IS A SENTIMENTAL CHAPTER, CONTAINING A FEW
MORAL REFLECTIONS BY THE WAY.
Yes, Arthur Phillips was desperately in love. A silly thing that,
now-a-days, is it not? Love! All very well in poetry and romance; all
very well for school-girls and beardless boys.
But may we not excuse an artist for fostering such a ridiculous
passion? It is something in his line, you know. Painters, Senior
Mammon will probably say, are ridiculous fellows at best. They spend
their time in a fool’s paradise, studying the changes of the sky,
making copies of trees and leaves, and lashing themselves into furious
excitement about the glories of summer mornings and autumn sunsets.
You saw some of the race at Bettys-y-Coed, in Wales, you know, Senior
Mammon, when you were “doing” the neighbourhood of Snowdon. Poor
devils! you remember how they were roaming about the rivers and rocks,
and painting beneath umbrella tents. And you saw how some of them were
content to live in those little cottages, and how they trudged about
in the hot sun on foot, with their colour-boxes and things strapped to
their backs.
Don’t you remember saying to Signora Mammon that it was a pity the
strapping fellows you meet at the Conway Falls are not better occupied
than in sketching stones and trees.
You buy the artist’s pictures sometimes, to keep him from starving,
because you are charitably disposed,--eh, Senior Mammon? And to obtain
for yourself a character for taste, as that sort of thing is necessary
in polite circles,--eh, dear friend?
“But they are poor devils, after all,” you say; and “an artist in love
with Christopher Tallant’s daughter must be an idiot indeed.”
It is a pity Mr. Tallant is not informed of the tutor’s infernal
presumption, you say. He would soon send him to the right-about, he’s
such a proud fellow, you know, that Tallant.
“In love!” you repeat. “In rubbish! He should come with me, and air his
little bit of brains on the Stock Exchange; he should know what it is
to make a hundred thousand pounds in a week, and lose it in a day; he
should see what women are, how they sell themselves body and soul for
money.”
There, friend Mammon, you need say no more. Arthur Phillips does not
understand you, and if he did, he would continue in love with Miss
Tallant just the same.
Strange, it must be to love a woman with all your heart and soul,
and let her live on, unconscious of your admiration; to be with her,
to listen to her sweet soft voice, to assist in the development of
her taste, to minister to her fancy, to cultivate her love of the
beautiful; and yet not dare to confess your love!
The river flowed on its way, and the sun went down behind the hills;
the tones of the evening bell echoed through the college yard; and
long after the heir of the Verners had left his friend, the artist sat
smoking his cigar in the twilight, thinking of Phœbe Tallant--thinking
of her as he might think of some beautiful vision of the poet--thinking
of her with a love in his heart that was more than love. And yet she
seemed a necessity in his life, something that made life worth living
for--something next to his art.
He was quite alone in the world; he had neither mother nor father. He
had been brought up in a quiet, humble way, and his father and mother
both died before their son had achieved success as an artist.
It would have been the greatest happiness possible for him at that
time, could he have shown his father the picture which first made his
name known to the world as a painter. His mother had been a querulous
invalid most of her life, and had few feelings in common with her son.
The father, on the contrary, had been full of hope and trust in Arthur;
but he was not to live to see these hopes realised.
So that Arthur’s success had been tainted with a bitter sense of
disappointment; he had no sympathiser in his triumph--none who knew how
hard he had worked--none who knew the gigantic difficulties which he
had overcome.
The people with whom he mixed knew him since success had come to his
brush; and Phœbe Tallant had roused the strong feelings which had lain
dormant within him.
His love, though excited by a sudden glimpse of the girl’s beauty,
had been strengthened by gradual growth, by little graceful acts,
indications of sympathy and interest on the part of his pupil. He had
struggled against it, and had felt once or twice that he was guilty of
a breach of trust in harbouring such a passion for a moment.
It was true Mr. Tallant had asked him, as a favour, to give lessons to
his daughter. The merchant, as you know, liked to have things which
everybody could not have, no matter what he paid for them: and it was
with something of this feeling that he had obtained the services of an
artist who had suddenly risen above the necessity of teaching.
“I did not wish to come here at first,” Arthur would argue to himself.
“He almost forced me.”
The idea of marrying Miss Tallant had never once occurred to Arthur.
In the first place, he regarded his passion as a piece of presumption.
He was unworthy in every respect, he thought, of Phœbe’s love; and he
never dreamed for a moment that she suspected the real state of his
feelings towards her.
Although his name was so high in art, Mr. Tallant only looked upon
Arthur as a tutor, and he would have regarded an offer of marriage
for his daughter from such a source as an insult. But it was not in
this mere worldly sense that Arthur felt himself inferior to Phœbe.
His love and admiration had made a niche for her high up in his fancy,
far beyond his brightest hopes, and he seemed to look up at her and
worship, with a fearful, jealous, burning pleasure.
Who would have thought that so much passion could have a place behind
that calm, thoughtful, and reserved manner of the landscape painter?