Frank got through his tennis-party without discredit. Margery's
presence seemed to have exorcised--for the time being, at any rate--the
demon which he said possessed him, and there was no apparent similarity
between his nature and Mr. Fortescue's. Ease of manner and a certain
picturesqueness were natural to him, and Margery found herself
forgetting the slightly disturbing events of the last twenty-four hours.
Mr. and Mrs. Greenock, who dined with them that evening, were gifted
with oppressive personalities. Frank once said that he always felt
as if Raphael's clouds had descended on him when he talked to this
gentleman. Raphael's clouds, he maintained, were very likely big with
blessing, but were somewhat solid in texture, and resembled benedictory
feather-beds rather than benedictory clouds. The environment of
benediction was possibly good for one in the long-run, but he himself
considered it rather suffocating at the time. Mrs. Greenock, on the
other hand, was an example of what Americans perhaps mean by a "very
bright woman." She was oppressively bright. She had bright blue eyes,
which suggested buttons covered with shiny American cloth, and a nose
like a ship's prow, which seemed to cut the air when she moved. She
asked artists questions about their art and musicians about their
music, and if she had met a crossing-sweeper she would certainly have
asked him questions about his crossing. This, she was persuaded,
was the best way of improving an already superior intellect, as hers
admittedly was. There is a great deal to be said for her view--there
always was a great deal to be said for her views, and she usually said
most of it herself. She always made a point of saying that she could
remember anything you happened to tell her, in order to give Tom, or
Harry, or Jane a really professional opinion in case they should happen
to ask her questions on the subject in hand. She may, in fact, be
described as a lioness-woman, who bore away all possible scraps to feed
her whelps. Her methods of obtaining the scraps, however, as Frank had
suggested, reminded one of a ferret at work. She had the same bright,
cruel way of peering restlessly about.
Mr. and Mrs. Greenock were loudly and insistently punctual, and when
Frank came into the drawing-room that evening he found his guests
already there. Mrs. Greenock was snapping up pieces of information from
Margery, and Mr. Greenock's attitude gave the beholder to understand
that the blessing of the Church hovered over this instructive
intercourse.
Mrs. Greenock instantly annexed Frank, as being able to give her more
professional, and therefore more nutritive, scraps of intellectual food
than his wife. She had a rich barytone voice and an impressive delivery.
"I'm sure you'll think me dreadfully ignorant," she said; "but when
dear Kate asked me when Leonardo died I was unable to tell her within
ten years. Now, what was the date?"
"I really could not say for certain," said Frank; "I forget the exact
year, if I ever knew it."
Mrs. Greenock heaved a sigh of relief.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Trevor," she said. "Then may I tell dear Kate
that even you don't know for certain, and so it cannot have been an
epoch-making year? When one knows so little and wants to know so much,
it is always worth while remembering that there is something one need
not know. Now, which would you say was the most epoch-making year in
the history of Art?"
Frank felt helpless with the bright, cruel eyes of the ferret fastened
on his face, and he shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
"It would be hard to say that any one year was epoch-making," he
replied; "but I should say that the Italian Renaissance generally was
the greatest epoch. May I take you in to dinner?"
Mrs. Greenock turned her eyes up to the ceiling as if in a sudden spasm
of gratitude.
"Thank you so much for telling me that. Algernon dear, did you hear
what Mr. Trevor said about the Italian Renaissance? He agrees with us."
Mrs. Greenock unfolded her napkin as if she were in expectation of
finding the manna of professional opinion wrapped up in it, and was a
little disappointed on discovering only a piece of ordinary bread.
"And what, Mr. Trevor, if I may ask you this--what is the subject of
your next picture? Naturally I wish to know exactly all that is going
on round me. That is the only way, is it not, of being able to trace
the tendencies of Art? Historical, romantic, realistic--what?"
"I've just begun a portrait of myself," said Frank.
Mrs. Greenock laid down the spoonful of soup she was raising to her
lips, as if the mental food she was receiving was more suited to supply
her needs than _potage à la bonne femme_.
"Thank you so much," she ejaculated. "Algernon dear, Mr. Trevor is
doing a portrait of himself. Remind me to tell Harry that as soon as
we get home. Ah, what a revelation it will be! An artist's portrait of
himself--the portrait of you by yourself. That is the only true way for
artists to teach us, to show us theirselves--what they are, not only
what they look like."
Frank crumbled his bread with subdued violence.
"You have hit the nail on the head," he replied. "That is exactly what
I mean to do."
Mrs. Greenock was delighted. This was a sort of testimonial to the
superiority of her intellect, written in the hand of a professional.
"Please tell me more," she said, rejecting an _entrée_.
"There is nothing to tell," he said; "you have got to the root of the
matter. A portrait should be, as you say, the man himself, not what
he looks like. We are often very different to what we look like, and
a gallery of real portraits would be a very startling thing. So many
portraits are merely colored photographs. My endeavor is that this
shall be something more than that."
"Yes!" said Mrs. Greenock, eagerly.
"You shall see it if you wish," said Frank, "but it will not be
finished for a couple of days yet. My wife goes away to-morrow for a
night, and as I shall be alone I shall work very hard at it. It--"
Frank was speaking in his lowest audible tones, but he stopped
suddenly. He was afraid for a moment that he would actually lose all
control over himself. As he spoke all his strange dreams and fancies
surged back over his mind, and he could hardly prevent himself from
crying aloud. He looked up and caught Margery's eye, and she, seeing
that something was wrong, referred a point which she or Mr. Greenock
had been discussing to his wife. Meantime Frank pulled himself
together, but registered a solemn vow that never till the crack of doom
should Mrs. Greenock set foot in his house again. He and Margery had
had a small tussle over the necessity of asking the vicar to dinner,
but Margery had insisted that every one always asked the vicar to
dine, and Frank, of weaker will than she, had acquiesced. Poor Mrs.
Greenock had unconsciously launched herself on very thin ice, and
Frank inwardly absolved himself from all responsibility if she tried
the experiment again.
When the two ladies left the room Mr. Greenock's feather-bed descents
began in earnest. It was trying, but he was less likely to go in
dangerous places than his predatory wife. He would not drink any more
wine, and he would not smoke; but when Frank proposed that they should
join the ladies, he said:
"It so seldom happens, in this secluded corner of the world, that I can
converse with men who have lived their lives in a sphere so different
to mine, that I confess I should much enjoy a little longer talk with
you."
"Yes, I suppose you get few visitors here," said Frank.
"The visitors we get here," said Mr. Greenock, "are chiefly tourists
who are not inclined for an interchange of thought and experience.
Sometimes I see them in our little church-yard where so many men of
note are buried, but they do not stop. Indeed, it would indicate a
morbid tendency if they did."
"I have often noticed how many names one knows are on the graves in
your church-yard," said Frank.
"It is a solemn thought," said Mr. Greenock, "that in our little
church-yard lies all that is mortal of so many brilliant intellects and
exceptional abilities. 'Green grows the grass on their graves,' as my
wife beautifully expressed it the other day in a little lyric."
"Dear me, I did not know that Mrs. Greenock wrote poetry," said Frank.
"She is a sonneteer of considerable power," said the vicar.
Frank, who had always thought of Mrs. Greenock in the light of a
Puritan rather than a sonneteer, gave a sudden choke of laughter. But
Mr. Greenock was arranging his next sentence and did not hear it.
"Her verses are always distinguished by their thoughtfully chosen
similes," he continued, "and their flow of harmonious language."
"You can hardly feel out of the world if you always have a poet by you."
"The career of a poet," said Mr. Greenock, "is always beset with snares
and difficulties. On the one hand, there is the danger of a too easily
gained popularity, and, on the other, the discouraging effect of the
absence of an audience."
"I am sure I can guess to which danger Mrs. Greenock is most exposed,"
said Frank, rather wildly.
"You are pleased to say so," said the vicar, with an appreciative
wave of his hand. "In point of fact, some verses of hers which have
appeared from time to time in a local paper have attracted much not
unmerited attention. She is preparing a small volume of verse-idyls for
publication."
Mr. Greenock rose, as if further interchange of thought and experience
could not but be bathos after this, and Frank and he joined the ladies.
Mrs. Greenock was seized with sensitiveness when she heard that Frank
had learned about the forthcoming verse-idyls, but soon recovered
sufficiently to make some very true though not very original remarks on
the beauty of the moonlit sea, and pressed Frank to tell her whether
any one had ever painted a moonlit scene. Frank cast a glance of
concentrated hatred at the unoffending moon, and proceeded to answer.
"In this imperfect world," he said, "it would surely be too much to
expect that we can convince any one else. It is sufficient if we can
convince ourselves. What on earth does the opinion of the foolish
crowd matter to an artist? Their praise is almost more distasteful
than their censure. Have you ever seen a critic? I met one once at
dinner, and--God forgive him, for I cannot--he admired my pictures.
He admired them all, and he admired them for the wrong reasons. He
admired just that which was intelligible to him. He added insult to
injury by praising them in one of those penny-in-the-slot journals,
as some one says. No man has a right to criticise a picture unless he
knows more about Art than the man who painted it. Carry conviction to
any one else? Wait till the day when your poems seem ugly to you, when
all you write seems commonplace and trivial; you will not care about
convincing other people then. You will say, 'It is enough if I can
write a line which seems to me only not execrable.' Extremes meet, and
contentment comes only to those who know nothing or who nearly know
all."
Mrs. Greenock stared at him in amazement. This was not at all her idea
of the cultured, refined artist, the man who would say pretty things
in beautiful language, and ask to borrow the _Penalva Gazette_ which
contained her poem on "A Corner in a Country Church-yard." She drew on
her gloves as if to shield herself from a blustering wind.
Frank, I am sorry to say, felt an evil pleasure in the shock he had
given her. He had spoken without malice aforethought, but the malice
certainly came in when he had finished speaking. What right had this
verse-idyl woman to tell him what a portrait should be, to speak
to him of that which he hardly dared think of himself, and drag his
nightmare out on to the table-cloth?
His voice rose a tone as he went on.
"You call one thing pretty, another ugly," he said. "Believe me, Art
knows no such terms. A thing is true or it is false, and the cruelty
of it is that if we have as much as a grain of falsehood in our whole
sense of truth, the thing is worthless. Therefore, in this picture I am
doing I have tried to be absolutely truthful; as you said at dinner, I
have tried to paint what I am without extenuation or concealment. Would
you like to see it? You would probably call it a hideous caricature,
because in this terribly cruel human life no man knows what is good in
him, but only what is bad. It is those who love us only who know if
there is any good in us--"
His voice sank again, and as his eye rested on Margery the hardness
softened from his face and it was transformed.
"Dear me, I have been talking a lot of shop, I am afraid," he said;
"but I have the privilege or the misfortune--I hardly know which--to
be terribly in earnest, and I have committed the unpardonable breach
of manners to make you the unwilling recipient of my earnestness. Ah,
Margery is going to sing to us."
Poor Mrs. Greenock felt as if she had asked for a little bread and
been pelted with quartern loaves. She felt almost too sore and knocked
about to eat it herself, much less to put pieces in her pocket for
Tom and Harry and Jane. But the fact that Margery was singing made it
natural for her to be silent, and she finished putting on her gloves,
and, so to speak, tidied herself up again. In fact, before they left
she had recovered enough to be able to thank Frank for the extremely
interesting conversation they had had, and to remind him of his promise
to show her the picture.
"I will send you a note when it is done," said he. "Margery is going
away to-morrow for the inside of two days, and I expect it will be
finished in three or four days at the most."