IV

In Bomba's big room the company was assembling. The long gilt-edged

mirrors reflected a singular collection of people. Middle-aged

Academicians shot suspicious glances at youths whom they suspected, only

too correctly, of being iconoclasts, organisers of Post-Impressionist

Exhibitions. Rival art critics, brought suddenly face to face, quivered

with restrained hatred. Mrs. Nobes, Mrs. Cayman, and Mrs. Mandragore,

those indefatigable hunters of artistic big game, came on one another

all unawares in this well-stored menagerie, where each had expected to

hunt alone, and were filled with rage. Through this crowd of mutually

repellent vanities Lord Badgery moved with a suavity that seemed

unconscious of all the feuds and hatreds. He was enjoying himself

immensely. Behind the heavy waxen mask of his face, ambushed behind the

Hanoverian nose, the little lustreless pig's eyes, the pale thick lips,

there lurked a small devil of happy malice that rocked with laughter.

"So nice of you to have come, Mrs. Mandragore, to do honour to England's

artistic past. And I'm so glad to see you've brought dear Mrs. Cayman.

And is that Mrs. Nobes, too? So it is! I hadn't noticed her before. How

delightful! I knew we could depend on your love of art."

And he hurried away to seize the opportunity of introducing that eminent

sculptor, Sir Herbert Herne, to the bright young critic who had called

him, in the public prints, a monumental mason.

A moment later the Maître d'Hôtel came to the door of the gilded saloon

and announced, loudly and impressively, "Mr. Walter Tillotson." Guided

from behind by young Spode, Mr. Tillotson came into the room slowly and

hesitatingly. In the glare of the lights his eyelids beat heavily,

painfully, like the wings of an imprisoned moth, over his filmy eyes.

Once inside the door he halted and drew himself up with a conscious

assumption of dignity. Lord Badgery hurried forward and seized his hand.

"Welcome, Mr. Tillotson--welcome in the name of English art!"

Mr. Tillotson inclined his head in silence. He was too full of emotion

to be able to reply.

"I should like to introduce you to a few of your younger colleagues,

who have assembled here to do you honour."

Lord Badgery presented everyone in the room to the old painter, who

bowed, shook hands, made little noises in his throat, but still found

himself unable to speak. Mrs. Nobes, Mrs. Cayman, and Mrs. Mandragore

all said charming things.

Dinner was served; the party took their places. Lord Badgery sat at the

head of the table, with Mr. Tillotson on his right hand and Sir Herbert

Herne on his left. Confronted with Bomba's succulent cooking and Bomba's

wines, Mr. Tillotson ate and drank a good deal. He had the appetite of

one who has lived on greens and potatoes for ten years among the

blackbeetles. After the second glass of wine he began to talk, suddenly

and in a flood, as though a sluice had been pulled up.

"In Asia Minor," he began, "it is the custom when one goes to dinner, to

hiccough as a sign of appreciative fullness. _Eructavit cor meum_, as

the Psalmist has it; he was an Oriental himself."

Spode had arranged to sit next to Mrs. Cayman; he had designs upon her.

She was an impossible woman, of course, but rich and useful; he wanted

to bamboozle her into buying some of his young friends' pictures.

"In a cellar?" Mrs. Cayman was saying, "with, blackbeetles? Oh, how

dreadful! Poor old man! And he's ninety-seven, didn't you say? Isn't

that shocking! I only hope the subscription will be a large one. Of

course, one wishes one could have given more oneself. But then, you

know, one has so many expenses, and things are so difficult now."

"I know, I know," said Spode, with feeling.

"It's all because of Labour," Mrs. Cayman explained. "Of course, I

should simply love to have him in to dinner sometimes. But, then, I feel

he's really too old, too _farouche_ and _gâteux_; it would not be doing

a kindness to him, would it? And so you are working with Mr. Gollamy

now? What a charming man, so talented, such conversation...."

"_Eructavit cor meum_," said Mr. Tillotson for the third time. Lord

Badgery tried to head him off the subject of Turkish etiquette, but in

vain.

By half-past nine a kinder vinolent atmosphere had put to sleep the

hatreds and suspicions of before dinner. Sir Herbert Herne had

discovered that the young Cubist sitting next him was not insane and

actually knew a surprising amount about the Old Masters. For their part

these young men had realised that their elders were not at all

malignant; they were just very stupid and pathetic. It was only in the

bosoms of Mrs. Nobes, Mrs. Cayman, and Mrs. Mandragore that hatred still

reigned undiminished. Being ladies and old-fashioned, they had drunk

almost no wine.

The moment for speech-making arrived. Lord Badgery rose to his feet,

said what was expected of him, and called upon Sir Herbert to propose

the toast of the evening. Sir Herbert coughed, smiled and began. In the

course of a speech that lasted twenty minutes he told anecdotes of Mr.

Gladstone, Lord Leighton, Sir Almo Tadema, and the late Bishop, of

Bombay; he made three puns, he quoted Shakespeare and Whittier, he was

playful, he was eloquent, he was grave.... At the end of his harangue

Sir Herbert handed to Mr. Tillotson a silk purse containing fifty-eight

pounds ten shillings, the total amount of the subscription. The old

man's health was drunk with acclamation.

Mr. Tillotson rose with difficulty to his feet. The dry, snakelike skin

of his face was flushed; his tie was more crooked than ever; the green

ribbon of the Order of Chastity of the second class had somehow climbed

tip his crumpled and maculate shirt front.

"My lords, ladies, and gentlemen," he began in a choking voice, and then

broke down completely. It was a very painful and pathetic spectacle. A

feeling of intense discomfort afflicted the minds of all who looked upon

that trembling relic of a man, as he stood there weeping and stammering.

It was as though a breath of the wind of death had blown suddenly

through the room, lifting the vapours of wine and tobacco-smoke,

quenching the laughter and the candle flames. Eyes floated uneasily, not

knowing where to look. Lord Badgery, with great presence of mind,

offered the old man a glass of wine. Mr. Tillotson began to recover. The

guests heard him murmur a few disconnected words.

"This great honour ... overwhelmed with kindness ... this magnificent

banquet ... not used to it ... in Asia Minor ... _eructuvit cor meum_."

At this point Lord Badgery plucked sharply at one of his long coat

tails. Mr. Tillotson paused, took another sip of wine, and then went on

with a newly won coherence and energy.

"The life of the artist is a hard one. His work is unlike other men's

work, which may be done mechanically, by rote and almost, as it were,

in sleep. It demands from him a constant expense of spirit. He gives

continually of his best life, and in return he receives much joy, it is

true much fame, it may be--but of material blessings, very few. It is

eighty years since first I devoted my life to the service of art; eighty

years, and almost every one of those years has brought me fresh and

painful proof of what I have been saying: the artist's life is a hard

one."

This unexpected deviation into sense increased the general feeling of

discomfort. It became necessary to take the old man seriously, to regard

him as a human being. Up till then he had been no more than an object of

curiosity, a mummy in an absurd suit of evening-clothes with a green

ribbon across the shirt front. People could not help wishing that they

had subscribed a little more. Fifty-eight pounds ten it wasn't enormous.

But happily for the peace of mind of the company, Mr. Tillotson paused

again, took another sip of wine, and began to live up to his proper

character by talking absurdly.

"When I consider the life of that great man, Benjamin Robert Haydon, one

of the greatest men England has ever produced...." The audience heaved a

sigh of relief; this was all as it should be. There was a burst of loud

bravoing and clapping. Mr. Tillotson turned his dim eyes round the room,

and smiled gratefully at the misty figures he beheld. "That great man,

Benjamin Robert Haydon," he continued, "whom I am proud to call my

master and who, it rejoices my heart to see, still lives in your memory

and esteem, that great man, one of the greatest that England has ever

produced, led a life so deplorable that I cannot think of it without a

tear."

And with infinite repetitions and divagations, Mr. Tillotson related the

history of B.R. Haydon, his imprisonments for debt, his battle with the

Academy, his triumphs, his failures, his despair, his suicide. Half-past

ten struck. Mr. Tillotson was declaiming against the stupid and

prejudiced judges who had rejected Haydon's designs for the decoration

of the new Houses of Parliament in favour of the paltriest German

scribblings.

"That great man, one of the greatest England has ever produced, that

great Benjamin Robert Haydon, whom I am proud to call my master and who,

it rejoices me to see, still lives on in your memory and esteem--at that

affront his great heart burst; it was the unkindest cut of all. He who

had worked all his life for the recognition, of the artist by the

State, he who had petitioned every Prime Minister, including the Duke of

Wellington, for thirty years, begging them to employ artists to decorate

public buildings, he to whom the scheme for decorating the Houses of

Parliament was undeniably due...." Mr. Tillotson lost a grip on his

syntax and began a new sentence. "It was the unkindest cut of all, it

was the last straw. The artist's life is a hard one."

At eleven Mr. Tillotson was talking about the pre-Raphaelites. At a

quarter past he had begun to tell the story of B.R. Haydon all over

again. At twenty-five minutes to twelve he collapsed quite speechless

into his chair. Most of the guests had already gone away; the few who

remained made haste to depart. Lord Badgery led the old man to the door

and packed him into the second Rolls-Royce. The Tillotson Banquet was

over; it had been a pleasant evening, but a little too long.

Spode walked back to his rooms in Bloomsbury, whistling as he went. The

arc lamps of Oxford Street reflected in the polished surface of the

road; canals of dark bronze. He would have to bring that into an article

some time. The Cayman woman had been very successfully nobbled. "Voi che

sapete," he whistled--somewhat out of tune, but he could not hear that.

When Mr. Tillotson's landlady came in to call him on the following

morning, she found the old man lying fully dressed on his bed. He looked

very ill and very, very old; Boreham's dress-suit was in a terrible

state, and the green ribbon of the Order of Chastity was ruined. Mr.

Tillotson lay very still, but he was not asleep. Hearing the sound of

footsteps, he opened his eyes a little and faintly groaned. His landlady

looked down at him menacingly.

"Disgusting!" she said, "disgusting, I call it. At your age."

Mr. Tillotson groaned again. Making a great effort, he drew out of his

trouser pocket a large silk purse, opened it, and extracted a sovereign.

"The artist's life is a hard one, Mrs. Green," he said, handing her the

coin. "Would you mind sending for the doctor? I don't feel very well.

And oh, what shall I do about these clothes? What shall I say to the

gentleman who was kind enough to lend them to me? Loan oft loseth both

itself and friend. The Bard is always right."