A NEW CUSTOMER.
_Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,
Interchange of service the law and condition of Beauty._
A. H. CLOUGH.
Frank Jermyn, whom we have left ringing at the bell, followed Gertrude
down the Virginia-cork passage into the waiting-room.
The curtains between this apartment and the studio were drawn aside,
displaying a charming picture--Lucy, in her black gown and holland
pinafore, her fair, smooth head bent over the re-touching frame;
Phyllis, at an ornamental table, engaged in trimming prints, with great
deftness and grace of manipulation.
Neither of the girls looked up from her work, and Frank took possession
of one of the red-legged chairs, duly impressed with the business-like
nature of the occasion; although, indeed, it must be confessed that his
glance strayed furtively now and then in the direction of the studio and
its pleasant prospect.
Gertrude explained that they were quite prepared to undertake studio
work. Frank briefly stated the precise nature of the work he had ready
for them, and then ensued a pause.
It was humiliating, it was ridiculous, but it was none the less true,
that neither of these business-like young people liked first to make a
definite suggestion for the inevitable visit to Frank's studio.
At last Gertrude said, "You would wish it done to-day?"
"Yes, please; if it be possible."
She reflected a moment. "It must be this morning. There is no relying on
the afternoon light. I cannot arrange to go myself, but my sister can, I
think. Lucy!"
Lucy came across to them, alert and serene.
"Lucy, would you take number three camera to Mr. Jermyn's studio in
York Place?"
"Yes, certainly."
"I have some studies of drapery I should wish to be photographed," added
Frank, with his air of steadfast modesty.
"I will come at once, if you like," answered Lucy, calmly.
"You will, of course, allow me to carry the apparatus, Miss Lorimer."
"Thank you," said Lucy, after the least possible hesitation.
Every one was immensely serious; and a few minutes afterwards Mrs.
Maryon, looking out from the dressmaker's window, saw a solemn young man
and a sober young woman emerge together from the house, laden with
tripod-stand and camera, and a box of slides, respectively.
"I wish I could have gone myself," said Gertrude, in a worried tone;
"but I promised Mrs. Staines to be in for her."
"Yes, he _is_ a nice young man," answered Phyllis, unblushingly, looking
up from her prints.
"Oh Phyllis, Phyllis, don't talk like a housemaid."
"I say, Gerty, all this is delightfully unchaperoned, isn't it?"
"Phyllis, how can you?" cried Gertrude, vexed.
The question of propriety was one which she always thought best left to
itself, which she hated, above all things, to discuss. Yet even her own
unconventional sense of fitness was a little shocked at seeing her
sister walk out of the house with an unknown young man, both of them
being bound for the studio of the latter.
She was quite relieved when, an hour later, Lucy appeared in the
waiting-room, fresh and radiant from her little walk.
"Mrs. Staines has been and gone," said Gertrude. "She worried
dreadfully. But what have you done with 'number three?'"
"Oh, I left the camera at York Place. I am going again to-morrow to do
some work for Mr. Oakley, who shares Mr. Jermyn's studio."
"Grist for our mill with a vengeance. But come here and talk seriously,
Lucy."
Phyllis, be it observed, who never remained long in the workshop, had
gone out for a walk with Fan.
"Well?" said Lucy, balancing herself against a five-barred gate, Fred
Devonshire's latest gift, aptly christened by Phyllis the White
Elephant. "Well, Miss Lorimer?"
"I'm going to say something unpleasant. Do you realise that this latest
development of our business is likely to excite remark?"
"'That people will talk,' as Fan says? Oh, yes, I realise that."
"Don't look so contemptuous, Lucy. It is unconventional, you know."
"Of course it is; and so are we. It is a little late in the day to
quarrel with our bread-and-butter on that ground."
"It is a mere matter of convention, is it not?" cried Gertrude, more
anxious to persuade herself than her sister. "Whether a man walks into
your studio and introduces himself, or whether your hostess introduces
him at a party, it comes to much the same thing. In both cases you must
use your judgment about him."
"And whether he walks down the street with you, or puts his arm round
your waist, and waltzes off with you to some distant conservatory, makes
very little difference. In either case the chances are one knows nothing
about him. I am sure half the men one met at dances might have been
haberdashers or professional thieves for all their hostesses knew. And,
as a matter of fact, we happen to know something about Mr. Jermyn."
"Oh, I have nothing to say against Mr. Jermyn, personally. I am sure he
is nice. It was rather that my vivid imagination saw vistas of
studio-work looming in the distance. It was quite different with Mr.
Lawrence, you know," said Gertrude, whom her own arguments struck as
plausible rather than sound. "One thing may lead to another."
"Yes, it is sure to," cried Lucy, who saw an opportunity for escaping
from the detested propriety topic. "To-day, for instance, with Mr.
Oakley. He is middle-aged, by the bye, Gerty, and married, for I saw his
wife."
They both laughed; they could, indeed, afford to laugh, for, regarded
from a financial point of view, the morning had been an unusually
satisfactory one.
Gertrude's prophetic vision of vistas of studio work proved, for the
next few days at least, to have been no baseless fabric of the fancy.
The two artists at York Place kept them so busy over models, sketches,
and arrangements of drapery, that the girls' hands were full from
morning till night. Of course this did not last, but Frank was so full
of suggestions for them, so genuinely struck with the quality of their
work, so anxious to recommend them to his comrades in art, that their
spirits rose high, and hope, which for a time had almost failed them,
arose, like a giant refreshed, in their breasts.
In all simplicity and respect, the young Cornishman took a deep and
unconcealed interest in the photographic firm, and expected, on his
part, a certain amount of interest to be taken in his own work.
Frank, as Conny had said, worked chiefly in black and white. He was
engaged, at present, in illustrating a serial story for _The Woodcut_,
but he had time on his hands for a great deal more work, time which he
employed in painting pictures which the public refused to buy, although
the committees were often willing to exhibit them.
"If they would only send me out to that wretched little war," he said.
"There is nothing like having been a special artist for getting a man on
with the pictorial editors."
There is nothing like the salt of healthy objective interests for
keeping the moral nature sound. Before the sense of mutual honesty, the
little barriers of prudishness which both sides had thought fit in the
first instance to raise, fell silently between the young people, never
again to be lifted up.
For good or evil, these waifs on the great stream of London life had
drifted together; how long the current should continue thus to bear them
side by side--how long, indeed, they should float on the surface of the
stream at all, was a question with which, for the time being, they did
not very much trouble themselves.
No one quite knew how it came about, but before a month had gone by, it
became the most natural thing in the world for Frank to drop in upon
them at unexpected hours, to share their simple meals, to ask and give
advice about their respective work.
Fanny had accepted the situation with astonishing calmness. Prudish to
the verge of insanity with regard to herself, she had grown to look upon
her strong-minded sisters as creatures emancipated from the ordinary
conventions of their sex, as far removed from the advantages and
disadvantages of gallantry as the withered hag who swept the crossing
near Baker Street Station.
Perhaps, too, she found life at this period a little dull, and welcomed,
on her own account, a new and pleasant social element in the person of
Frank Jermyn; however it may be, Fanny gave no trouble, and Gertrude's
lurking scruples slept in peace.
One bright morning towards the end of January, Gertrude came careering
up the street on the summit of a tall, green omnibus, her hair blowing
gaily in the breeze, her ill-gloved hands clasped about a bulky
note-book. Frank, passing by in painting-coat and sombrero, plucked the
latter from his head and waved it in exaggerated salute, an action which
evoked a responsive smile from the person for whom it was intended, but
acted with quite a different effect on another person who chanced to
witness it, and for whom it was certainly not intended. This was no
other than Aunt Caroline Pratt, who, to Gertrude's dismay, came dashing
past in an open carriage, a look of speechless horror on her handsome,
horselike countenance.
Now it is impossible to be dignified on the top of an omnibus, and
Gertrude received her aunt's frozen stare of non-recognition with a
humiliating consciousness of the disadvantages of her own position.
With a sinking heart she crept down from her elevation, when the omnibus
stopped at the corner, and walked in a crestfallen manner to Number 20B,
before the door of which the carriage, emptied of its freight, was
standing.
Aunt Caroline did not trouble them much in these days, and rather
wondering what had brought her, Gertrude made her way to the
sitting-room, where the visitor was already established.
"How do you do, Aunt Caroline?"
"How do you do, Gertrude? And where have you been this morning?"
"To the British Museum."
Gertrude felt all the old opposition rising within her, in the jarring
presence; an opposition which she assured herself was unreasonable. What
did it matter what Aunt Caroline said, at this time of day? It had been
different when they had been little girls; different, too, in that first
moment of sorrow and anxiety, when she had laid her coarse touch on
their quivering sensibilities.
Yet, when all was said, Mrs. Pratt's was not a presence to be in any way
passed over.
"It is half-past one," said Aunt Caroline, consulting her watch; "are
you not going to have your luncheon?"
"It is laid in the kitchen," explained Lucy; "but if you will stay we
can have it in here."
"In the kitchen! Is it necessary to give up the habits of ladies because
you are poor?"
"A kitchen without a cook," put in Phyllis, "is the most ladylike place
in the world."
Mrs. Pratt vouchsafed no answer to this exclamation, but turned to Lucy.
"No luncheon, thank you. I may as well say at once that I have come here
with a purpose; solely, in fact, from motives of duty. Gertrude, perhaps
your conscience can tell you what brings me."
"Indeed, Aunt Caroline, I am at a loss----"
"I have come," continued Mrs. Pratt, "prepared to put up with anything
you may say. Gertrude, it is to you I address myself, although, from
Fanny's age, she is the one to have prevented this scandal."
"I do not in the least understand you," said Gertrude, with
self-restraint.
Mrs. Pratt elevated her gloved forefinger, with the air of a
well-seasoned counsel.
"Is it, or is it not true, that you have scraped acquaintance with a
young man who lodges opposite you; that he is in and out of your rooms
at all hours; that you follow him about to his studio?"
"Yes," said Gertrude, slowly, flushing deeply, "if you choose to put it
that way; it is true."
"That you go about to public places with him," continued Aunt Caroline;
"that you have been seen, two of you and this person, in the upper boxes
of a theatre?"
"Yes, it is true," answered Gertrude; and Lucy, mindful of a coming
storm, would have taken up the word, but Gertrude interrupted her.
"Let me speak, Lucy; perhaps, after all, we do owe Aunt Caroline some
explanation. Aunt, how shall I say it for you to understand? We have
taken life up from a different standpoint, begun it on different bases.
We are poor people, and we are learning to find out the pleasures of
the poor, to approach happiness from another side. We have none of the
conventional social opportunities for instance, but are we therefore to
sacrifice all social enjoyment? You say we 'follow Mr. Jermyn to his
studio;' we have our living to earn, no less than our lives to live, and
in neither case can we afford to be the slaves of custom. Our friends
must trust us or leave us; must rely on our self-respect and our
judgment. Convention apart, are not judgment and self-respect what we
most of us do rely on in our relations with people, under any
circumstances whatever?"
It was only the fact that Aunt Caroline was speechless with rage that
prevented her from breaking in at an earlier stage on poor Gertrude's
heroics; but at this point she found her voice. Sitting very still, and
looking hard at her niece with a remarkably unpleasant expression in her
cold eye, she said in tones of concentrated fury:
"Fanny is a fool, and the others are children; but don't _you_,
Gertrude, know what is meant by a lost reputation?"
This was too much for Gertrude; she sprang to her feet.
"Aunt Caroline," she cried, "you are right; Lucy and Phyllis are very
young. It is not fit that they should hear such conversation. If you
wish to continue it, I will ask them to go away."
A pause; the two combatants standing pale and breathless, facing one
another. Then Lucy went over to her sister and took her hand; Fanny
sobbed; Phyllis glanced from one to the other with her bright eyes.
Now, Gertrude's conduct had been distinctly injudicious; open defiance,
no less than servile acquiescence, was understood and appreciated by
Mrs. Pratt; but Gertrude, as Lucy, who secretly admired her sister's
eloquence, at once perceived, had spoken a tongue not understanded of
Aunt Caroline.
As soon, in these non-miraculous days, strike the rock for water, as
appeal to Aunt Caroline's finer feelings or imaginative perceptions.
"If you will not listen to me," she said, suddenly assuming an air of
weariness and physical delicacy, "it must be seen whether your uncle can
influence you. I am not equal to prolonging the discussion."
Pointedly ignoring Gertrude, she shook hands with the other girls;
angry as she was, their shabby clothes and shabby furniture smote her
for the moment with compassion. Poverty seemed to her the greatest of
human calamities; she pitied even more than she despised it.
To Lucy, indeed, who escorted her downstairs, she assumed quite a gay
and benevolent manner; only pausing to ask on the threshold, with a good
deal of fine, healthy curiosity underlying the elaborate archness of her
tones:
"Now, how much money have you naughty girls been making lately?"
Lucy stoutly and laughingly evaded the question, and Aunt Caroline drove
off smiling, refusing, like the stalwart warrior that she was, to
acknowledge herself defeated. But it was many a long day before she
attempted again to interfere in the affairs of the Lorimers.
Perhaps she would have been more ready to renew the attack, had she
known how really distressed and disturbed Gertrude had been by her
words.
[Illustration: Decoration]