|Everybody who went to Audouin's picnic at the Alban lake agreed that it
was one of the most delightful entertainments given at Rome during the
whole of that season.
The winter--Hiram and Cohn's first winter in Italy--had worn away
quickly enough. Hiram had gone every day, as in duty bound, to paint and
be chidden at M. Seguin's studio; for Seguin was one of those exalted
teachers who instruct rather by example than by precept; who seem to
say perpetually to their pupils, 'See how much better I have done it or
would have done it than you do;' and he never for a moment succeeded in
inspiring the very slightest respect or enthusiasm in Hiram's simple,
quiet, unostentatious, straightforward American nature. Of course Hiram
worked hard; he felt he ought to work hard. Audouin expected it of him,
and he would have done anything on earth to please Audouin; but his
heart was not really in it for all that, though he wouldn't for the
world have acknowledged as much even to himself, and he got on far less
well than many other people would have done with half his talent and
half his industry. He hated the whole artifice of drapery and models,
and clever arrangement of light and shade, and marvellous minuteness of
technical resources, in which his French master positively revelled. He
longed for the beautiful native wildness of the American woodlands, or
still more, even, for the green hedgerows and parks and meadows of that
enchanted England, which he had seen but in a glimpse for two days in
his whole lifetime, but in whose mellow beauty, nevertheless, his heart
had immediately recognised its true fatherland. It may have been narrow
and sectarian and unappreciative in Hiram; no doubt it was; but he
couldn't for the life of him really care for Seguin's very greatest
triumphs of artistic ingenuity. He recognised their extraordinary skill,
he admitted their unrivalled cleverness as _tours de force_ of painting,
he even admired their studied grace and exquisite composition as bits of
harmonious form and colour; but he never could fall down before them in
the least as works of art in the highest sense, or see in them anything
more than the absolute perfection of cold, hard, dry, unspiritualised
mechanical aptitude.
As for Colin, now that Sam had gone back to England, on his way home to
America (Sam used the expression himself quite naturally now), he had
thrown himself with the utmost fervour into the work of Maragliano's
studio, where he soon rose to the acknowledged position of the great
master's most favourite pupil. The model of the Calabrian Peasant which
he built up upon the blacksmith's framework was the last copy he had to
do for Maragliano. As soon as it was finished, the master scanned
the clay figure with his quick critical eye, and cried almost
contemptuously, 'Why, this is mere child's play for such a man as you,
I see, Churchill. You must do no more copying. To-morrow you shall begin
modelling from the life.' Colin was well pleased indeed to go on to this
new and untried work, and he made such rapid progress in it that even
Maragliano himself was quite surprised, and said confidentially to
Bazzoni more than once, 'The young Englishman will go far. He has the
spark of genius in him, my friend; he is a born sculptor.'
It was all so different too in Rome, from London, where Colin had been
isolated, unknown, and almost friendless. There was nobody there except
Cicolari--and Minna; dear little woman, he had almost omitted her--with
whom he could talk on equal terms about his artistic longings and ideas
and interests. But at Rome it was all so different. There was such a
great society of artists! Every man's studio was open to his fellows; a
lively running fire of candid criticism went on continually about every
work completed or in progress. To live in such an atmosphere of art, to
move amongst it and talk about it all day long, to feast his eyes upon
the grand antiques and glorious Michael Angelos of the Vatican--all this
was to Colin Churchill as near an approach to unmixed happiness as it
is given to human beings to know in this nether world of very mixed
experiences. If only he had had Minna with him! But there! Colin
Churchill loved art so earnestly and singlemindedly that for its sake
he could well endure even a few years' brief absence in Rome away from
poor, little, loving, sorrowing Minna.
Gwen meanwhile, in spite of the colonel, had managed to see a great deal
from time to time both of Colin and of Audouin. The colonel had
indeed peremptorily forbidden her in so many words to hold any further
communications of any sort with either of them. Colin, he said, was a
person clearly beneath her both in birth and education, while Audouin
was the most incomprehensible prig of a Yankee fellow he had ever had
the misfortune to set eyes upon in the whole course of his lifetime.
But the colonel was one of those forcible-feeble people who are very
vehement always in language, but very mild in actual fact; who threaten
and bluster a great deal about what they will never do, or what they
will never permit, but who do or permit it all the same on the very next
occasion when opportunity arises. The consequence was that Gwen, who was
a vigorous young lady with a will of her own, never took much serious
notice of the colonel when he was in one of his denunciatory humours,
but went her own way peacefully, and did as she chose to do herself the
very next minute.
Now, at the same hotel where the Howard-Russells were stopping there was
a certain Mrs. Wilmer, a lady with two daughters (perfect sticks, Gwen
called them), to whom Gwen, being herself alone and motherless, thought
it well to attach herself for purposes of society. It's so convenient,
you know, to have somebody by way of a chaperon who can take you about
and get invitations for you. Happily Mrs. Wilmer, though herself as
commonplace a village Lady Bountiful as ever distributed blankets and
read good books to the mothers' meeting every Wednesday, was suddenly
seized at Rome, under the influence of the genius loci, with a burning
desire to know something about art and artists; and Gwen made use of
this new-born fancy freely to go round the studios with Mrs. Wilmer, and
of course to meet at times with Colin and Audouin.
At last April came, and Audouin, who had been getting very tired of so
much city life (for his hermit love for the woods and solitude was only
one half affected), began to long once more for the lonely delights of
his own beloved solitary Lakeside. He would have been gone long before,
indeed, had it not been for a curious feeling which for the first time
in his life, he felt growing up within him--Audouin was falling in love
with Gwen Howard-Russell. The very first day he ever met her by the Lake
of the Thousand Islands, he had greatly admired her frank bold English
beauty, and since he had seen a little more of her at Rome, he had found
himself insensibly gliding from admiration into a less philosophical and
more human attitude. Yes, he had almost made up his mind that before he
left Rome, he would ask Gwen whether she would do him the supreme honour
of accompanying him back to America as the mistress of Lakeside.
'Papa,' Gwen said, one bright morning in April, 'Mrs. Wilmer wants me to
go with her to-day to a picnic at the Lago d'Albano.'
'A picnic!' the colonel cried severely. 'And in the Campagna, too! My
dear child, as sure as fate, you'll all get the Roman fever.'
'Albano isn't in the Campagna, papa,' Gwen answered quietly. 'At least
it's right up ever so high among the mountains. And Mrs. Wilmer's going
to call for me at halfpast eleven.'
'Who gives the picnic?'
Gwen bit her lip. 'Mr. Audouin,' she answered shortly.
'Mr. Audouin! What, that mad Yankee man again! Then, mind, Gwen, I say
you're not to go on any account.'
'But, papa, Mrs. Wilmer has accepted for me.'
'Never mind. I say, I won't allow you. Not a word more upon the subject:
I won't allow you. Now, remember, I positively forbid it, and pray don't
re-open the question.'
At half-past eleven, however, Gwen came down, dressed and ready. 'Papa
dear,' she said, as unconcernedly as if nothing at all had been said
about it, 'here's Mrs. Wilmer waiting for me outside, and I must go. I
hope we shan't be back late for dinner. Good morning.'
The colonel only muttered something inarticulate as she left the room,
and turned to his cigar for consolation.
'What, you here, Mr. Churchill,' Gwen cried, as they all met together
a few minutes later at the Central Railway Station. 'I had no idea you
were to be of the party. I thought you were so perfectly wedded to art
that you never took a minute's holiday.'
'I don't often,' Colin answered, smiling; 'I have so much leeway to make
up that I have to keep always at it, night and morning. But Maragliano,
who's the best and most considerate of men, when he heard that Mr.
Audouin had been kind enough to invite me, insisted upon it that I must
give myself a day's recreation. Besides, you see,' he added after a
momentary pause, looking down as if by accident into Gwen's beautiful
eyes, 'there were such very special attractions.'
Gwen made a little mock curtsey. 'What a pretty speech!' she said
laughingly. 'Since you've come to Rome, Mr. Churchill, you seem to have
picked up the Roman habit of paying compliments.'
Colin blushed, with some inward embarrassment. The fact was, Gwen had
misunderstood his simple remark: he was thinking, not of her, but only
of the tomb of Pompey and the old Roman Emissary. But Gwen noticed the
faint crimson rising to his cheek, and said to herself, not without a
touch of pardonable vanity, 'Our young sculptor isn't quite so wholly
swallowed up in his art as he wants us to believe, then. He dreams
already of flying high. If he flies high enough, who knows but he may be
successful.'
What a handsome young fellow he was, to be sure, and what a natural
gentleman! And what a contrast, too, in his easy unselfconscious
manner, to that shy, awkward, gawky slip of a Yankee painter, Mr. Hiram
Winthrop! Hiram! where on earth did he get the name from? It sounded for
all the world just like a fancy character out of 'Martin Chuzzlewit.'
'And you too, Mr. Winthrop! Of course we should have expected you. I
don't wonder you're always about so much with Mr. Audouin. I think him,
you know, the most charming talker I've ever met with.'
Hiram could have sunk into the ground with mortification at having thus
always to play second fiddle to Audouin, whose grizzling hair made him
seem to Gwen so much a confirmed old bachelor that she didn't think
there could be any danger at all in openly speaking out her admiration
for his powers as a talker.
They went by train to the station at Albano, and then drove up to the
shores of the lake in carriages which Audouin had ready in waiting.
Recluse and hermit as he was, when he went in for giving an
entertainment, he gave it regally; and the picnic was universally
pronounced to be the most splendid success of the Roman season. After
lunch they dispersed a little, as people always do at picnics (or else
what would be the use of that form of reunion?) and Colin somehow found
himself, he didn't quite know how, strolling with Gwen down the Galleria
di Sopra, that beautiful avenue of shady evergreen oaks which leads,
with innumerable lovely glimpses of the lake below, from Albano
towards Castel Gandolfo. Gwen, however, knew well enough how it had all
happened; for she had angled most cleverly so as to avoid the pressing
attentions of Audouin, and to pair off in apparent unconsciousness with
the more favoured Colin. Mrs. Wilmer, walking behind with another guest
to do the proprieties, had acquiesced most heartily in this arrangement,
and had even managed to promote it diligently: for did it not compel Mr.
Audouin to link himself for the afternoon to dear Lilian, and was it not
well known that Mr. Audouin, though an American, was otherwise a most
unexceptionable and eligible person, with quite sufficient means of his
own to marry most comfortably upon? Whereas this young Mr. Churchill,
though no doubt wonderfully clever, and a most estimable young man in
his own way, was a person of no family, and with all his fortune still
to make by his own exertions. And Mr. Audouin had really hardly a trace,
after all, of that horrid American singsong.
'Yes,' Gwen was saying, as they reached the point of view near the
Emissario: 'Signor Maragliano told me that before many months were over,
he should advise you to begin modelling a real life-size figure from the
life of your own invention; for he thinks you would be only wasting your
time in working much longer at mere copying or academy work. He wants
to see you begin carrying out some of your own beautiful original
conceptions. And so do I too, you know: for we feel in a way, papa and
I, as if we had discovered you, Mr. Churchill.--Shall we sit down here
awhile, under the oak trees? This broad shade is so very delicious.'
[Illustration: 0220]
She gave Colin her hand, to help her down the first bit of the side path
to the old Roman conduit; and as she did so, she looked into his face
with her lovely eyes, and smiled her thanks to him expressively. Cohn
took her hand and helped her gently down. 'You're very good to interest
yourself so much in my work,' he said, with no trace of shyness or
awkwardness in his manner. 'I shall be glad indeed when I'm able to
begin producing something worthy in real earnest.'
Gwen was really very beautiful and very kind and very cordial. He
never for a moment remembered with her the original disparity of their
stations, as he did with so many other grand ladies. She seemed to put
him at his ease at once, and to be so frank and complimentary and even
pressing. And then, her profile was magnificent, and her eyes were
really splendid!
Ah, Minna, Minna, poor little Minna, in your big noisy schoolroom away
over yonder in big noisy London, well may you tremble with a cold shiver
running strangely through you, you know not why, and murmur to yourself,
in your quaint old-world superstition, that somebody must be walking
over your grave to-day somewhere or other!
'Rome's a perfect paradise to me, you know, Mr. Churchill,' Gwen went
on, musingly. 'I never fully knew, before I came here, how much I loved
art. I perfectly revel in the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, and in
studios such as Signor Maragliano's. What a fortunate life yours will
be--to live always among so much exquisite beauty! I should love an
artist's life myself--only I suppose I should never get beyond the most
amateur water-colours. But a sculptor, especially! A sculptor's career
seems to me to be the grandest thing on earth a man can live for!
I'd willingly give half my days, do you know, if only I could be a
sculptor.'
'It's a glorious profession, certainly,' Colin answered, with kindling
eyes. 'It's such a grand thing to think one belongs, however humbly, to
the same great troop as Pheidias, and Michael Angelo, and Gibson, and
Thorwaldsen. That, alone, of course, is something in one's life to be
really proud of.'
'Poor boy! he's obtuse,' Gwen thought to herself, commiseratingly. 'He
doesn't follow up the openings one gives him. But never mind. He's very
young still, and doesn't know when one's leading up to him. There's
plenty of time yet. By-and-by he'll grow older and wiser.--What a
beautiful reflection down there in the water, Mr. Churchill! No, not
there: on the broader part beyond the Roman mason-work. I wish Mr.
Winthrop could see it. It's just the thing he'd like so much to put on
paper or canvas.'
'You're interested in Winthrop, then, are you?' Cohn asked innocently.
'Interested in him? Oh, yes, I'm interested in all art and in all
artists--though not of course in all equally. I mean, I like sculpture
even better than painting. But I saw a water-colour drawing of Mr.
Winthrop's when I was in America, you know, where I first met him, which
I thought very pretty. I can remember it yet--a sketch of blended trees
and water among the channels of the Thousand Islands.'
'I've seen it,' Cohn answered: 'he's brought it with him, as well as
several other American landscapes. Winthrop draws admirably, I know,
and his treatment of foliage and water seems to me quite extraordinarily
good. He'll make a fine artist, I'm quite confident, before he's done
with it.'
Gwen pouted a little to herself. 'It's plain,' she thought, 'that Mr.
Churchill isn't a person to be easily piqued by praising anybody else.'
And must it not be candidly admitted that in most women's eyes such
complete absence of jealousy is regarded rather as a fault in a man's
nature than as a virtue? (Mind, fair and courteous reader, if I may for
a moment address you personally, I say 'in most' not 'in all women's.'
You yourself, like present company generally, always, of course, form
one of the striking and praiseworthy exceptions to every vile masculine
innuendo aimed at the real or supposed peculiarities of 'most women.'
Indeed, it is on purpose to allow you that flattering loophole of escape
that I always artfully employ the less exclusive or general expression.)
They sat for a while talking idly on the slope by the path that leads
to the Emissary, till at last Audouin, having managed to shift off dear
Lilian for a while upon another man of the party, strolled up as though
by accident to join them. 'Do I intrude upon a _tete-a-tete_?' he asked
with apparent carelessness, as he sat down upon the rocky ledge beside
them. 'Is Mr. Churchill discoursing high art to you, Miss Russell, and
peopling the romantic glen below with yet unhewn Egerias and
Faunuses? How well this Italian scenery lends itself to those pretty
half-theatrical Poussinesque embellishments! and how utterly out of
place they would all look among the perfectly unkempt native savagery of
our American woods and waters!'
Gwen smiled. 'We weren't discussing high art, Mr. Audouin,' she said as
she drew a circle in the dust with the tip of her parasol. 'In fact we
want you here to throw a little touch of fancy and idealism into the
conversation. To tell you the truth, Mr. Churchill and I were only
pulling to pieces the Miss Wilmers' dresses.'
'Ah, but even dress itself is in its way a liturgy, Miss Russell,'
Audouin went on quickly, glancing half aside as he spoke at her own
dainty bodice and little frill of coffee-coloured laces. (Gwen hadn't
the least idea what he meant by a liturgy in this connection; but she
thought it was something very beautiful and poetical to say, and she
felt sure it was meant for a compliment; so she smiled graciously at
it). 'People sometimes foolishly say that young ladies think a great
deal too much about dress. For my part, it often occurs to me, when I
look at _other_ women; that they think a great deal too little of it.
How rarely, after all, does one see art subservient here to nature--a
beautiful woman whose dress rather expresses and accentuates than mars
or clashes with her own individual type of beauty.'
'How complimentary he is,' thought Gwen; 'and at his age too! Why, I
positively believe he must be very nearly forty!'
'Shall we go down and look at the Emissary?' Colin asked, interrupting
Audouin's flow of pretty sentimentalities. 'It's very old, you know,
Miss Russell: one of the oldest existing works of Roman engineering
anywhere in Europe.'
Audouin jumped up again, and led the way down to the Emissary, where the
guide was already standing, impatiently expecting so many visitors, with
the little taper in his hands which he lights and sets floating down the
stream in order to exhibit to the greatest advantage the full extent
of the prehistoric tunnel. 'Can't I manage to shake off this fellow
Churchill somehow or other,' Audouin thought to himself in inward
vexation, and get half an hour's chat alone with Miss Bussell? I do
believe the creature'll checkmate me now, all by his ridiculous English
heavy persistency! And yet, what a scholars mate, too, to go and
be shelved by such a mere hobbledehoy of a fellow as this young man
Churchill!'
Half way down the steep path, they came unexpectedly upon a solitary
figure, sitting with colour-box open and sheet of paper before him, just
above the entrance to the old tunnel. Audouin started when he saw him.
'Why, Hiram,' he cried, 'so there you are! I've been hunting everywhere
for you, my dear fellow. We couldn't, any of us, imagine where on earth
you had evanished.'
Hiram didn't look up in reply, and Gwen's quick eye immediately caught
the reason, though she couldn't guess at its explanation--the young
American painter had certainly been crying! Sitting here alone by
himself, and crying! Gwen's heart interpreted the tears at once after a
true woman's fashion. He had left some little rustic sweetheart behind
in America, and he didn't care to sit and chat gaily among so many other
women, while she was alone without him; but had crept down here with his
paint-box by himself, to make a small sketch in perfect solitude,
and think about her. But who would ever have imagined that that gawky
shock-headed American boy had really got so much romance in him!
'Oh, I just came down here, Mr. Audouin, to take a little view of the
lake,' Hiram answered evasively, without raising his eyes. 'The bit
was so pretty that, as I'd brought my things along, I couldn't resist
painting it.'
'But what a shame of you,' Gwen cried, 'to run away and desert us, Mr.
Winthrop. You might at least have given us the pleasure of watching you
working. It's always so delightful to see a picture growing slowly into
form and shape under the hands of the artist.'
Hiram's voice had a touch of gratitude in it as he answered slowly, 'I
didn't know, Miss Russell, you were likely to care about it.'
'Oh, he always loves solitude,' Audouin answered lightly, in a tone that
cut Hiram to the quick. 'He doesn't care for society at all. I'm afraid,
in that respect, Winthrop and I are both alike--lineal descendants of
the old Red Indian. There's nothing he loves so much as to get away to a
corner by himself, and commune with nature, with or without his colours,
just as he's been doing now, in perfect solitude. And after all,
solitude's really the best society: solitude's an excellent fellow by
way of a companion. Even when we're most alone, we have, not only nature
with us, but such a glorious company of glorified humanity that has
gone before us. We walk with Shelley down the autumn avenues of falling
leaves, or we meditate with Pascal beside the great breakers of Homer's
much-resounding sea. We look with Claude at the shifting lights and
shades on the craggy hillside opposite there, or we gaze upon the clouds
and the sunset with something of the halo that flooded the dying eyes
of Turner. Somebody has well said somewhere, Miss Russell, that without
solitude no great thing was ever yet accomplished. When the regenerators
of the world--the Messiahs and the Buddhas--wish to begin their
mission as seer and founder, they first retire for forty days' fast and
meditation in the lonely wilderness. And yet, I begin to think that our
solitude oughtn't to be too profound or too continuous. (Perhaps mine
has been so.) It ought to be tempered, I fancy, by continual congenial
intercourse with some one other like-minded spirit. After all, there's a
profound truth of human nature expressed in the saying of the old Hebrew
cosmogonist--“It is not good that man should be alone.”'
'So I've always thought,' assented Colin Churchill gravely.
Audouin was vexed at the interruption, partly because he was just in
the middle of one of his fluent, high-flown, transcendental periods,
but still more because it came from that wretched interloper of a young
English sculptor. He was just about to go on with a marked tone of
continuity, when Gwen prevented him by taking up Hiram's unfinished
picture. 'Why, this is beautiful!' she cried, with genuine enthusiasm.
'This is even better than the Alexandria Bay drawing, Mr. Winthrop: I
like it immensely. What a lovely tint of purple on the crests of the
little wavelets! and how beautifully you've done the steep sides of
the old crater. Why, I do believe you ought to be a landscape painter,
instead of going in for those dreadful historical pictures that nobody
cares about. What a pity you've gone into Mr. Seguin's studio! I'm sure
you'd do a thousand times better at this sort of subject.'
'We've considered very carefully the best place in which to develop my
friend Winthrop's unusual powers,' Audouin answered in a cold tone;
'and we've both quite come to the conclusion that there's no teacher
better for him anywhere than Seguin. Seguin's a really marvellous
colourist, Miss Russell, and his mastery of all the technical resources
of art is something that has never yet been approached, far less
equalled, in the whole history of painting.'
Hiram looked up very shyly into Gwen's face, and said quite simply, 'I'm
_so_ glad you like it, Miss Russell. Your appreciation is worth a great
deal to me.'
'More compliments!' Gwen thought to herself, smiling. 'They're all at
it this afternoon. What on earth can be the meaning of it? My new poplin
must be really awfully fetching.' But her smile was a kindly one, and
poor Hiram, who hadn't much to treasure up in his soul, treasured it
up sedulously for months to come among his dearest and most precious
possessions.
In the end, as it happened, Audouin never got the chance of speaking
alone with Gwen during the whole picnic. It was very annoying,
certainly, for he had planned the little entertainment entirely for that
very purpose; but really, as he reflected to himself at leisure in his
own room that evening, it was after all only a postponement. 'In any
case,' he thought, 'I wouldn't have insulted her by proposing to her
to-day; for it _is_ insulting to a woman to ask her for her hand until
you can see quite clearly that she really cares for you. A human soul
isn't a thing of so light value that you can beg for the gift of it into
your safe keeping on a shorter acquaintance than would warrant you in
asking for the slightest favour. A woman's heart, a true and beautiful
woman's heart, is a dainty musical instrument to be carefully learnt
before one can play upon it rightly. To take it up by force, as it were,
and to say at a venture, “Let me see whether perchance I can get a
tune out of this anyhow,” is to treat it with far less tenderness and
ceremony than one would bestow upon an unconscious Stradivarius. So
perhaps it was wisely ordained by the great blind Caprice which rules
this universe of ours that she and I should not speak alone and face to
face together to-day at Albano.'
But Hiram lulled himself to sleep by thinking over and over again to
himself that night, 'She smiled at me, and she admired my drawing.'