THE TEA-TABLE.
Mrs. Severn’s society was of a peculiar kind,--it had something of the
ease of French society, with the homeliness of the true Briton. Very
rarely, indeed, did she make calls. She never gave parties of any
description whatever; and yet there was always a little flow and current
of human minds and faces about her. The class which in London is perhaps
more at liberty to please itself than any other class,--at least in
England,--was that to which she belonged, both in right of her husband
and of herself, and which circulated about her, very independent of
rule, and very full of life. I do not know if I should call it the
artist-class, for that is a wide world, and has many divisions, and fine
people abound in that as in every other division of society. The
padrona’s friends were painters, authors, journalists, people with
crotchets, public reformers, persons of every kind to whom intellect, as
they called it, clearness and brightness, and talk, and the absence of
ceremony, were sweeter than any other conditions of society. They came
to her studio, some of them, with only a knock at the door,--but these
were intimates,--and chatted while she went on with her work. They
dropped in in the evening, and chatted again sometimes till midnight;
they filled the rooms with discussion of everything in earth and
heaven,--art news, political news, society news, a little of everything;
they held hot discussions on social questions with the zeal of people
immediately concerned, not with the languor of good society. The padrona
‘received’ almost every evening in this way after her work was done; and
it was people whose work was done also who came to see her,--with fresh
air in their faces, and all the eagerness and commotion of fresh life in
their minds. I do not mean to say that the intelligence of these
visitors was of the highest class, or that anything like the tone of a
French salon,--the salon which has now become almost as much a tradition
as Mrs. Montague’s drawing-room with its feather hangings,--pervaded the
grey-green drawing-room in Fitzroy Square; but only that the people
there came together to talk, and kept up an unfailing stream of
comments, not merely on the people of their acquaintance, but on
everything that was going on. It was easier work for a stranger to get
on with them than it was in society where conversation is so personal,
and the doings of that small class which calls itself the world, are so
uppermost in everybody’s thoughts. Nobody asked, ‘Did you hear what
Lady Drum said to Lady Fife last night at the Clarionett’s ball?’ or
went into raptures over the dear Duchess, or discussed the causes which
led to that unfortunate separation between Sir Edward and his wife. To
be sure, you might get just as tired, perhaps more so, listening to
discussions about the ‘sweet feeling’ of this or that picture, or its
bad drawing, or the uncertainty of its meaning, or about whether this
exhibition was better than the last, or what Horton had said about it in
the ‘Sword,’ or about spiritualism,--of which there were many
distinguished professors in the padrona’s circle, or about social
science, or women’s work, or the Archæological Society; but still it was
a different sort of thing from the common languor and the common wit.
When Laurie had played with the children, and taken his cup of tea, and
the lamp was carried into the large drawing-room, he did not care to
leave the easy-chair in which he had placed himself and undertake that
long walk to Kensington Gore. A certain sensation of ease had stolen
over him. He had thrown down his pack of troubles at his neighbour’s
door, as old Welby had said, and, with a certain soft exhaustion,
stretched himself at full length in the low chair, with his feet at the
other end of the hearth-rug. There was no fire, and it was dark at that
end of the room; and the lamp had been placed on a table near the
opposite wall, where the ladies sat working. The padrona herself was
making something up with lace and ribbons, and Miss Hadley, not yet gone
home, but with her bonnet on ready to start, had returned to her
knitting. Alice had gone up with the children to see them put to bed. It
would be difficult to tell why Laurie lingered at the other end of the
room in comparative darkness. Perhaps because he meant still to ask
closer counsel from the padrona,--perhaps because his artist eye was
pleased with the effect of that spark of light, with her head fully
revealed in it. They let him alone, that being the fashion of the house.
‘He is tired and sad, poor boy!’ Mrs. Severn said to her friend; and
they went on with their talk, and left him to come to himself when he
pleased. Laurie was in no hurry to come to himself. He lay back lazily
resting from thought, and let the picture, as it were, steal into him
and take possession of him. The room was so large that it was quite dim
everywhere but round that one table, and the furniture looked a little
ghostly in the obscurity, the chairs placing themselves, as chairs have
such a way of doing, in every sort of weird combination, as though
unseen beings sat and chattered around the vacant tables. And in the
distance the white, bright light of the lamp came out with double force.
There was, perhaps, a touch of carelessness in the padrona’s coiffure,
or else it was that she could not help it, her hair being less
manageable than those silken, lovely curls of her child’s; but she was
different in black silk gown and her lace collar from what she was in
her blouse. Laurie sat dreamily with his eyes turned towards the light,
and listened to the hum of the voices, and sometimes caught a word or
two of what they said. No doubt some one would come in presently to
break up this quiet, but in the meantime there was a charm in the
stillness, in the dimness, in the presence of the women, and motion of
their hands as they worked; such soft sounds, scarcely to be called
sounds at all, and yet they gave Laurie a certain languid pleasure as he
sat exhausted in his easy chair.
‘Work does not suit everybody,’ he heard Mrs. Severn say. ‘We think so
just as we think people who are always ill must be enjoying bad
health;--because we are fond of work, and never have headaches. It is
unjust.’
‘I thought we were born to labour in the sweat of our brow!’ said Miss
Hadley, who was a little strong-minded, and had her doubts about
Genesis.
‘Not born,’ said the padrona, with a soft laugh; ‘only after Eden, you
know; and there are some people who have never come out of Eden; for
instance, my child.’
‘Ah, Alice!’ Miss Hadley answered, with a little wave of her head, as if
Alice was understood to be exceptional, and exempted from ordinary rule.
‘Fancy the child having to work as I do!’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘Fancy her
being trained to my profession, as some people tell me I should do. I
think it would be nothing less than profane.’
‘My dear, you know I think all girls should know how to work at
something,’ said the governess, ‘when they have no fortunes; and you
will never save money. You couldn’t, if your pictures were to sell twice
as well; and though you are young and strong, still----’
‘I might die,’ said the padrona. ‘I often think of it. It is a frightful
thought when one looks at these little things; but I have made up my
mind for a long time that it is best never to think. One can’t live more
than a day at a time, were one to try ever so much; and there is always
God at hand to take care or the rest.’
‘But generally, so far as I know,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘God gives the
harvest only when the farmer has sown the seed.’
‘Which means I am to bring up my child to do something,’ said Mrs.
Severn. ‘And so she does,--a hundred things,--now, doesn’t she?--and
makes the whole house go to music. I can’t train Alice to a trade. If
necessity comes upon her, some work or other will drop into her hands. I
was never trained to it myself,’ the padrona added, with a
half-conscious smile about the corners of her mouth, and perhaps just a
touch of innocent complacency in her own success, ‘and yet I get on,--as
well as most.’
‘Better than most, my dear; better than most,’ the governess said, with
a little enthusiasm. ‘But you know how much you have been worried about
your drawing, and how sensitive you are to what those wretched men say
in the “Sword.” Do you think I don’t notice? You take it quite sweetly
when they talk about the colour, or texture, or the rest of their
jargon; but you flush up the moment they mention your drawing. Now, if
you had been trained to it, don’t you see, as a girl----’
The padrona grew very red as her friend spoke. It was clear that the
criticism touched even when thus put, and Laurie, in the background,
felt an overwhelming inclination to wring the neck of the strong-minded
woman. But then she laughed very softly, with a certain sound of emotion
that might have brought tears just as well.
‘When I was a girl,’ she said, ‘how every one would have stared to think
I should ever be a painter, making my living!--how they would have
laughed! “What, our Mary!” they would all have said. It came so natural
to do one’s worsted work, and read one’s books, and go to one’s parties!
And I suppose, as you say, I should have been working from the round,
and studying anatomy,--faugh!--my child to do that! I would rather work
my fingers to the bone!’
‘I think you are wrong, my dear,’ the governess said; and Laurie hated
her, listening to the talk.
As for the padrona, she shook something like a tear from her eyelash.
Laurie thought it was pretty to see her hands moving among the lace and
the ribbon, with that look of power in them, knowing exactly how to
twist it, how to make the lace droop as it ought. Not a very monstrous
piece of work, to be sure. ‘Hush!’ she said, ‘here are some people
coming up-stairs. Most likely Bessie Howard, who will tell us what the
spirits are doing; or the Suffolks from over the way, who are great
friends of hers. They have just come home from Dresden, and I want to
hear what they have been about there.’
‘I hate travel-talk,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘and I detest the spirits, so
I’ll go; and though it is not the first time, nor the second, we have
spoken on this subject, I do hope, my dear, you’ll think of what I’ve
said.’
The padrona shook her head; but the two women kissed each other with
true friendliness just as the other visitors came into the dim room.
Laurie had risen reluctantly from his seat in the darkness to bid the
governess, who was one of the family, good-night. ‘I am sorry to hear of
your trouble, Mr. Renton,’ she said, as she gave him her hand. She was
not bad-looking, though she was strong-minded; and though he had wanted
to wring her neck a moment before, the brightness of her eyes,--though
she was half as old again as Laurie,--and the kindness of her tone
mollified the woman-loving young man in spite of himself.
‘Thanks,’ he said; ‘you must have thought me a brute; but I don’t feel
up to talk,--yet.’
‘It is not to be expected,’ said Miss Hadley; ‘but it is a blessing to
be young and have all your forces unimpaired. You must do as much as you
can, and not think any more than you can help. Good-night!’
‘Good-night!’ Laurie said, opening the door for her; and then he stood
about in the room helplessly, as men stand when they object to join the
other visitors; and finally went back to his chair by the vacant fire.
‘He is waiting for the child,’ Miss Hadley said to herself as she went
down-stairs; and the thought was in her mind all the way home to her
little rooms in one of the streets adjoining Fitzroy Square, where she
lived with her old sister, who was an invalid. They had a parlour and
two bed-rooms, and bought their own ‘things,’ and were attended and
otherwise ‘done for’ by their landlady; and, on the whole, were very
comfortable, though all the noises of the little street, and echoes from
the bigger streets at hand, went on under their windows, and the
geraniums in their little balcony were coated with ‘blacks,’ and the
dinginess of the surroundings, out and in, were unspeakable. People live
so in the environs of Fitzroy Square, and are very lively, pleasant sort
of people; and think very well of themselves all the same.
Laurie was not waiting for the child; he was waiting to catch the
padrona’s eye and say good-night to her; but that inconsistent woman was
now all brightness and eager attention to the travel-talk which Miss
Hadley hated. The people who had just come from Dresden were a young
painter and his wife, and there were so many things and places and
people to be talked of between them. ‘You saw old Hermann,’ the padrona
said, with a smile and a tear. ‘Ah, he used to be so kind to,--us;--and
the big Baron with all his orders, and Madame Kurznacht? Did they ever
speak of us?--and hasn’t old Hermann a lovely old head? Did you paint
him? Ah! it is so strange.--it is like a dream to think of the old
times!’
Could any man, though jealous, and sulky, and neglected, interrupt this
to say a gruff good-night? Not Laurie, at least. He thought to himself
that letting alone sometimes went too far, and that he, too, might have
had a word addressed to him now and then; but still it went to his heart
to hear her recollections and the tone in her voice. She was thinking,
not of these new people and their travels, but of poor Severn, and the
days when he and she had wandered over the world together. She was
better off now. Laurie believed that there was no doubt she was better
off, and less harassed with care and bowed down with anxiety; but
yet,--poor Severn! And two painter-folk straying about the world, free
to go anywhere, the man emancipating the woman by his society,--is not
that better than one alone? And how could her friend, with a heart in
him, stop her in her tender thoughts by thrusting himself into the midst
of them? While Laurie, sulky but Christian, was thus cogitating, Alice
came into the room, and came softly up to him. ‘Are you here all by
yourself, Mr. Renton?’ she said.
‘Yes, Alice, all alone. Sit down and talk to me,’ said Laurie.
‘I wish I could go and play to you,’ said Alice; ‘but that would disturb
the people. It is so strange to see you sad.’
‘I am not so very sad,’ Laurie said, ‘not to trouble my friends with it,
Alice; and I am only waiting now to say good-night. I am going to work
so hard I shall have no time to be sad.’
‘At that pretty window with the flowers in it,’ said Alice, ‘away at
Kensington? It must be nice to be so near the Park.’
‘I don’t care much for the Park now,’ said Laurie. ‘I must go without
disturbing the padrona. You will tell her I said good-night.’
‘Mamma is coming,’ said Alice; ‘she always hears what people say if they
were miles off; and I want to ask about dear old Dresden and old
Hermann, too.’
Then the padrona came up to him still with her lace in one hand, and sat
down by him in the shade. ‘Did you think I had forgotten you were
there?’ she said. ‘I know you want to go now, and I have come to tell
you what you are to do,--that is, what I think you should do;--you don’t
mind my interfering, and giving my advice?’
‘I want it,’ said Laurie. ‘I have been waiting all this time to see what
you would have to say to me before I went away.’
The padrona smiled and nodded her head. ‘You must not stay at Kensington
Gore,’ she said. ‘It is too dear and too fine if you are going to work.
You must come to this district, and content yourself with two rooms.
There are plenty of lodgings to be had with the window made on purpose,
and a good light. I will look out for you, if you please; and then you
must go in for it,--the life-school, and all that sort of thing. It is
odious,’ said the woman-painter, with a little impatient movement of her
head, ‘but you men must go through everything. And you can come here,
you know, as much as you like; and I am sure Mr. Welby will give you
what help he can; and you will do very well,’ said Mrs. Severn, smiling
at him. ‘When I can get on with no training at all, what should not you
do? And we shall all be proud of you,’ she added, patting his arm softly
with her disengaged hand. She was his comrade, and still she was a
woman, which made it different; and he went away with a little
reflection of the kind glow in the padrona’s eyes warming his heart. No
doubt that was the thing to do. He saw her seat herself at the table
again where by this time other people had made their appearance, and
begin to smile and talk to everybody without a moment’s interval: but
she lifted her eyes as he went out at the door with a little sign of
amity. How pleasant it is to have friends! Love is sweet, but upon love
he had turned his back, poor fellow! giving up all the vague delight of
its hopes. Alice, with her curls, had no power to move him. That ground
was occupied. But friendship, too, was sweet. And to have a friend who
understood him at the first word--who saw what he meant almost before it
was spoken; who could give him bright, rapid, decisive advice, the very
sound of which had encouragement in it,--not hesitating, prudential,
disheartening, like old Welby’s;--a friend besides who had bright,
lambent-glowing eyes, which consoled what they looked at, and a soft
voice----. In this, at least, Laurie was in luck. He met two or three
people that night at the club, which was not of such lofty pretensions
as White’s or Boodle’s, and called itself the Hiboux or the
Hydrographic, I am not sure which,--a place where men were to be met
with all the year through, and which was not deserted even in September.
Laurie belonged to a grander club as well, but his dilettante tastes had
made him proud of the Hiboux. And his friends collected round him to
hear the news, and were very sympathetic, and approved of his intention
to face his difficulties. ‘It may be the making of you, my dear fellow,
as it was the making of Frank Pratt,’ said the man who wrote those
papers in the ‘Sword’ which threw half the artists in England into
convulsions. ‘Thanks,’ said Laurie; ‘you think you will have one more
innocent to massacre.’ And he looked so fierce at the representative of
literature that the audience was moved to a shout of laughter. It was
not himself Laurie was thinking of, but the padrona, whose drawing this
ruffian had reviled. He had disturbed a woman whose shoes he was not
worthy to brush, Laurie said to himself, and avoided the reptile, with a
bitterness worthy of his misdeeds. He could not eat his partridge in
comfort under that fellow’s eye; who was not a brute by any means, and
had a certain kindness for a young man in misfortune, even though he did
write for the ‘Sword.’
When Laurie got home to Kensington Gore the first thing he saw was the
drawing on the mantel-piece of the Three Princes, or the Three Paths. He
took it down and examined it, not without a certain complacency. No
doubt it was a clever drawing. Then he took his pencil with a sudden
suggestion in his mind. Somehow since he drew it his own figure seemed
to him scarcely dignified enough for the subject:--it was too comic,
with all those traps festooned about it. He took his pencil, as I have
said, and put lightly in, half-way between himself and the National
Gallery, a shadow of a figure with one arm stretched out towards him.
Not a sylph like that fairy form which he had pictured on the rocks Ben
was climbing. This was a full, mature, matron figure, Friendship,
steadfast and sweet, not beckoning the hero on to the delights of life,
but holding out a helping hand. A hand may be very strong and helpful
and sustaining, though it is soft and fair and delicate. This thought
passed through Laurie’s mind as he indicated by a line or two the
gracious, open, extended palm. Alas! no sylph,--not her of the little
letters who might have been all the world to Laurie,--but Friendship,
the only feminine presence that could ever enter his existence. He
sighed as he put in this new personage in the drama, yet hung over it
all the same, feeling that even this lent an interest to his own path.
Not glory and a coronet which Frank, no doubt, as a soldier had his
chance of winning; not wealth and honour which more naturally and
certainly would come to Ben;--but the National Gallery finally, and
Friendship on the way to give him a hand. Such were to be the special
characteristics of Laurie’s way through the world.