Drummond's first speculations were very successful, as is so often the
case with the innocent and ignorant dabbler in commercial gambling. Mr
Burton instructed him what to do with his little capital, and he did it.
He knew nothing about business, and was docile to the point of servility
to his disinterested friend, who smiled at his two thousand pounds, and
regarded it with amused condescension. Two thousand pounds! It meant
comfort, ease of mind, moral strength, to Drummond. It made him feel
that in the contingency of a bad year, or a long illness, or any of the
perils to which men and artists are liable, he would still be safe, and
that his wife and child would not suffer; but to the rich City man it
was a bagatelle scarcely worth thinking of. When he really consented to
employ his mind about it, he made such use of it as astonished and
delighted the innocent painter. All that his simple imagination had ever
dreamed seemed likely to be carried out. This was indeed money-making he
felt--Trade spelt with a very big capital, and meaning something much
more splendid than anything he had hitherto dreamt of. But then he could
not have done it by himself or without instruction. Burton could not
have been more at a loss in Drummond's studio than he would have felt in
his friend's counting-house. Mr Burton was 'a merchant;' a vague term
which nevertheless satisfied the painter's mind. He was understood to be
one of the partners in Rivers's bank, but his own business was quite
independent of that. Money was the material he dealt in--his
stock-in-trade. He understood the Funds as a doctor understands a
patient whose pulse he feels every day. He could divine when they were
going to rise and when they were going to fall. And there were other
ways in which his knowledge told still more wonderfully. He knew when a
new invention, a new manufacture, was going to be popular, by some
extraordinary magic which Drummond could not understand. He would catch
a speculation of this sort at its tide, and take his profit from it, and
bound off again uninjured before the current began to fall. In all
these matters he was knowing beyond most men; and he lent to his
cousin's husband all the benefit of his experience. For several years
Drummond went on adding to his store in a manner so simple and
delightful, that his old way of making money, the mode by which months
of labour went to the acquisition of a few hundred pounds, looked almost
laughable to him. He continued it because he was fond of his art, and
loved her for herself alone; but he did it with a sort of banter,
smiling at the folly of it, as an enlightened old lady might look at her
spinning-wheel. The use of it? Well, as for that, the new ways of
spinning were better and cheaper; but still not for the use, but for the
pleasure of it!--So Drummond clung to his profession, and worked almost
as hard at it as ever. And in the additional ease of his circumstances,
not needing to hurry anything for an exhibition, or sacrifice any part
of his design for the fancy of a buyer, he certainly painted better than
usual, and was made an Associate, to the general satisfaction of his
brethren. These were the happy days in which the studio was built. It
was connected with the house, as I have said, by a conservatory, a warm,
glass-covered, fragrant, balmy place, bright with flowers. 'There must
always be violets, and there must always be colour!' he had said to the
nurseryman who supplied and kept his fairy palace in order, after the
fashion of London. And if ever there was a flowery way contrived into
the thorny haunts of art it was this. It would perhaps be rash to say
that this was the happy time of Drummond's married life, for they had
always been happy, with only that one drawback of Helen's
dissatisfaction with her husband's work. They had loved each other
always, and their union had been most true and full. But the effect of
wealth was mollifying, as it so often is. Prosperity has been railed at
much, as dangerous and deadening to the higher being; but prosperity
increases amiability and smooths down asperities as nothing else can. It
did not remove that one undisclosed and untellable grievance which
prevented Mrs Drummond's life from attaining perfection, but it took
away ever so many little points of irritation which aggravated that. She
got, for one thing, the dining-room she wanted--a prosaic matter, yet
one which Helen considered important--and she got, what she had not
bargained for, that pretty conservatory, and a bunch of violets every
day--a lover-like gift which pleased her. Things, in short, went very
well with them at this period of their existence. Her discontents were
more lulled to sleep than they had ever been before. She still saw the
absence of any divine meaning in her husband's pictures; but she saw it
with gentler eyes. The pictures did not seem so entirely his sole
standing-ground. If he could not grow absolutely illustrious by that or
any personal means of acquiring fame, he might still hold his own in the
world by other means. Helen sighed over her Titian-dream, but to a great
extent she gave it up. Greatness was not to be; but comfort and even
luxury were probable. Her old conditions of life seemed to be coming
back to her. It was not what she had dreamed of; but yet it was better
to have mediocrity with ease and modest riches, and pleasant
surroundings, than mediocrity without those alleviations. To do her
justice, had her husband been a great unsuccessful genius, in whom she
had thoroughly believed, she would have borne privation proudly and with
a certain triumph. But that not being so, she returned to her old
starting-ground with a sigh that was not altogether painful, saying to
herself that she must learn to be content with what she had, and not
long for what she could not have.
Thus they were happier, more hopeful, more at their ease. They went
more into society, and received more frequent visits from their friends.
The new studio made many social pleasures possible that had not been
possible. Of itself it implied a certain rise in the world. It gave
grace and completeness to their little house. Nobody could say any
longer that it was half a house and half a workshop, as Helen, under her
breath, in her impatience, had sometimes declared it to be. The workshop
phase was over, the era of self-denial gone--and yet Robert was not
driven from the art he loved, nor prevented from putting on his old coat
and stealing away in the evenings to visit the mistress who was dearer
to him than anything else except his wife.
This was the state of affairs when the painter one day entered Helen's
drawing-room in a state of considerable excitement. He was full of a new
scheme, greater than anything he had as yet been engaged in. Rivers's
bank, which was half as old as London, which held as high repute as the
Bank of England, which was the favourite depository of everybody's
money, from ministers of state down to dressmakers, was going to undergo
a revolution. The Riverses themselves had all died out, except, indeed,
the head of the house, who was now Lord Rivers, and had no more than a
nominal connection with the establishment which had been the means of
bringing him to his present high estate. The other partners had
gradually got immersed in other business. Mr Burton, for instance,
confessed frankly that he had not time to attend to the affairs of the
bank, and the others were in a similar condition:--they had come in as
secondaries, and they found themselves principals, and it was too much
for them. They had accordingly decided to make Rivers's a joint-stock
bank. This was the great news that Drummond brought home to his wife. 'I
will put everything we have into it,' he said in his enthusiasm, 'unless
you object, Helen. We can never have such another chance. Most
speculations have a doubtful element in them. But this is not at all
doubtful. There is an enormous business ready made to our hands, and all
the traditions of success and the best names in the City to head our
list--for of course the old partners hold shares, and will be made
directors of the new company----And--you will laugh, Helen, but for you
and the child I feel able to brave anything--I am to be a director too.'
'You!' cried Helen, with a surprise which had some mixture of dismay.
'But you don't know anything about business. You can't even----'
'Reckon up my own accounts,' said the painter placidly--'quite true; but
you see it is a great deal easier to calculate on a large scale than on
a small scale. I assure you I understand the banking system--at least, I
shall when I have given my mind to it. I shouldn't mind even,' he said
laughing, 'making an effort to learn the multiplication table. Norah
might teach me. Besides, to speak seriously, it doesn't matter in the
least: there are clerks and a manager to do all that, and other
directors that know all about it, and I shall learn in time.'
'But, then, why be a director at all?' said Helen. She said this more
from a woman's natural hesitation at the thought of change, than from
any dislike of the idea; for she belonged to the race from which
directors come by nature. Poor Drummond could not give any very good
reason why he desired this distinction; but he looked very wise, and set
before her with gravity all the privileges involved.
'It brings something in,' he said, 'either in the way of salary, or
special profits, or something. Ask your cousin. I don't pretend to know
very much about it. But I assure you he is very great upon the
advantages involved. He says it will be the making of me. It gives
position and influence and all that--'
'To a painter!' said Helen: and in her heart she groaned. Her dream came
back like a mist, and wove itself about her head. What distinction would
it have given to Raphael or to Titian, or even to Gainsborough or Sir
Joshua Reynolds, to be made directors of a bank? She groaned in her
heart, and then she came back to herself, and caught her husband's eyes
looking at her with that grieved and wondering look, half aware of the
disappointment he had caused her, humbled, sorry, suspicious, yet almost
indignant, the look with which he had sometimes regarded her from among
his pictures in the day when art reigned alone over his life. Helen came
abruptly to herself when she met that glance, and said hurriedly, 'It
cannot change your position much, Robert, in our world.'
'No,' he said, with a glance of sudden brightness in his eyes which she
did not understand; 'but, my darling, our world may expand. I should
like you to be something more than a poor painter's wife, Helen--you who
might be a princess! I should not have ventured to marry you if I had
not hoped to make you a kind of princess; but you don't believe I can;
do you?' Here he paused, and, she thought, regarded her with a wistful
look, asking her to contradict him. But how could she contradict him? It
was true. The wife of a pleasant mediocre painter, Associate, or in time
Academician--that was all. Not a thorough lady of art such as--such
as----Such as whom? Poor Andrea's Lucrezia, who ruined him? That was the
only painter's wife that occurred to Helen.
'Dear Robert,' she said earnestly, 'never mind me: so long as I have you
and Norah, I care very little about princesses. We are very well and
very happy as we are. I think you should be careful, and consider well
before you make any change.'
But by this time the brightness that had been hanging about him came
back again like a gleam of sunshine. He kissed her with a joyous laugh.
'You are only a woman,' he said, 'after all. You don't understand what
it is to be a British director. Fancy marching into the bank with a
lordly stride, and remembering the days when one was thankful to have a
balance of five pounds to one's credit! You don't see the fun of it,
Helen; and the best of the whole is that an R.A. on the board of
directors will be an advantage, Burton says. Why, heaven knows. I
suppose he thinks it will conciliate the profession. We painters, you
see, are known to have so much money floating about! But anyhow, he
thinks an R.A.----'
'But, Robert! you are not an R.A.'
'Not yet. I forgot to tell you,' he added, lowering his voice, and
putting on a sudden look of gravity, which was half real, half
innocently hypocritical. 'Old Welby died last night.'
Then there was a little pause. They were not glad that old Welby was
dead. A serious shade came over both their faces for the moment--the
homage, partly natural, partly conventional, that human nature pays to
death. And then they clasped each other's hands in mutual
congratulation. The vacant place would come to Drummond in the course of
nature. He was known to be the first on the list of Associates. Thus he
had obtained the highest honours of his profession, and it was this and
not the bank directorship which had filled him with triumph. His wife's
coldness, however, checked his delight. His profession and the public
adjudged the honour to him; but Helen had not adjudged it. If the prize
had been hers to bestow, she would not have given it to him. This made
his heart contract even in the moment of his triumph. But yet he was
triumphant. To him it was the highest honour in the world.
'Poor old Welby!' he said. 'He was a great painter; and now that he is
dead, he will be better understood. He was fifty before he entered the
Academy,' the painter continued, with half-conscious self-glorification.
'He was a long time making his way.'
'And you are more than ten years younger,' said Helen. Surely that might
have changed her opinion if anything could. 'Robert, are you to be put
upon this bank because you are an R.A.?'
'And for my business talents generally,' he said, with a laugh. His
spirits were too high to be subdued. He would not hear reason, nor,
indeed, anything except the confused delightful chatter about his new
elevation, in which the fumes of happiness get vent. He plunged into an
immediate revelation of what he would do in his new capacity. 'It will
be odd if one can't make the Hanging Committee a little more
reasonable,' he said. 'I shall set my face against that hideous habit of
filling up "the line" with dozens of bad pictures because the men have
R.A. at their names. Do you remember, Helen, that year when I was hung
up at the ceiling? It nearly broke my heart. It was the year before we
were married.'
'They were your enemies then,' said Helen, with some visionary remnant
of the old indignation which she had felt about that base outrage before
she was Robert Drummond's wife. She had not begun to criticise him
then--to weigh his pictures and find them wanting; and she could still
remember her disgust and hatred of the Hanging Committee of that year.
Now no Hanging Committee could do any harm. It had changed its opinion
and applauded the painter, but she--had changed her opinion too. Then
this artist-pair did as many such people do. By way of celebrating the
occasion they went away to the country, and spent the rest of the day
like a pair of lovers. Little Norah, who was too small to be carried off
on such short notice, was left at home with her governess, but the
father and mother went away to enjoy the bright summer day, and each
other, and the event which had crowned them with glory. Even Helen's
heart was moved with a certain thrill of satisfaction when it occurred
to her that some one was pointing her husband out as 'Drummond the
painter--the new R.A.' He had won his blue ribbon, and won it honestly,
and nobody in England, nobody in the world, was above him in his own
profession. He was as good as a Duke, or even superior, for a Duke (poor
wretch!) cannot help himself, whereas a painter achieves his own
distinction. Helen let this new softness steal into her soul. She even
felt that when she looked at the pictures next time they would have a
light in them which she had not yet been able to perceive. And the bank,
though it was so much more important, sank altogether into the
background, while the two rowed down the river in the summer evening,
with a golden cloud of pleasure and glory around them. They had gone to
Richmond, where so many happy people go to realise their gladness. And
were the pair of lovers new betrothed, who crossed their path now and
then without seeing them, more blessed than the elder pair? 'I wonder if
they will be as happy ten years hence?' Helen said, smiling at them with
that mingling of sweet regret and superiority with which we gaze at the
reflection of a happiness we have had in our day. 'Yes,' said the
painter, 'if she is as sweet to him as my wife has been to me.' What
more could a woman want to make her glad? If Helen had not been very
happy in his love, it would have made her heart sick to think of all her
failures towards him; but she was very happy; and happiness is indulgent
not only to its friends, but even to itself.