When Oswyn emerged from the narrow doorway of the gallery in Bond
Street, which on the morrow was to be filled with the heterogeneous
presence of those who, for different reasons, are honoured with
cards of invitation to private views, it was still daylight,
although the lamps had been lighted; and the east wind, which during
the earlier hours of the day had made the young summer seem such a
mockery of flowery illusions, had taken a more genial air from the
south into alliance; and there was something at once caressing and
exhilarating in their united touch as they wandered in gentle eddies
up the crooked thoroughfare.
Oswyn paused upon the pavement, outside the showroom which Mosenthal
called a gallery, gazing up the road towards Oxford Street, with a
momentary appreciation of the subtile early evening charm, which
lent so real a beauty even to a vista of commonplace shop-fronts and
chimney-pots, straightening his bent figure, and wondering whither
to betake himself.
He had not allowed his friend's death to be an excuse for abandoning
the projected exhibition; indeed, when this event occurred, he was
already too far compromised; and he even found the labour involved
in the preparations for the new departure a very welcome
distraction--the one thing which made it possible for the desolate
man to stay on in London, which, he assured himself dogmatically,
was the only place on earth where he could face life with an
indifference which was at least a tolerable imitation of equanimity.
To get together the materials for even a modest exhibition of the
kind which he contemplated, it became necessary for him to ransack
old portfolios, and to borrow from dealers, and from his few
discriminating private patrons, works which had but recently left
his studio and could still be traced; to utilize all the hours of
daylight accorded to him by a grudging season for finishing,
mounting, and retouching.
The man who made frames for Oswyn knew him of old as an exacting
customer and hard to please, who insisted on a rigid adherence to
his own designs, and was quick to detect inferior workmanship or
material; but during the last few days he had been driven almost to
rebellion by the painter's exigencies; never had such calls been
made upon him for flawless glass, and delicately varied shades of
gold and silver; never had artist's eye been so ruthless in the
condemnation of imperfect mitres and superfluous plaster.
But now the work of preparation was at an end: the catalogues had
been printed, and his _impresario_ had judiciously circulated
invitations to press and public: the work was done, and the workman
felt only weary and indifferent. If the public howled, what did it
matter? Their hostility would be for him a corroboration, for his
Jew an invaluable advertisement. If they fawned, so much the better:
it would not hurt him, and Mosenthal would still have his
advertisement. If they were indifferent, well, so was he.
The question of pecuniary profit troubled him not at all (though
here his Jew joined issue): what in the world could he do with
money, now? He could paint a picture in a month which would keep him
for six, and the dealer who bought it probably for a year.
Margot was already provided for, even handsomely: in that respect,
at least, her first adopted father had left no void for his
successor to fill.
So again he shrugged his shoulders. And upon that evening, for the
first time since Rainham's death, he dined, more solitary and more
silent than ever, at his familiar table at Brodonowski's. He found
that, after all, his nervous anticipation of inconvenient
protestations of sympathy was not fulfilled; there were not many men
who knew him more than by sight at Brodonowski's, and the few of his
old associates who were there had the good sense to exhibit nothing
extraordinary in their demeanour towards him. Only they were a
little less wildly humorous than of old, and more forbearing in
their sallies; the conversation died out for an instant as he made
his way quickly, with the faintest sign of recognition, through
their midst--and that was all.
Rainham's death had affected some of them for a few days perhaps,
but it had not the shock of the unexpected; they chiefly wondered
that he had dragged his life through so cruel a winter. And his
close alliance with Oswyn had, as a natural consequence, debarred
him from a real intimacy with any of the other men, who, for the
most part younger, cultivated different friendships and different
pursuits.
They had missed Oswyn during his seclusion of the last few weeks; he
was so essentially the presiding, silent genius of the place--a man
to be pointed out to new-comers, half ironically, as the greatest,
most deeply injured, of them all; the possessor of a talent
unapproached and unappreciated. They felt that his presence lent a
distinction to the dingy resort which it otherwise frequently
lacked: and he had come to be so far regarded as a permanent
institution, of an almost official nature, that even on the coldest
nights his chair by the fireside had remained untenanted.
When the next morning came, Oswyn felt desperately inclined to break
the promise which Mosenthal had, with some difficulty, exacted from
him, and to keep far from Bond Street and the crowd who even then
were assembling to cast their careless glances and light words at
the work of his life; it was only the fear of the taint of
cowardice, and a certain perversity, which induced him eventually to
present himself within the gallery rather late in the afternoon.
As he entered the room, looking about him with a kind of challenge,
many eyes were turned upon him (for people go to private views not
to see pictures--that is generally impossible--but to see and be
seen of men), but few had any suspicion that this strange man, with
the shabby, old-fashioned apparel, and expression half nervous, half
defiant, was the painter whose pictures they were pretending to
criticise.
Very few of those present--hardly half a dozen perhaps--knew him
even by sight; and while his evident disregard for social convention
marked him, for the discerning observer, as a person of probably
artistic distinction, the general conjecture set him down, not as a
painter--he did not seem to be of that type--but as a man of
letters--probably a maker of obscure verse.
When he had mastered the first wild impulse which prompted him to
tear his pictures down, to turn their faces to the wall--anything to
hide them from this smiling, languid, well-dressed crowd--and
resigned himself to observation, he saw that Mosenthal was beaming
at him complacently, through the massive gold spectacles which
adorned and modified the bridge of his compromising nose, from his
seat behind the table, where information as to the prices of the
exhibits could be obtained.
There were exactly forty drawings and paintings to be seen upon the
sparsely-covered walls, which had been draped for the occasion with
coarsely-woven linen of a dull olive-green, and about half of these
were drawings and studies, small in point of size, executed in chalk
and pastels.
The greater part of these represented ordinary scenes of London
outdoor life--a deserted corner of Kensington Gardens, with tall
soot-blackened trees lifting their stately tracery of dark branches
into the sky; a reach of the wide, muddy river, with a gaunt bridge
looming through the fog; a gin-palace at night time, with garish
lamps shining out upon the wet streets and crouching beggars.
Of the remainder, which included a few portraits and some
imaginative subjects, the greater number were painted in oils, and
the largest canvas would not have seemed out of place on the walls
of an ordinary room.
Oswyn smiled grimly as he noticed that the portrait of Margot, which
he had begun for Rainham and finished for himself, was a
considerable centre of attraction; there was quite a dense crowd in
the vicinity of this canvas (it is true, it was near the tea-table),
and it included two bishops, a duke, and an actress, of whom the
last-named was certainly more stared at than the picture.
It irritated him, in spite of his contempt for the throng, to see
people standing, chatting, with their backs turned towards his
creations; and when Mosenthal informed him in a triumphant
stage-whisper, leaning across the table littered with catalogues,
that nine of the pictures had already found purchasers, he was
almost inclined to rebel, to refuse to ratify the sales.
The only friendly face which he encountered during the afternoon was
that of McAllister, who presently brought his congratulations and
conspicuous presence to the corner to which Oswyn had betaken
himself; and for a time he found himself listening, while the
Scotchman enlightened him, somewhat against his will, as to the
names and celebrity of the distinguished visitors whom he was
supposed to be receiving.
He was assured that the press notices could not fail to be
favourable (he mentally promised himself that nothing should
induce him to read a newspaper for at least a fortnight),
and the flattering comments of Mr. This and Lady That were
half-apologetically retailed for his presumed delectation.
As his eyes wandered, with his attention, furtively round the room,
they presently encountered, in their passage from group to group, a
face which seemed vaguely familiar--the face of a woman, whom he
certainly had never known, but whose beauty, he thought, was not
appealing to his admiration for the first time.
She was standing with her profile turned towards him, gazing gravely
at his study of a pale figure, with beautiful eyes and an armful of
wonderfully coloured poppies, which he called "Thanatos, the
Peace-bearer."
When she moved, presently, her gaze rested on him for a moment, with
the faintest note of inquiry interrupting the smile with which she
was listening to the sallies of her escort for the time being; the
smile and glance revealed her more perfectly to Oswyn, and he was
prepared to hear McAllister greet her as Mrs. Lightmark when, a few
minutes later, she passed them on her way round the room.
Eve had spent the week which followed the afternoon upon which her
husband had stunned her with the news of Philip Rainham's death
almost in solitude.
Lightmark had been obliged to pay a hasty visit to Berlin, on
business connected with an International Art Congress, and his wife
at the last moment decided, somewhat to his relief, that she would
not accompany him. A man of naturally quick perception, and with a
certain vein of nervous alertness underlying his outer clothing of
careless candour, he could not help feeling that when he was alone
with his wife he was being watched, that traps were set for him--in
short, that he was suspected. And not only when they were alone had
he cause for alarm: in crowded rooms, at mammoth dinner-parties,
and colossal assemblies he frequently became aware, by a sense even
quicker than vision, that his wife's eyes were directed upon him
from the farther side of the room, the opposite end of the
dinner-table, with that wistful, childish expression in their
depths, which, growing sterner and more critical of late, had ended
by boring him.
Before Rainham's death, Eve, in her private discussions of the
situation, had generally concluded by dismissing the subject
petulantly, with a summing-up only partially convincing, that
everything would come right in the end; that in time that miserable
scene would be forgotten or explained away; and that the old
intimacy, of which it was at once so bitter and so pleasant to
dream, would be restored.
Her training--of which her mother was justly proud--had endowed her
with a respect for social convention too great to allow her to think
of rebelling against the existing order of things. She consoled
herself by the reflection that at least she had committed no fault,
and that no active discipline of penitence could justly be expected
of her.
Concerning the truth of Rainham's story she could not fail to
harbour doubts; that her husband was concealing something was daily
more plainly revealed to her.
It was hard that she should suffer, but what could she do? At the
bottom of her heart, in spite of the feeling of resentment which
assailed her when--as it often did--the idea occurred to her that he
had not exhibited towards her the perfect frankness which their old
friendship demanded, she pitied Rainham. There were even times--such
was her state of doubt--when she pitied her husband, and blamed
herself for suspecting him of--she hardly owned what.
But, most of all, she pitied herself. She felt that in any case she
had been wronged, whether Philip's ill-told tale was true or false.
But her pride enabled her to keep her doubts locked within her own
heart, to present a smiling, if occasionally pale, face to the
world, in whose doings she took so large a part, and even to deceive
Mrs. Sylvester.
And now Philip was dead! The severance, which she had persuaded
herself was only temporary, was on a sudden rendered inexorably
complete and eternal.
The blow was a cruel one, and for a time it seemed to be succeeded
by a kind of rebellious insensibility. Eve felt demoralized, and
careless of the future; her frame of mind was precisely that of the
man who is making his first hasty steps along the headlong road
which is popularly spoken of as leading to the devil.
Later she began to reproach herself. She reflected, with a kind of
scornful wonder at her weakness, that she had allowed all chance of
explanation to escape; the one man whom she could trust, who would
surely give her a straightforward answer if she appealed to him by
the memory of the old days, was beyond the reach of her questions,
silent to eternity. Her former sorrow seemed trivial by comparison
with this.
On his return, Lightmark found his wife looking so pale and tired
that he broke off in the middle of the story of his flattering
reception at the German Court to express a suggestion for her
benefit, that she had better go to Brighton or somewhere to recruit.
She would never get through the season at this rate. Yes, she must
certainly take a holiday, directly after the Academy Private View.
Eve caught at the idea, only she did not wait for the Academy to
open. She went for a fortnight, accompanied by an old servant of the
family, who regarded her mistress's birth as quite a recent event,
to Mrs. Sylvester's cottage in Norfolk.
When Mrs. Lightmark came back to town her face was still pale, but
her brow wore a serener air, and her eyes had lost their look of
apprehension. The woman had arisen triumphant out of the ashes of
her childhood, with a heart determined to know the truth, and to
face it, however bitter it might prove to be. Meanwhile, she would
not judge hastily.
As she drove up Bond Street one day soon after her return to town,
the advertisement of Oswyn's exhibition caught her eye. She would
probably have remembered a name so uncommon if she had only heard it
once, and, as it was, she had heard it several times, and associated
with it, moreover, a certain reticence which could not fail to
arouse a woman's curiosity.
Later, when Mosenthal's card of invitation for the Private View
arrived, she noted the day upon her list of engagements.
On the morning of Oswyn's ordeal, Eve sent a message to her husband,
who was engaged with a model in the studio, to notify to him her
intention of taking the carriage into town later in the afternoon;
to which he had returned a gallant reply, expressing a hope that, if
it would not bore her too much, she would pick him up somewhere and
drive him home. Where and when could he meet her? The reply, "At
Mosenthal's at five o'clock," did not surprise him. He did not
happen to have the vaguest idea as to what was the attraction of the
day at that particular gallery. It might be Burmese landscapes, or
portraits of parrots; it was all one to him. It was extremely
decorous in his wife to affect picture-galleries, and Mosenthal's
place was conveniently near to his favourite club.
A few minutes before the appointed hour he made his way, from the
new and alarmingly revolutionary club-house, where he had been
indulging in afternoon tea in company with Felicia Dollond, to the
gallery, outside which his horses were already waiting, and,
perceiving Oswyn's name on the placards disposed on either side of
the entrance, he felt only a momentary hesitation.
Oswyn would probably not be there; and, after all, why should he not
inspect the man's pictures?
Before reasons had time to present themselves he had passed into the
room, and had been deferentially welcomed and presented with a
catalogue by the proprietor in person.
The room was still crowded, and it was oppressively warm, with an
atmosphere redolent of woollen and silken fabrics, like a milliner's
shop on the day of a sale.
At first he made no effort to join his wife, whom he discerned from
afar talking to a pillar of the Church in gaiters and a
broad-brimmed hat.
He looked at the pictures whenever there was a break in the sequence
of bows and greetings which had to be exchanged with two-thirds of
the people in the room; and as he looked he was smitten with a quick
thrill of admiration: he was still young enough to recognise the
hand of the master. And in his admiration there was a trace of a
frank envy, a certain unresentful humiliation--the feeling which he
could remember to have experienced many times in the old days, when
he put aside the sonnet he had just finished for some fashionable
magazine, and took down from his limited bookshelf the little
time-worn volume which contained the almost forgotten work of a poet
whose name would have fallen strangely on the editorial ear.
Before long there was a general departure, and Lightmark, flushed
with the triumphs of a conversation in which, in the very centre of
an admiring group of his antagonist's worshippers, he had
successfully measured swords with a notorious wit, turned to look
for his wife; and, for the first time, meeting Oswyn's eye,
half-involuntarily advanced to greet him.
"This is an unexpected honour," said Oswyn coldly, disregarding the
proffered hand; "unexpected and unwelcome!"
Then he would have turned away, leaving his contempt and hatred
unspoken, but his passion was too strong.
"Have you come to seek ideas for your next Academy picture," he
continued quickly, with a sneer trembling on his lips, "or for the
_Outcry_?"
Lightmark grew a little pale, biting his lip, and frowning for a
moment, before he assumed a desperate mask of good-humour.
"Hang it, man!" he answered quickly, "be reasonable! Haven't you
forgiven me yet? Though what you have to forgive---- I only want to
congratulate you, to tell you that I admire your work--immensely."
"I don't want your congratulations," interrupted the other hoarsely.
"I might forget the wrong which, as you well know, you have done me;
that is nothing! But have you forgotten your--your friend, Rainham?
You had better go," he added, with a savage gesture. "Go! before I
denounce you, proclaim you, you pitiful scoundrel!"
The man's forced calm had given way to a quivering passion; his lips
trembled under the stress of the words which thronged to them; and
as he turned on his heel, with a glance eloquent of loathing, he did
not notice that Eve was standing close behind her husband, with
parted lips, and intent eyes gleaming out of a face as pale as his
own.
Lightmark recovered himself quickly, shrugging his shoulders as soon
as the other was out of earshot. He glanced at his wife, who was
following Oswyn with her eyes; he did not dare to ask, or even to
think, what she might have heard.
"The man's mad," he said lightly, "madder than ever!"