|The four years that passed before Gwen Howard-Russell and Lothrop
Audouin returned to Rome, were years of bright promise and quick
performance for Cohn Churchill. He hadn't been eighteen months with
Maradiano, when the master took him aside one day and said to him
kindly, 'My friend, you will only waste your time by studying with
me any longer. You must take a studio on your own account, and begin
earning a little money.'
'But where can I get one?' Colin asked.
'There is one vacant five doors off,' Maragliano answered. 'I have been
to see it, and you can have it for very little. It's so near, that I can
drop in from time to time and assist you with my advice and experience.
But indeed, Churchill, you need either very little; for I fear the time
is soon coming when the pupil is to excel the master.'
'If I thought that, master,' Cohn replied smilingly, 'I should stop here
for ever. But as I know I can never hope to rival you, I shall take the
studio, and tempt fortune.'
It was one morning during the next winter that Cohn was hard at
work upon his clay group of Autumn borne by the Breezes, then nearly
completed, when the door of the new studio opened suddenly, and a plain,
farmer-looking old man in a tweed suit, entered unannounced.
'Good morning, Mr. Churchill,' he said, in a voice of infinite
condescension. 'My niece sent me here to look at your statues, you know.
You've got some very pretty things here, really. Some very pretty things
indeed, as Gwen told me.'
'Oh, I see,' Colin answered, with a smile of recognition. 'It was Miss
Howard-Russell, then, who told you where to find me.'
'Well, not exactly,' the visitor went on, peering at the Autumn with a
look of the intensest critical interest; 'she told me I should find you
at the studio of a man of the name of Miaragliano--or something--I think
she called him. Well, I went there, ferreted out the place, and found a
fuzzy-headed foreigner Italian fellow, all plastered over with mud and
rubbish, who spoke the most ridiculous broken English; and _he_ told me
you'd moved to these new quarters. So I came on here to look you up and
give you a commission, you know--I think you call it. My niece--she's
really a first cousin once removed, or something equally abstruse, I
fancy--but I always speak of her as my niece for short, because she's
a good deal younger than I am, and I stand to her _in loco avunculi;
in loco avunculi_, Mr. Churchill. Well, she positively insisted upon it
that I must come and give you a commission.'
'It was very good of her, I'm sure,' Colin answered, his heart
fluttering somewhat; for this was positively his first nibble. 'May I
ask if you are also a Mr. Howard-Russell?'
The visitor drew himself up to his utmost height with much dignity, as
though he felt surprised to think that Colin could for a single moment
have imagined him to be nothing more on earth than a plain Mister. 'No,'
he said, in a chilly voice; 'I fancied my niece had mentioned my name to
you. I am Lord Beaminster.'
Colin bowed his head slightly. He wasn't much used to earls and
viscounts in those days, though he grew afterwards to understand the
habits and manners of the species with great accuracy; but he felt that
after all the Earl of Beaminster, mighty magnate and land-owner as he
was, didn't really differ very conspicuously in outer appearance from
any other respectable fox-hunting country gentleman. Except that,
perhaps, he looked, if anything, a trifle stupider than the average.
The earl considerately left Colin a minute or so to accustom himself to
the shock of suddenly mixing in such exalted society, and then he said
again, narrowly observing the Autumn, 'Some very pretty things, indeed,
I must admit. Now, what do you call this one? A capital group. I've half
a mind to commission it.'
'That's Autumn borne by the Breezes,' Colin answered, gazing up at
it for the thousandth time with a loving attention. 'My idea was to
represent Autumn as a beautiful youth, scattering leaves with his two
hands, and upheld by the wild west wind--“the breath of autumn's being,”
as Shelley calls it.'
'Quite so,' the earl said, assuming once more a studied critical
attitude; 'but I don't see the leaves, you know--I don't see the leaves,
Mr. Churchill.'
'It would be impossible, of course,' Colin replied, 'to represent any of
the leaves as falling through the air unsupported; and so I didn't care
to put any in Autumn's hands, even, preferring to trust so much to the
imagination of the spectator. In art it's a well-known canon that one
ought, in fact, always to leave something to the imagination.'
'But might I suggest,' Lord Beaminster said, putting his head a little
on one side, and surveying the figure with profound gravity, 'that you
might easily support the falling leaves by an imperceptible wire passing
neatly through a small drilled eye into the legs of the Breezes.'
Colin smiled. 'I don't think,' he said, 'that that would be a very
artistic mode of treatment.'
'Indeed,' the earl answered with some hesitation 'Well, I'm surprised to
hear you say that, now; for my father, who was always considered a man
of very remarkable taste, and a great patron of art and artists, had a
Triton constructed for our carp-pond at Netherton, blowing a spout of
water, in marble, from his trumpet, and the falling drops, where the
spout broke into spray, were all secured by wires in the way I mention.
Still, of course,' this with a deferential air of mock-modesty,
'I couldn't _dream_ of pitting my opinion--a mere outsider's
opinion--against yours in such a matter. But couldn't you at least make
the leaves tumble in a sort of spire, you know, reaching to the ground;
touching one another, of course, so as to form a connected column,
which would give support to the right arm, now so very extended and
aerial-looking.'
'Why,' Colin answered, beginning to fancy that perhaps even admission
to the British peerage didn't naturally constitute a man a great
art-critic, 'I don't think marble's a good medium in any case for
representing anything so thin and delicate as falling leaves; and though
of course a clever sculptor might choose to make the attempt, by way of
showing his skill in overcoming a technical difficulty, for my part I
look upon such mere mechanical _tours de force_ as really unworthy of a
true artist. Obedience to one's material rather than defiance of it is
the thing to be aimed at. And, to tell you the truth, the pose of that
right arm that you so much object to is the very point in the whole
group that I most pride myself upon. Maragliano says it's a very fine
and original conception.'
The earl stared at him intently for two seconds, in blank astonishment.
What a very-extraordinary and conceited young fellow, really! The
idea of his thus contradicting him, the Earl of Beaminster, in every
particular! Still, Gwen had specially desired him to buy something from
this man Churchill, and had said that he was going to become a very
great and distinguished sculptor. For Gwen's sake, he would try to
befriend the young man, and take no notice of his extraordinary rudeness.
'Well,' he said slowly, after a long pause,
'I won't quarrel with you over the details. I should like to have that
group in marble, and if you'll allow me, I'll commission it. Only, as we
don't agree about the pose of the Autumn, I'll tell you what we'll
do, Mr. Churchill; we'll compromise the matter. Suppose you remove
the figure altogether, and put a clock-dial in its place. Then it'd do
splendidly, you see, for the top of the marble mantelpiece at Netherton
Priory.'
Colin leant back against the parapet of the wainscot in blank dismay.
What on earth was he to say to this terrible Goth of a Lord Beaminster?
He wanted a first commission, badly enough, in all conscience, but how
could he possibly consent to throw away the labour of so many days, and
to destroy the beauty of that exquisite group by putting a dial in the
place of Autumn. The idea was plainly too ridiculous. It was sacrilege,
it was crime, it was sheer blasphemy against the divinity of beauty.
'I'm very sorry, Lord Beaminster,' he said, at last, regretfully. 'I
should much have liked to execute the group for you in marble; but I
really can't consent to sacrifice the Autumn. It's the central figure
and inspiring idea of the entire composition. If you take it at all,
I think you ought to take it exactly as the sculptor himself has first
designed it. An artist, you know, gives much time and thought to what he
is working upon. Be it merely the particular turn or twist of the bit
of drapery he is just then modelling, his whole soul for that one day is
all fixed and centred upon that single feature. The purchaser ought to
remember that, and oughtn't to alter on a moment's hasty consideration
what has cost the artist whole weeks and months of patient thought
and arduous labour. And yet, I'm sorry not to perform my first work in
marble for you; for I'm a West Dorset man myself by birth and training,
and I should have liked well to see my “Autumn and the Breezes”
standing, where it ought to stand, in one of the big oriel windows of
Nether ton Priory.' That last touch of unconscious and unintentional
flattery just succeeded in turning the sharp edge of Lord Beaminster's
anger. When Colin at first positively refused to let him have the group
with the dial in the centre, the earl could hardly conceal in his face
his smouldering indignation. Such conceit, indeed, and such self-will
he could never have believed in if he hadn't himself actually met with
them. It positively took his breath away. But when Colin so far relented
as to touch his territorial pride upon the quick (for the earl regarded
himself as the personal embodiment of all West Dorset), Lord Beaminster
relented too, and answered with something like geniality, 'Well, well!
I'm always pleased when one of my own people rises to artistic or
literary eminence, Mr. Churchill. We won't quarrel about trifles. You
come from Wootton Mande ville, don't you? Ah, yes! Well, I'm the lord of
the manor of Wootton, as you know, of course, and I'm pleased to think
you should have come from one of my own places. We'll take the figures
as they stand; we'll take them as they stand, and I'll find a place for
them somewhere at Netherton, I can promise you. Now how much will you
charge me for this group, Autumn and all, in marble?'
Colin stood for a moment perfectly irresolute. That was a question about
which, in his abstract devotion to the goodness of his artistic work, he
had never yet given the slightest consideration. 'Well, I should think,'
he said hesitatingly--'I don't know if I'm asking too much--it's a big
composition, and there are a good many figures in it. Suppose we were to
say five hundred guineas?'
The earl nodded a gracious acquiescence.
'But perhaps,' Colin went on timidly, 'I may have asked too much in my
inexperience.' 'Oh, no; not at all too much,' the earl answered, with a
munificent and expansive wave of his five big farmer fingers. 'I like to
encourage art--and above all art in a West Dorset man.'
'You're very kind,' Colin murmured, rather humbly, feeling as though he
had much to be grateful for. 'I shall do my best to execute the group
in marble to your satisfaction, so that it may be worthy of its place in
the oriels at Netherton.'
'I've no doubt you will,' the earl put in with noble condescension: 'no
doubt at all in the world about it. I'm glad to have the opportunity of
extending my patronage to a Wootton sculptor. I'm devoted to art, Mr.
Churchill, quite devoted to it.'
Colin smiled, but answered nothing.
The earl stopped a little longer, inspecting the drawings and models,
and then took his departure with much stately graciousness, to Colin's
intense relief and satisfaction. As he went out, the door happened to
open again, and in walked Hiram Winthrop.
'My dear Winthrop!' Colin cried out in exultation, 'congratulate me!
I've just got a commission for Autumn and the Breezes!'
'What, in marble?' Hiram said, grasping his hand warmly.
'Yes, in marble.'
'My dear fellow, I'm delighted. And you deserve it, too, so well. But
who from? Not that fat old gentleman with the vacant face that I met
just now out there upon the doorstep!'
'The same, I assure you. Our great Dorsetshire magnate, the Earl of
Beaminster!' Hiram's face fell a little. 'The Earl of Beaminster!' he
echoed with a voice of considerable disappointment. 'You don't mean to
say an earl only looks like that! and dresses like that, too! Why, one
would hardly know him from a successful dry-goods man!--Besides,'
he thought to himself silently, '_she_ must have sent him. He's her
cousin.'
Colin had no idea what manner of thing a dry-goods man might be, but
he recognised that it probably stood for some very prosaic and everyday
employment. 'Yes,' he said, half laughing, 'that's an earl; and as you
say, my dear fellow, he hardly differs visibly to the naked eye from you
and me poor common mortals.'
'But, I say, Churchill,' Hiram put in with American practicality, 'what
are you going to let this Beaminster person have the group for?'
'Well, I didn't know exactly what to charge him for it, never having
sold a work on my own account before; but I said at a venture, five
hundred guineas. I should think that wasn't bad, you know, for a first
commission.'
Hiram raised his eyebrows ominously. 'Five hundred guineas, Churchill,'
he muttered with obvious mistrust; 'five hundred guineas! Why, my dear
fellow, have you asked yet what would be the cost even of the block of
marble?'
'The block of marble!' Colin repeated, blankly. 'The cost of the
marble! Why, upon my soul, Winthrop, I never took that at all into
consideration.'
'Let's go round to Maragliano's at once,' Hiram suggested, in some
alarm, 'and ask him what he thinks of your bargain. I'm awfully afraid,
do you know, Churchill, that you've put your foot in it.'
When the great sculptor heard that Colin had really got a commission for
his beautiful group, he was at first extremely jubilant, clapping
his hands, laughing, and crying out eagerly many times over, 'Am I a
prophet, then?' with Italian demonstrativeness. But as soon as Colin
went on to say that he had promised to execute the thing in marble
for 12,500 lire, Maragliano ceased from his capering immediately, and
assumed an expression of the most profound and serious astonishment.
'Twelve thousand lire!' he cried in horror, lifting up both his hands
with a deprecatory gesture; 'twelve thousand lire! Why, my dear friend,
the marble alone will cost you nearly that, without counting anything
for your own time and trouble, or the workmen's wages. A splendid
stroke of business, indeed! If I were you, I'd go and ask the Count of
Beaminster at once to let me off the bargain.'
Colin's disappointment was, indeed, a bitter one; but he had too keen
a sense both of commercial honour and of personal dignity to think of
begging off a bargain once completed. 'Oh, no,' he said, 'that would
never do, master. I shall execute the commission at the price I named,
even if I'm actually out of pocket by it. At any rate, it'll be a good
advertisement for me. But, after all, I'm really sorry I ever said I'd
let him have it! Just think, Winthrop, of my spending so much loving,
patient care upon every twist and fold of the robes of those delightful
Breezes, and then having to sell them in the end to a monster of a
creature who wanted me to replace the Autumn by a bronze dial. It's
really too distressing!'
'Ah, my friend,' Maragliano said sympathetically, 'that is the Nemesis
of art, and you'll have to get accustomed to it from the beginning. It
is the price we pay for the nature of our clientele. We get well paid,
because we have to work chiefly for the very wealthy. But after we have
worked up some statue or picture till every line and curve of it exactly
satisfies our own critical taste, we have to sell it perhaps to some
vulgar rich man, who buries it in his own drawing-room in New York or
Manchester. The man of letters gets comparatively little, because no
rich man can buy his work outright, and keep it for his own personal
glorification; but in return, he feels pretty sure that those whose
opinion he most wishes to conciliate, those for whose appreciative taste
he has polished and repolished his rough diamond, will in the end see
and admire the work he has so carefully and lovingly performed for them.
We are less lucky in that respect; we have to cast our pearls before
swine too often, and all for the sake of filthy lucre.'
As it turned out, however, the group of Autumn and the Breezes, in spite
of this unpromising beginning, really formed the foundation of all
Colin Churchill's future fortunes. Colin worked away at it with a
will, nothing daunted by the discovery that it would probably cost him
something more than he got for it; and in due time he despatched it
to the earl in England, at a loss to himself of a little over twenty
guineas. Still, the earl, being a fussy, consequential man, sent more
than one friend during the progress of the work to see the group that
Churchill was making for him. 'One of my own people, you know--a poor
boy off my Dorsetshire estate--conceited I'm afraid, but not without
talent; and I've taken it into my head to patronise him, just for the
sake of the old feudal connection and all that sort of thing.' Some of
the friends were better judges of sculpture than the earl himself, and
when the Autumn was nearly finished, Colin was pleased to find that that
distinguished connoisseur, Sir Leonard Hawkins, was much delighted with
its execution. Next time Sir Leonard came he looked over Colin's designs
carefully, and was greatly struck with the sketch for the Clytemnestra.
He asked the price, and Cohn, wise by experience, stipulated for time to
consult Maragliano. When he had done so, he said 700L.; and this time
he made for himself a clear 250L. That was a big sum for a man in Colin
Churchill's position; but it was only the beginning of a great artist's
successful career. Commissions began to pour in upon him freely; and
before Gwen Howard-Russell returned to Rome, Colin was already making
far more money than in his wildest anticipation he had ever dreamt
of. He must save up, now, to repay Sam; and when Sam's debt was fairly
cancelled, then he must save up again for little Minna.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.