A MEETING
There comes a day in the lives of some of us when everything appears as
if it were pursuing its ordinary and normal course. We get up in the
morning and go through the usual routine--bath, dressing, breakfast,
all the little accustomed trivialities which have happened thousands of
times in our lives already, and which will doubtless happen thousands
of times again. We feel gay or dull as we have felt thousands of times
before, and we think, or we don't think, of the various occupations
that will go to make up our day, and we never guess that before sunset
we shall have our hand on a door--a door that when opened is to lead
the way into clouds of sorrow, or gild our life suddenly with the
radiant light of joy. So silently do the fates work, so secret do they
keep their intentions from us.
Paul got up that morning as usual at seven o'clock. He had his usual
cold bath, which most people would have found uncomfortably chilly on
a November morning, but in which Paul found merely a refreshing sting.
He rubbed himself dry while humming an air from "The Arcadians,"
and then put on his clothes. He went into his studio and found his
usual breakfast of coffee and rolls ready for him. While he ate it he
looked into a neat brown pocket-book to refresh his memory as to his
engagements for the day.
A small girl was coming to sit for him at ten o'clock. Her name was
Marjorie Arnold. She was possessed of personality and a fascinating
dimple. He had caught the personality, but the dimple had hitherto
eluded him. It was extremely fleeting in its appearance. He hoped to
catch it and place it on canvas that morning.
There was only one other entry for the day--"4.15. C.C." It meant that
Christopher Charlton was coming for him that afternoon, and would
take him to call on the Duchessa di Corleone, who desired to have her
portrait painted.
He felt a certain amount of interest as to the Duchessa's appearance,
but it was only an interest he had felt dozens of times before
concerning possible commissions. Christopher had said she was
good-looking. So were a good many people who were no use to Paul
as subjects. He painted only those who interested him. From the
others--and there were many--he politely evaded accepting commissions.
He was very much an artist, was Paul. And for this reason partly his
income was considerably below the amount his genius warranted. The
other reason was that there were many people who did not consider his
portraits to be likenesses.
At ten o'clock the child appeared with the nurse, who was dismissed for
a couple of hours, and armed with brushes and palette Paul set to work
to catch the fleeting dimple.
The child--she was five years old--was in a solemn mood. Smiles, and
with them the dimple, had temporarily vanished. She was a quaint little
thing with red hair and freckles, and a fascinating ugliness generally
termed the _beauté de diable_.
Paul told her half a dozen stories, including "The Three Bears", "The
Frog Prince", and Rudyard Kipling's "Stute Little Fish." But neither
the squeakiness of the little bear, the faithlessness of the princess,
nor the sufferings of the whale when the shipwrecked mariner danced
hornpipes in his inside had any effect on the dimple.
"Suppose," said Paul at last, "that you tell me a story."
The face was even more solemn.
"I don't know one."
"Make up one," suggested Paul.
There was the ghost of a smile, then solemnity. The flash of hope Paul
had experienced died away.
"Onst upon a time," she began gravely, "vere was a little dog _an'_ a
little duck. An' vey grewed wings, an' vey flewed up an' up an' up to
heaven to God."
There was a pause for effect.
"What a height," said Paul admiringly, watching her face. "What
happened next?"
"When vey got vere," went on the voice solemnly, "you bet vey wanted to
see round. But God said, 'Not to-day, I guess I'm busy. It's my last
day up here.' It was. 'Cos ve next day--God died. Isn't vat a nice
story?"
No trace of a dimple. Paul was exasperated.
"Not a bit a nice story," he said sternly. "And God couldn't die."
She put her head on one side and looked at him.
"Well, not weally, of course. But ve little dog an' ve little duck had
never _seen_ anybody die, an' vey wanted to. So God showed them." She
was laughing at him now in childish triumph, a very imp of mischief.
"Eureka!" cried Paul. And his brush flew to the canvas. Such are the
trials and triumphs of portrait painters.
"Come and look at it," said Paul after ten minutes.
She scrambled down from the chair and platform and came round. A small
mocking face of pure wickedness looked at her from the canvas. Her own.
"Do you see it?" said Paul, pointing at it with his brush. "And but
for your profane little story there would never have been exactly that
expression on your face. We wait for our moments, we artists, and we
catch them--sometimes. And now," he continued, "you can have a stick
of chocolate and brown your face up to the eyebrows with it. I have
finished your portrait, and therefore done with you. I don't care what
happens to you now."
That was Paul. During the time of painting he sought for intimate
knowledge of his subjects. Every tiniest characteristic, every
fleeting expression, were noted and stored up in his memory. He could
almost have told you their life history from his minute observation
of faces. He knew his subjects as few of their intimate friends knew
them. He guessed their hidden secrets with a power that was almost
uncanny--secrets known only to their own souls--and put the secrets
on his canvas. And it was for this reason that many people did not
consider the portraits to be likenesses. He painted the real person,
not merely the mask they wore to the world at large.
This fact had been particularly emphasized in his portrait of a certain
statesman--one Lord St. Aubyn. The statesman has nothing to do with the
rest of this story, but the incident as far as Paul is concerned is
interesting.
St. Aubyn was a man who was much before the public, and no less than
five portraits of him had been commissioned by different societies
as a token of their personal gratitude. Four of these, but for the
individuality of technique, might have been replicas one of the other,
and gave instant satisfaction alike to donors and public.
They showed a man with regular features and deep-set eyes, leaning
to the accepted military type, a resolute mouth, and a certain air
of distinction and command. One felt that a sculptor of the "classic
convention" would have expressed the type even more admirably. Reserve
was there, but with no hint of mystery or evasion; intellectuality, but
little imagination.
The fifth portrait by Paul was, one would have said, of another man. It
was a picture that seemed alive with a strange and slightly repellent
magnetism, for the eyes smiled at a stranger with a baffling mockery;
they seemed to invite and yet defy his judgment--to taunt him with his
impotence and read the soul behind them.
It had been received on exhibition with a storm of outspoken criticism;
while the Benevolent Trustees who had commissioned it, though
refraining from audible dissatisfaction, had maintained so eloquent a
silence at their private view, glancing at each other with liftings
of eyebrows and pursing of lips, that Paul had flung round upon them
and relieved their embarrassment by declaring the contract to be null
and void. No reasons were asked for or given; the action was taken
as a tacit admission of failure. Yet Paul himself had seemed not
ill-satisfied, and had met the chaff which had greeted him from many
of his circle with equanimity.
Landor, one of the circle, whose portrait of St. Aubyn in the previous
Academy had been hailed as a most masterly piece of work, had ventured
a serious protest.
"My dear fellow," he had said one evening, "you're letting your
imagination play tricks with you. It's becoming an absolute disease.
I made a most careful study of the man--made him give me innumerable
sittings, and I pledge you my word that I put everything into the face
that I could find. You had three sittings, and God only knows what
you've put there."
Paul had smoked for a few moments in silence.
"Perhaps you've hit it," he had said. "I've nothing to say against your
'Portrait of a rising Statesman.' It's a fine piece of work. But you
know all about the Factories Sanitation Amendment Act, and I can read
Sub-section Ten in your handling of the chin. Now I don't read the
papers, and I know nothing of the man. I tried to get at him and he
shut the door in my face. Yet something came through the keyhole and
the cracks by the hinges, and I have painted that. And, as you say, God
only knows what I've put in his face; I don't. And in spite of that--or
perhaps because of it--what I've put there happens to be the truth."
"But what have you done with the picture?" Landor had asked. "The
Benevolent refused it, didn't they?"
"Now you're getting coarse," had been Paul's reply. "We agreed to
differ as to its suitability."
"Then where is it?"
"In St. Aubyn's study, I believe," had been the careless reply.
"He bought it, then?"
"I gave it to him."
Landor had looked at Paul, and had refrained from putting further
questions. There had been an expression in Paul's face which might have
made them appear an impertinence.
The gift of the picture had come about in rather a curious way.
Paul never let his sitters see unfinished work, and St. Aubyn had left
town immediately after the third sitting, and had not returned till the
exhibition was over. Then he had gone to Paul's studio and had seen the
picture. He had made one remark, but that was eloquent.
"How did you find out?" he had said.
Paul had looked at him, and the next moment the mask had been on again,
and he had been talking business.
"You've sold this portrait, haven't you?" he had asked.
"Unfortunately not," Paul had replied. "It seems to give offence to
your numerous admirers."
"Then, if you will allow me, I should like to become the purchaser,"
had been the reply.
Paul had looked at him.
"It's not for sale," he had said.
St. Aubyn had bowed and taken up his hat without so much as looking
disappointed.
"But I'll send it round to your house to-morrow," Paul had said.
St. Aubyn had refused. He had talked polite platitudes regarding the
value of the work.
"Now you're talking Stock Exchange," Paul had told him. "The latest
marked quotation is absolutely nil. No one will look at it. As a piece
of property it is worthless. As a revelation----" he had stopped.
St. Aubyn had smiled. "I deal in revelations--professionally," he said.
That had told Paul the secret he had already guessed.
"What a head-line for the evening papers," he had said whimsically. "'A
Peer's Secret! Threatened Exposure by Eminent Artist!' But I'm not a
blackmailer, and I don't take hush-money. The picture is yours or no
one's."
They had argued a little more. At last St. Aubyn had taken it.
"And about the inscription?" It had been Paul's parting shot. "From a
painter to a----?"
St. Aubyn had shaken his head.
"Experience is against endorsements, however cryptic, on secret
documents," he had said. "Sooner or later the cipher is sure to be
read."
And he had gone away, leaving Paul the sole possessor of his secret, a
secret which Paul had summed up in one brief sentence addressed to a
Chinese idol on his mantelpiece.
"The man, God help him, is a poet."
A month later he had received a small volume of poems addressed in a
hand in which he had already received three short notes agreeing to
sittings. The verses--true poetry--were written under a _nom de plume_.
What St. Aubyn's reason was for keeping his poetical talent a secret
from the world Paul never knew. The volume came to him in silence from
the author; he respected the silence, attempting no word of thanks. And
the secret his insight had wrested from the man went with other secrets
somewhere away in the hidden recesses of his mind, while his work alone
absorbed him.
He never pursued his knowledge of men and women further. It
sufficed--or seemed to suffice him--to portray that knowledge on
canvas, and leave it for those to read who had the heart to do so.
As he had passed before among men and women of varied nationalities,
making no real friends, so he passed now among varied types, noting
them, painting them, and dismissing them, still making no friend. The
lonely reserve he had gained in his wanderings pursued him now. He
could not throw it off. Barnabas and Dan were nearer true friendship
with him than any, and more because they had silently accepted him for
their friend than from any advance on his part. It seemed that he could
make none. The solitude of the plains, the loneliness of big spaces,
seemed to have claimed his spirit.
And so he painted portraits, from statesmen to small girls, gaining
intimate knowledge of them, while no one yet had learnt to know the
real Paul.
* * * * *
It was very much later in the day, long after Marjorie had departed led
by an indignant nurse muttering to herself regarding the carelessness
of "them artists," for not only Marjorie's face, but her best white
dress was covered with various smears of brown chocolate--it was long
after this that Paul looked once more at his pocket-book. He looked
at it to make sure that the hour Christopher would arrive for him
was four-fifteen, and not four o'clock. The former was there plainly
inscribed, written by Paul with a small gold pencil.
There were just two entries for that day--Friday, November 27th, "M.A.
10 o'clock" and "4.15 o'clock. C.C." Little did Paul think as he looked
at it that he would treasure that small page as one would treasure
one's passage to heaven.
Christopher arrived at the studio punctually to the second, and found
Paul ready for him. The two turned into Oakley Street and came down
towards the Embankment. It was already past sunset, and the houses and
river were shrouded in a soft mist. They reached the house near Swan
Walk and went up the steps.
"The Duchessa di Corleone at home?" asked Christopher of the footman
who opened the door.
"Will you come this way, sir," was the answer, and he led them up the
wide shallow stairs. He threw open a door.
Paul saw a room of pale lavenders, with the chrysanthemums like patches
of sunlight. A woman rose from a chair by the fire and came forward to
greet them. The window was behind her as she came forward, and the room
being in twilight he could not see her face distinctly, but he saw the
outlines of her graceful figure, and caught the glint of her red-brown
hair.
She held out her hand.
"It is very charming of you to come and see me, Mr. Treherne," she
said. "Pietro, the lights."
Paul heard the sound of three or four tiny clickings near the door,
and the room became full of a soft mellow light. Had the light been
a trifle brighter, or her voice a shade less natural, the whole
thing might have verged on the theatrical. As it was, it was simply
a revelation to Paul as, for the first time, he saw the Duchessa di
Corleone.
She stood before him smiling--a smile that just lit up her eyes and
trembled on her mouth. He saw that her skin was smooth like ivory,
that her lips were crimson like wine beneath oiled silk, that her hair
was the colour of a chestnut newly wrested from its sheath.
All this Paul saw almost without realizing it. For suddenly his heart
heard a tune--one that is played silently throughout the ages, and to
most of us the hearing of the tune comes slowly and gradually, a note
at a time. But to a few--as to Paul--it comes suddenly, played in full
melody. He felt vaguely that he had been waiting for that tune all his
life, listening for it on the plains, in the silence of the night under
the stars.
But he merely bowed and said in the most ordinary and conventional
voice in the world:
"It was very good of you to ask me to come and see you."
For Paul did not yet know the meaning of the tune. In his lonely
life he had never before even heard an imitation of it. And because
the music was very strange and very beautiful he listened to it with
something like awe.
And then he heard Christopher's voice.
"I ought to have told you, Sara, that Mr. Treherne is an artist of
strange moods, and that sometimes he refuses--in the most polite and
diplomatic way, of course--to accept commissions."
The Duchessa looked at Paul.
"I don't think Mr. Treherne will refuse to paint my portrait. At least
I hope not."
"I shall be honoured to paint it," Paul replied.
The words were conventional. Since he intended to accept the commission
it was very nearly the only phrase he could have used, yet there was
something in his utterance of the words that seemed just to lift them
from the commonplace. Perhaps it was the direct way in which he spoke
them. Paul had generally a very direct manner of speech.
Anyhow, Sara glanced at him, and an indefinable something in his eyes
caused an odd little movement in her heart. The room in which they were
sitting seemed suddenly brighter, the chrysanthemums a more beautiful
colour, the logs on the fire more than usually crackly and pleasant.
For so it is that two people who are complete strangers to each other
sometimes meet and in some subtle way, and without realizing it at the
time, the whole world has altered for them. And the invisible gods
laughed softly, and the grim old fates smiled, and drew two threads of
their weaving, which had hitherto had nothing to do with each other, a
little closer together.
Before Paul left the house on the Embankment it was arranged that the
Duchessa should come to his studio the following morning at eleven
o'clock for her first sitting.