At three o'clock Lightmark dismissed his model--an Italian, with a
wonderfully fine torso and admirable capabilities for picturesque
pose, whom he had easily persuaded to abandon his ice-cream barrow
to sit for him two or three times a week, acting the part of studio
servant in the intervals.
"That will do, Cesare," he said, "_aspetto persone_; besides, you're
shivering: I shall have you catching cold next, and I can't paint
while you're sneezing. Yes, you're quite right, _è un freddo
terribile_, considering that it's July. Off with you now, and come
again at the same time on Friday. _Si conservi_--that's to say, don't
get drunk in the interval; it makes you look such a brute that I
can't paint you."
While the model transformed himself from a scantily-attired Roman
gladiator into an Italian of the ordinary Saffron Hill description,
Lightmark hastily washed his brushes, turned down his shirt sleeves,
and donned the becoming velvet painting-jacket, which Mrs. Dollond
had so much admired.
"I hope they won't notice Cesare's pipe," he said anxiously. "Even
though he doesn't smoke here, it always seems to hang about. Perhaps
I had better open the window and burn a pastille. And now, are we
prepared to receive Philistia? Yes, I don't think the place looks
bad, and--but perhaps Mrs. Sylvester mightn't like the gladiator. He
certainly is deucedly anatomical at present. I'll go and leave him
in Copal's studio, and then I can borrow his tea-things at the same
time."
The studio was a lofty room on the ground-floor with an
elaborately-devised skylight, and a large window facing north,
through which a distant glimpse of Holland Park could be obtained.
Lightmark had covered the floor with pale Indian matting, with a bit
of strong colour, here and there, in the shape of a modern Turkish
rug. For furniture, he had picked up some old chairs and a large
straight-backed settee with grotesquely-carved legs, which, with the
aid of a judicious arrangement of drapery, looked eminently
attractive, and conveyed an impression of comfort which closer
acquaintance did not altogether belie. Then there was the platform,
covered with dark cloth, on which his models posed; the rickety
table with many drawers, in which he kept brushes and colours; a lay
figure, disguised as a Venetian flower-girl, which had collapsed
tipsily into a corner; two or three easels; and a tall, stamped
leather screen, which was useful for backgrounds. A few sketches,
mostly unframed, stood in a row on the narrow shelf which ran along
the pale-green distempered walls; and more were stacked in the
corners--some in portfolios, and some with their dusty backs exposed
to view. The palette which he had been using lay, like a great
fantastic leaf, upon the table, amid a chaos of broken crayons,
dingy stumps, photographs of sitters, pellets of bread, disreputable
colour-tubes, and small bottles of linseed-oil, varnish, and
turpentine. A sketch for Mrs. Sylvester's portrait, in crayons, was
propped against the foot of an easel (Lightmark hoped that her son
might buy it for his chambers); the canvas which he had prepared
against the much-delayed sitting due from Miss Sylvester exposed its
blank surface on another. A tall Japanese jar full of purple and
yellow irises, a tribute to his expected guests, stood on the dusty
black stove.
He had barely had time to arrange the borrowed tea-things, and to
set a kettle on a little spirit-lamp behind the screen, when Mrs.
Dollond and her husband were announced. He threw his black sombrero
somewhat theatrically into a corner, and advanced with effusion to
meet them. Mrs. Dollond had taken a decided interest in the young
painter ever since the delightfully uncandid reflection of her by no
means youthful beauty, which he had exhibited at the Grosvenor, had
provoked so much comment among her friends.
She was a plump, little, fair-haired woman, with blue eyes, a very
pink and white complexion, small hands, and a passion for dress with
which people who had known her before her marriage, as a slim maiden
devoted to sage-green draperies and square-toed shoes, declined to
credit her, until they were told that she had, to put it plainly,
grown fat--a development which compelled her to give up æstheticism
and employ a _modiste_.
Her husband, who followed her into the room, carrying her
impedimenta, wore the bored expression of the R.A. who is expected
to admire the work of an outsider. He was the abject slave of his
good-natured wife--she _was_ good-natured, in spite of her love of
scandal--and his only fault from her point of view, and his greatest
one in the eyes of people in general, lay in an unfortunate habit of
thinking aloud, a dangerous characteristic, which persons who are
apt to find themselves in the position of critic should at any cost
eradicate. Luckily, his benevolence was such that these outspoken
comments were never really virulent, and not often offensive.
Mrs. Dollond seated herself smilingly on the least rickety chair,
disposed of her veil with one neatly-gloved hand, and prepared a
tortoiseshell eyeglass for action with the other.
"What a charming portrait!" she said, pointing with her plump
index-finger to the sketch of Mrs. Sylvester. "Do I know the lady, I
wonder? Oh! I do believe it's that Mrs. Sylvester."
"Yes," said Lightmark. "If you remember, you introduced me to her at
the Academy soirée last year. I expect her here this afternoon, with
her daughter. I am going to paint Miss Sylvester's portrait."
"Ah," said Mrs. Dollond mischievously, "and that accounts for the
pastille. You never made such preparations when _I_ sat to you. I
suppose you thought that a painter's wife could not possibly object
to tobacco."
"And she certainly doesn't, judging by her consumption of
cigarettes!" interposed her husband.
"Hugh, I'm ashamed of you. You know I'm a martyr to asthma--and
cigarettes aren't tobacco. But how old is Miss Sylvester? Is she
pretty?"
"Don't ask me to describe her, Mrs. Dollond. Wait till you see
her--she's coming, you know. What do you think of that river-scape,
most reverend signor? It's one of the little things I've been doing
down at Rainham's Dock--down at Blackpool."
The Academician tried to appear interested as he assumed the
conventional bird-like pose of the picture-gazer, and surveyed the
sketch.
"Very pretty--very pretty! I should hardly have thought it was the
Thames, though. It isn't muddy enough. In fact, the whole scheme of
colour is much too clean for London. Quite absurd! Not a bit like
it! Eh, my dear, what was I saying? Oh yes, I like the effect of the
sunlight on that brown sail immensely. It's really very clever, very
clever."
Mrs. Dollond, who never knew what her husband would say next,
welcomed the influx of a small throng of visitors with a sigh of
relief.
The Sylvesters and Philip Rainham, arriving at the same time, found
the little studio almost crowded. Besides the Dollonds there were
two or three of the Turk Street fraternity; a young sculptor, newly
arrived from Rome, with his wife; Dionysus F. Quain, an American
interested in petroleum, who had patronized Lightmark also at Rome;
and Copal, whose studio was in the same building, and who was
manifestly anxious about his Chelsea teacups.
Mrs. Sylvester greeted her _protégé_ with a flattering degree of
warmth which was entirely absent from the stare and conventional
smile with which she honoured Mrs. Dollond, and the somewhat
impertinent air of patronage which she wore when one or two of the
young artists were introduced to her. If they did not mind, Mrs.
Dollond was inclined to be resentful, for the moment, at least; and,
as a preliminary attack, she maliciously encouraged Eve, who,
ensconced in a corner, blissfully unconscious of the maternal
anxiety which the other matron had detected, was eagerly turning
over the contents of a portfolio which she had unearthed from its
lurking-place behind her chair.
Rainham was looking over her shoulder, admiring the charming poise
of the girl's head, and the contours of her wrists and hands, as she
submitted the drawings to his inspection. Charles Sylvester
stationed himself close by, and devoted himself to buttonholing the
American senator, to the obvious discomfort of his victim, whose
knowledge of Pennsylvanian oil-wells was infinitely greater than his
acquaintance with the rudiments of summary jurisdiction, as
practised in his native State, and who, after hazarding a remark to
the effect that Judge Lynch had long since retired from the Bench,
had, as he would have put it, "pretty considerably petered out."
"I hope my daughter isn't indiscreet?" Mrs. Sylvester had hazarded,
after catching Lightmark's eye on its return journey from a glance
in the direction of the little group in the corner; and the young
man had reassured her hastily, before misgivings had time to assail
him, and when they did, he hoped for the best. For a painter's
portfolio is, after all, hardly less confidential than a diary, and
may be on occasion almost as compromising, in spite of the fact that
the records it contains are written in cipher.
The sunlight, mellowed to a dull straw colour by its passage through
London air, slanted in at the window, falling first on Charles
Sylvester's handsome face, with its eminently professional, severely
cut features, and the careful limitation of whisker, which seemed so
completely in harmony with his shaven upper lip and the
unsympathetic scrutiny of his double eyeglass; then, losing some of
its brightness among the little ripples of brown hair which a
gracious Providence had forbidden her hat to conceal, fell like a
halo upon the pale green wall behind Eve's head.
The young artists--the "boys," as they would have called
themselves--were circulating busily with teacups and _petits fours_,
and the chatter of voices bore testimony to the preponderance of the
Bohemian element. It is only the dwellers on the confines who lose
their voices in the Temple of Art--a goddess who, to judge by her
votaries, is not wont to take pleasure in silence.
"Oh," said Eve, in reply to one of Rainham's remarks, "is that
Bordighera? What lovely blue water! and what perfectly delicious
little fishing-boats! I should like to go there. Charles is going to
take us to Lucerne in a week or two, you know, when the Long
Vacation begins. But I suppose we shall hardly get to Italy."
"Yes, that's Bordighera"--with a sigh--"my happy hunting-ground. And
the water is much bluer really--only don't tell Dick I said so. Yes,
you ought to go there. If you stayed late enough you would have me
dropping in on you one fine day, as soon as the fogs begin here.
Happy thought! Why shouldn't we all winter out there?"
"That would be nice," said Eve, rather doubtfully; "but, you know,
there's Charles--he would have to come back for the Law Courts in
the autumn, and he would be so lonely all by himself. And--and
there's my portrait. Mr. Lightmark wants to get that ready for next
year's Academy; and I can't sit to him very often, as it is, because
of _chaperons_, you know."
Meanwhile Lightmark was telling Mrs. Dollond, in a confidential
undertone, some story of a fair American sitter, who, on his
expressing himself dissatisfied with his efforts worthily to
transfer her complexion to canvas, had at once offered to send her
maid round to his studio with an assortment of her favourite _poudre
de rose_. Dollond listened with an amused smile to a recital of the
sculptor's impressions of the Salon, which he had taken on his way
from Rome. Copal was making desperate efforts to count his precious
teacups, a task which their scattered positions rendered
distressingly difficult. Charles Sylvester was somewhat listlessly
cross-examining a P.R.A. in embryo as to the exact meaning of
"breadth" in a painting; and Mr. Quain had been making his way as
unostentatiously as the creakiness of his boots would permit towards
the door. Eve had despatched one of "the boys" in search of a
portfolio to replace the one which she had exhausted, and another
had been entrusted with the safe bestowal of her empty teacup. The
new portfolio, when it arrived, proved to be filled, not as the
others, with landscapes and waterscapes, but with studies from
life--Capri fisher girls, groups of market people, Venetian boatmen,
and hasty sketches for portraits.
Eve paused rather longer than usual over one of these, the picture
of a pretty fair-haired girl, dressed as Pierrette, the general lack
of detail and absence of background only making the vigorously
outlined face more distinct.
"What a pretty girl, Philip!" said the young critic presently; "and
how curiously she's dressed! What is she intended to represent? Is
it a fancy dress?... Mr. Rainham, if you don't attend, I won't show
you any more pictures."
"Tyrant," said Rainham absently, as he carried his eyes from the
contemplative stare with which they had been regarding the vagaries
of a butterfly on the skylight. "What have you found now?--Kitty, by
Jove!"
He had no sooner uttered these last three words, in a very different
tone to that of his previous idle remarks, than he cursed his
indiscretion. It was a piece of _gaucherie_ which he would find it
hard to forgive in himself, and Lightmark might well resent it.
"Kitty?" asked Eve, with some surprise, "who is Kitty? Mr.
Lightmark, please tell us who this charming young lady, whom Mr.
Rainham calls Kitty, is, since he won't."
"Kitty?" repeated Lightmark, with only a momentary hesitation, which
the suddenness of the query might well account for; "I'm afraid I
don't quite remember. There are so many Kitties, you know. All
models are either Kitty or Polly. But if Rainham says it's Kitty,
depend upon it he's right. He's got a wonderful memory for faces,
especially pretty ones.--Yes," he added mischievously, "you ask
Rainham."
Mrs. Sylvester looked uneasy, and, to her subsequent disgust, began
to press "dear Mrs. Dollond" to come and see her.
Charles, who had looked up sharply at the first mention of the name,
which had so disturbed the usually imperturbable Rainham, fixed his
interrogative glasses first on the latter and then on Lightmark, and
finally let them rest, with an expression of inquiring censure, on
Rainham, whose confusion savoured to his mind so unmistakably of
guilt that "Gentlemen of the jury" rose almost automatically to his
lips. Nor did Rainham's attempt to smooth matters assist him.
"I must have seen the girl at the studio," he said, "when Lightmark
was painting her. It's certainly a striking likeness, and that's
what astonished me, you know. Almost like seeing a ghost. Ah, that
little fellow used to sit for Lightmark in Rome--little sunburnt
ruffian. We picked him up on the Ghetto, almost starving, and he got
quite an artistic connection before we left. He was positively
growing too fat; prosperity spoiled him as a model."
"Really?" said Eve listlessly. "I don't think I want to look at any
more drawings; one can have too much of a good thing, and it must be
time for us to go. We're dining out, and Charles doesn't like
dressing in a hurry. Yes, mamma is buttoning her gloves. Good-bye,
Mr. Rainham. Shall we see you again before we go to Switzerland? Ah,
well, let's hope so. Au revoir, Mr. Lightmark. If you really think
it's worth while for me to give you a solitary sitting next
week----"
"If you would be so good. You see, I should have some ideas to go on
with. Don't I deserve some reward, too, for allowing Rainham to
monopolize you all the afternoon? And if you don't give me a sitting
now, I'm afraid you will forget all about it when you come back to
town; whereas, if we make a beginning, you will have to see it
through--you will be compromised."
"What a stupid expression!" thought Mrs. Sylvester as the carriage
rolled along the Kensington highroad.
Charles was unusually silent during the drive. The subject which
occupied his thoughts was not one which he would have dreamed of
ventilating even with his mother, and Eve's presence seemed to
render the faintest allusion to it impracticable.
He had no great affection or even regard for Philip Rainham, whom he
contemplated with that undefined disdain which a younger man so
often feels for one who is too old to be on his own level, and too
young to inspire reverence. The half-pitying regard which Mrs.
Sylvester bestowed on the man who had been to her husband as a very
dear younger brother had never furthered Rainham's advancement in
her son's favour; and the manner in which Eve had centred her
childish affections in Philip, who had made her his especial
favourite, was even more prejudicial to his interests in that
quarter. Hitherto, indeed, Sylvester's vague dislike had been so
undemonstrative and immaterial that he would hardly have owned to it
as such, and far less would he have acknowledged that he was,
however unconsciously, feeling for a peg on which to hang it, for
ground to support it; and yet from the first moment when the man's
startled voice drew the questioning eyes upon his embarrassment, the
judicial mind had been able to plume itself upon the penetration
which had enabled it to detect something of doubtful odour about him
from the first. "Kitty!" That word might explain so much--Rainham's
long sojourns away from his business, for example.
Charles looked at Eve and frowned. Decidedly, thought the young
moralist, the old intimacy must be discouraged. Nor did the fact
that Rainham had been the source of his first brief, as well as of
subsequent others, though it was not forgotten, suggest the
advisability of a compromise; he even began to take a certain pride
in the determination with which he was bringing himself to
contemplate the sacrifice of so useful a friendship.
When they reached home there was barely time to dress for dinner,
and Charles had no opportunity for a _tête-à-tête_ discussion of the
situation with his mother that evening. And as he breakfasted early
next day and dined at the club, he had ample time in which to
determine that, for the present, he would avoid anything in the
shape of a family conference, and would content himself with keeping
his eye on the _mauvais sujet_.