intellect. A
native of Provence, with some Italian blood in his veins,--for his
grandfather, a merchant of Marseilles, had married into a Florentine
family settled at Leghorn,--the dark complexion common with those in
the South had been subdued, probably by the habits of the student, into
a bronze and steadfast paleness which seemed almost fair by the
contrast of the dark hair which he wore unpowdered, and the still
darker brows which hung thick and prominent over clear gray eyes.
Compared with the features, the skull was disproportionally large, both
behind and before; and a physiognomist would have drawn conclusions
more favourable to the power than the tenderness of the Provencal's
character from the compact closeness of the lips and the breadth and
massiveness of the iron jaw. But the son's sketch exaggerated every
feature, and gave to the expression a malignant and terrible irony not
now, at least, apparent in the quiet and meditative aspect. Gabriel
himself, as be stood, would have been a more tempting study to many
an artist. It is true that he was small for his years; but his frame had a
vigour in its light proportions which came from a premature and almost
adolescent symmetry of shape and muscular development. The
countenance, however, had much of effeminate beauty: the long hair
reached the shoulders, but did not curl,--straight, fine, and glossy as a
girl's, and in colour of the pale auburn, tinged with red, which rarely
alters in hue as childhood matures to man; the complexion was
dazzlingly clear and fair. Nevertheless, there was something so hard in
the lip, so bold, though not open, in the brow, that the girlishness of

complexion, and even of outline, could not leave, on the whole, an
impression of effeminacy. All the hereditary keenness and intelligence
were stamped upon his face at that moment; but the expression had also
a large share of the very irony and malice which he had conveyed to his
caricature. The drawing itself was wonderfully vigorous and distinct;
showing great artistic promise, and done with the rapidity and ease
which betrayed practice. Suddenly his father turned, and with as sudden
a quickness the boy concealed his tablet in his vest; and the sinister
expression of his face smoothed into a timorous smile as his eye
encountered Dalibard's. The father beckoned to the boy, who
approached with alacrity. "Gabriel," whispered the Frenchman, in his
own tongue, "where are they at this moment?"
The boy pointed silently towards one of the cedars. Dalibard mused an
instant, and then, slowly descending the steps, took his noiseless way
over the smooth turf towards the tree. Its boughs drooped low and
spread wide; and not till he was within a few paces of the spot could his
eye perceive two forms seated on a bench under the dark green canopy.
He then paused and contemplated them.
The one was a young man whose simple dress and subdued air strongly
contrasted the artificial graces and the modish languor of Mr. Vernon;
but though wholly without that nameless distinction which sometimes
characterizes those conscious of pure race and habituated to the
atmosphere of courts, he had at least Nature's stamp of aristocracy in a
form eminently noble, and features of manly, but surpassing beauty,
which were not rendered less engaging by an expression of modest
timidity. He seemed to be listening with thoughtful respect to his
companion, a young female by his side, who was speaking to him with
an earnestness visible in her gestures and her animated countenance.
And though there was much to notice in the various persons scattered
over the scene, not one, perhaps,--not the graceful Vernon, not the
thoughtful scholar, nor his fair-haired, hard-lipped son, not even the
handsome listener she addressed,--no, not one there would so have
arrested the eye, whether of a physiognomist or a casual observer, as
that young girl, Sir Miles St. John's favourite niece and presumptive
heiress.

But as at that moment the expression of her face differed from that
habitual to it, we defer its description.
"Do not," such were