"MAD AS A HATTER!"
Mr. Arnheim looked rather puzzled for a moment, then he looked as if he
remembered.
"Oh, yes, yes, Mr. Lisle," he said, with a slightly foreign accent; he
was German. "I remember----."
"You sent for me, doubtless, to make arrangements for the inclusion of
some of my pictures in your coming exhibition," said Francis Lisle in
a nervously pompous voice, which quivered with suppressed excitement
and importance.
"Not exact----," began Mr. Arnheim, but he happened to glance at Leslie,
and something in her pale, wan face stopped him. He was a shrewd man,
and the anxiety of the daughter of the half pompous, half frightened
creature before him touched him.
"Possibly, possibly, Mr.--er--Lisle," he said. "But my reason for
communicating with you was the fact that I had been requested by--" he
was going to say Lord Auchester, but he glanced at Leslie's face again,
and seeing the imploring expression on it, faltered a moment, then went
on suavely--"by a valued client of mine to procure a work by your hand."
Francis Lisle's face fell for a moment, then it brightened again.
"A commission?" he said. "Yes, yes. May I ask the name of your client?"
Mr. Arnheim opened his lips to give the name, but once again met the
imploring gaze of the sweet eyes, and kept the name back.
"It is not usual to give our clients' names, Mr. Lisle," he said
with an affectation of shrewdness. "We dealers are business men pure
and simple, and are never too ready with information that may injure
us. I hope you will consider it sufficient that a gentleman has made
inquiries after some work of yours, and--er--be prepared to come to
terms with me. Of course, I only act as the agent."
Francis Lisle flushed and bit his lip, but a gratified smile was
creeping over his thin, wan face.
"I understand, Mr. Arnheim," he said pompously. "I am very busy just at
present; indeed, I have only just finished a picture for--er--a patron,
for which I have received a fairly large sum, and I have a number of
studies in hand; but--er--I think I may say that I shall be willing to
paint a picture for you--or your unknown client, if you prefer to put
it in that way; but I can only do so on one condition, Mr. Arnheim."
The dealer bowed.
"And what is that condition, Mr. Lisle?" he asked gravely.
"That your client permit any picture he may purchase of me to be
exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition."
"Certainly, certainly. I'll undertake that he shall accord that
permission," said Mr. Arnheim.
"Very good," said Francis Lisle. "And now I should like to show you
some of my pictures. We have brought a few--the best, in my judgment;
but there are several others, if you would like to see more. Leslie----."
Leslie rose and took up a couple of the canvases, and as she did she
looked at the keen, shrewd face of the dealer. It was the look with
which she had appealed to Mr. Temple, and it said as plainly as if she
had spoken--
"Spare him; oh, spare him!"
Francis Lisle took one of the pictures from her hand, and nervously,
excitedly, placed it on an empty easel which stood ready for the
purpose.
"A seascape, Mr. Arnheim," he said, waving his hand. "It would savor of
impertinence to point out its merits to you who are so experienced and
able a critic; but I may venture to hint that there is something in the
treatment of that sky which you will not meet with every day."
For a moment the eminent dealer's face expressed a wide gaping
astonishment, then it seemed to writhe as if with the effort to
suppress a burst of laughter, but lastly it turned to an impassive
mask, and, carefully avoiding the anguish in Leslie's eyes, he said,
shading the view with his hand:
"Remarkable, very; very remarkable, Mr. Lisle."
"I thought you would say so," said Francis Lisle, with a triumphant
glance at Leslie, who had stood with downcast eyes. "But if you think
that worthy of notice, what do you say to this?" and he replaced the
canvas by another. "'View of Cliffs by Moonlight.' Remark the shadows,
the foam on the rocks, the birds, Mr. Arnheim!"
"Yes, yes, yes," said Mr. Arnheim in a kind of still voice. "Most--most
singular and admirable!"
He glanced at Leslie, and an expression of pity and sympathy came into
his shrewd face.
"And here is another," said Francis Lisle, catching up a third picture.
"'The Wreck.' I spent months--months, Mr. Arnheim, over this; and if I
may be permitted to say so I consider it one of my masterpieces," and
he waved his hand to the fearful daub in a kind of ecstasy.
Mr. Arnheim stood speechless with what the unfortunate painter took to
be admiration; and Leslie, trembling and pale, came forward and took
the canvas from the easel.
"We--we must not take up any more of Mr. Arnheim's time, papa," she
faltered, with an appealing glance at the dealer.
"No no, certainly not," responded Lisle. "But it is only right that Mr
Arnheim should have an opportunity of judging of my work. You may be
surprised, sir, that I am still, so to speak, an unknown artist. I may
say that that surprise is shared by myself. But no one can be better
acquainted with the fact that fame and fortune do not always fall to
the deserving. No! Art is a lottery, and the best of us may, and, alas!
too often do, only draw blanks. But I am confident that now you, who
have so many opportunities of directing the attention of the world to
what is most worthy of notice in art, have become acquainted with my
pictures, that--that--in short----." He put his hand to his head and
looked round confusedly.
"Yes, yes!" said Mr. Arnheim soothingly. "I quite understand. You will
hear from me--I will see my client."
"Yes, certainly," cut in Francis Lisle. "I--I leave the whole of the
negotiations to you. I have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Arnheim."
Mr. Arnheim bowed, and assisted Leslie's trembling hands to repack the
pictures, but the artist stopped them by a gesture.
"Wait, wait, Leslie. I am content to leave these works with Mr.
Arnheim. He will like to place them in this gallery with his other
masterpieces."
The expression on Mr. Arnheim's face at this proposition beggars
description, but he mastered his emotion, and managed to bow and
mumble out some unintelligible words, which Francis Lisle mistook for
expressions of gratitude.
"Do not mention it, my dear sir," he said, waving his hand. "I commit
them to your care with every confidence, assured that they will receive
every consideration and appreciation from you. Come, Leslie, as you
said, we must not take up too much of Mr. Arnheim's time. Good morning,
sir. I leave you to conduct all negotiations with your client. I have
every confidence in you. Good morning!"
He gave his hand to Mr. Arnheim with the air of a painter-prince, and
with a glance round the room as if he already saw his pictures placed
among the other gems, stalked nervously out.
Leslie hesitated for a moment, then held out her hand. For a moment she
seemed incapable of speech, then her trembling lips parted, and she
faltered:
"You have been very good, and--and patient, and forbearing, sir, and I
am grateful, very grateful."
"Don't mention it, Miss Lisle," he said, touched by her loveliness and
sadness. "I quite understand--that is--well, I can't quite understand!"
Leslie's face burnt like fire.
"Why his--his grace----," she faltered.
Mr. Arnheim looked puzzled.
"His lordship!" he corrected her, but Leslie was too agitated to notice
the correction.
"I cannot explain," she said in a troubled voice. "But--you will see
him?"
"Yes, certainly," assented Mr. Arnheim.
"Will you tell him, please--" her voice broke, and her hands clasped
and unclasped--"will you tell him that I came here against my
will--that I was obliged to come, and that--that I wish him to forget
everything that has passed. That neither my father nor I wish to see
him again. That we wish to pass out of his life as if we had never
seen, never known him. Will you tell him this? You--you think it
strange, unbecoming, that I should give you this message, Mr. Arnheim
but--" her voice broke--"but, perhaps you have a daughter of your own,
and--and thinking of her you will not refuse----."
She broke down, and covered her face with her hands.
Mr. Arnheim had a daughter, as it happened, and he did think of her.
"I don't understand, quite, Miss Lisle," he said, in a low voice; "but
I understand enough to convey your message."
Leslie gave him her hand without another word, and hurried after her
father.
She found him descending the stairs slowly, and he stopped as she
reached him, and nodded at her.
"One moment, Leslie," he said, in nervous accents. "I forgot to ask Mr.
Arnheim if his gallery is insured. Such works as I have left with him
are--are priceless!"
Before she could stop him, he had turned and reascended the stairs, and
re-entered the gallery. Leslie followed him. The gallery was empty, but
voices were heard behind the partition, and Mr. Arnheim could be heard
exclaiming in mingled indignation, pity, and amusement:
"The man is as mad as a hatter!"
Leslie laid her hand upon her father's arm.
"Come away, dear!" she implored; but he shook her hand off, and put his
finger to his lip warningly.
"Hush! Be silent! I want to hear what he is saying! These men never
express themselves fully about the pictures in the presence of the
artists. Now, listen, and you will hear what he really thinks. Hush! It
is quite fair, quite!" and he chuckled confidently.
Leslie, turned to stone with apprehension and dread, stood still and
waited.
"Mad as a hatter!" continued Mr. Arnheim to some one behind the
partition. "The pictures he raves about are simply daubs! The daubs
of a lunatic who has had access to paint and brushes. Look at this!
He called it a seascape! Look at it! Why, a schoolboy of fourteen
would blush to have painted it! In fact, no human being in possession
of his senses could have produced it! Did you ever see anything like
it? I never did, and I've had some queer experiences in the course of
business. If it hadn't been for that sweet creature, his daughter,
I should have burst out laughing. But something--dash me if I know
what--kept me quiet. Look here, it's a dashed shame, that's what it
is. He told me to write for the man, and I thought it was all on
the square. But it's my opinion he's got some game in hand with the
daughter. I might have guessed that, seeing the sort of man he is.
These swells are all alike. Yes it's a dashed shame! She's too good
to be made a fool of and deceived. But did you ever see such an awful
lunatic daub as this, and this, and this!" the speaker's voice rose in
crescendo as he evidently showed each of Francis Lisle's pictures.
"There was never anything like 'em out of a madhouse!"
The voice ceased, for lack of breath, and Leslie, horror-stricken,
turned to her father. He was leaning against the wall, his face white,
livid, his jaw dropped, his eyes staring vacantly.
"Father! father!" she cried in a low voice.
He did not seem to hear her, but his lips moved and she could hear
a faint, horrible echo of the words that had been spoken behind the
screen.
"Come away, dear!" she implored him. "Come away!"
He dropped his eyes to her face and tried to smile; but it was a
hideous grimace.
"Yes, yes," he said, hoarsely, almost inarticulately, "let us go home.
Let us----."
She took his hand, drew his arm through hers, and led him down the
stairs. He went with the docility, the helplessness of a child, and
sank into a corner of the cab with his eyes dull and lifeless, but his
lips still moving.
Presently he beckoned to her. "What--what did he say?" he asked
tremulously, his face working.
"It--it does not matter what he said, dear," she said soothingly. "Do
not think of it. Try to forget it! Lean against me, dear!"
But he put her from him, not with his old impatient irritability, but
with a gentleness that was quite new with him; and lying back in the
cab stared at the floor, his lips moving, and Leslie could hear him
still repeating the words they had heard from Mr. Arnheim.
It seemed an age before the cab reached Torrington Square, and when it
did so the man Leslie helped out was an older man by twenty years than
he who had left it that morning.
She helped him up to his room and tried to cheer and comfort him; but,
for the first time in her life, her loving flattery proved of no avail.
He listened with vacant eyes and wan, hopeless face, and at last, he
suddenly flung his hands before his eyes and uttered a low cry of
despair, and awakening.
"God help me!" he cried. "I am a fraud and a lie! I see it all, now.
A fraud and a lie! The man was right; I cannot paint!" He caught up a
canvas that lay against the wall, and gazed at it. "It is a hideous
daub, as he said. It is the work of a madman. I have been mad. Oh, God,
if I could have remained so."
"My dear, my dear!" she murmured, kneeling beside him and gently
drawing the picture from his weak, trembling hands. "Don't think of
what--what he said."
"Not think of it!" he cried, shaking with emotion. "I must think of it,
for he spoke the truth. I have been mad, mad! But my eyes are open now.
Take them away from me," he motioned to the pictures, "take them away.
I cannot bear the sight of them. And--and yet I have been so happy, so
hopeful!" and he hid his face with his hands.
Leslie watched beside him till he fell into a deep, deathlike sleep;
then she stole downstairs and sent for a doctor. A young man from one
of the neighbouring squares came, and though he was young he was not
foolish. A glance at the sleeping man told him the sad truth.
"Have you--has your father any relations, any friends who--whom he
would like to see?" he asked gently.
Leslie, kneeling beside the bed, looked up at him with sharp and sudden
dread in her eyes.
"Do you--do you mean----? Oh, what is it you mean?" she moaned.
The doctor laid his hand upon her shoulder. "The truth is always best,
always," he said gently. "Your father has suffered a severe shock; the
heart----." He stopped. "For his sake try and be calm, my dear young
lady."
Leslie knelt beside him all through the night, and all through the long
hours her conscience whispered accusingly, "It is you--you, who have
done it. But for you he would have gone on dreaming and living; but for
you--and Yorke!"
Toward dawn Francis Lisle awoke. The doctor was standing beside the
bed, Leslie on her knees.
He raised his wan, wasted face from the pillow and seemed to be looking
for something; then his eyes rested on her anguished ones, and he knew
her and forced a smile.
"Is--is that you, Leslie?" he said, in so low a voice that she had
to lay her face against his to hear him. "Is that you? I have had a
singular dream. Most singular!"
"What--what was it, dear?" she said at last.
He smiled again.
"I dreamt that my picture had been refused by the Academy. Absurd,
wasn't it? Fancy them refusing one of my pictures! Mine! Francis
Lisle's! Ridiculous as it is, it--it upset me. I--I must be out of
sorts. There is only one thing for that kind of complaint: Work.
Get--get a fresh canvas stretched for me, Leslie, and I will commence a
new picture. Let me see, what did we get for the last? Three thousand
pounds, wasn't it?"
"Yes, yes, dear!" she murmured.
"A large sum, a large sum, but not half what we shall get. Fame, fame
and fortune at last, Leslie! I always told you it would come."
He put out his wasted hand and smoothed her hair lovingly--and,
alas! patronizingly. "Always knew it would come, Leslie! Art is long
and--and life is brief. I must work hard now fame and success have
brought me the victor's laurels. How dark it is--" the sunlight was
streaming through the window--"how dark! Too dark to commence to-day;
but to-morrow, Leslie dear, to-morrow----." His voice grew fainter and
ceased. The doctor bent over him, then stood upright and laid his hand
upon Leslie's shoulder with a touch that told her all.
Francis Lisle had gone to the land where to-morrow and to-day are
swallowed up in Eternity.