“I’ll be contented if I can just get work soon.”
She looked at me with a queer, bitter little smile, and then she said:
“It doesn’t pay to work. I’ve worked all my life.”
Then she laughed bitterly, and went out suddenly, closing the door
behind her.
As soon as I had washed and changed from my heavy Canadian coat to a
little blue cloth suit I had made myself, I started out at once to look
up the artist, Mr. Sands, whose address papa had given me.
I lost my way several times. I always got lost in Boston. The streets
were like a maze, winding around and running off in every direction. I
finally found the studio building on Boylston, and climbed up four
flights of stairs. When I got to the top, I came to a door with a neat
little visiting card with Mr. Sands’ name upon it. I remembered that
Count von Hatzfeldt had his card on the door like this, and for the
first time I had an instinctive feeling that my own large japanned sign:
“Miss Ascough, Artist,” etc., was funny and provincial. Even papa had
never put up such a sign, and when he first saw mine, he had laughed and
then had run his hand absently through his hair and said he “supposed it
was all right” for the kind of work I expected to do. Dear papa! He
wouldn’t have hurt my feelings for worlds. With what pride had I not
shown him my sign and “studio!”
I knocked on Mr. Sands’ door, and presently he himself opened it. At
first he did not know me, but when I stammered:
“I’m--Miss Ascough. D-don’t you remember me? I did some work for you in
Montreal eight years ago, and you told me to come to Boston. Well--I’ve
come!”
“Good Lord!” he ejaculated. “Did I ever tell anybody to come to Boston?
Good Lord!” And he stood staring at me as if he still were unable to
place me. Then after another pause, during which he stared at me
curiously, he said:
“Come in, come in!”
While he was examining me, with his palette stuck on his thumb and a
puzzled look on his face as if he didn’t quite know what to say to me or
to do with me, I looked about me.
It was a very luxurious studio, full of beautiful draperies and
tapestries. I was surprised, as the bare stairs I had climbed and the
outside of the building was most unbeautiful. Sitting on a raised
platform was a very lovely girl, dressed in a Greek costume, but the
face on the canvas of the easel was not a bit like hers.
Mr. Sands, as though he had all of a sudden really placed me in his
mind, held out his hand and shook mine heartily, exclaiming:
“Oh, yes, yes, now I remember. Ascough’s little girl. Well, well, and
how is dear old Montreal? And your father, and his friend--what was his
name? Mmmmum--let me see--that German artist--you remember him? He was
crazy--a madman!”
Lorenz was the artist he meant. He was a great friend of my father’s.
Papa thought him a genius, but mama did not like him at all, because she
said he used such blasphemous language and was a bad influence on papa.
I remember I used to love to hear him shout and declaim and denounce all
the shams in art and the church. He was a man of immense stature, with a
huge head like Walt Whitman’s. He used to come to the Château to see the
Count, with whom he had long arguments and quarrels. He was German and
the Count a Dane. He would shout excitedly at the Count and wave his
arms, and the Count would shriek and double up with laughter sometimes,
and Mr. Lorenz would shout: “Bravo! Bravo!”
They talked in German, and I couldn’t understand them, but I think they
were making fun of English and American art. And as for the Canadian--!
The mere mention of Canadian art was enough to make the old Count and
Lorenz explode.
Poor old Lorenz! He never made any money, and was awfully shabby. One
day papa sent him to Reggie’s office to try to sell a painting to the
senior partner, who professed to be a connoisseur. Mr. Jones, the
partner, came out from his private office in a hurry and, seeing Lorenz
waiting, mistook him for a beggar. He put his hand in his pocket and
gave Lorenz a dime. Then he passed out. Lorenz looked at the dime and
said:
“Vell, it vill puy me two beers.”
Reggie had told me about that. He was irritated at papa for sending
Lorenz there, and he said he hoped he would not appear again.
I told Mr. Sands all about Lorenz and also about the Count I had worked
for; about papa, some of whose work the Duke of Argyle had taken back to
England with him, as representative of Canadian art (which it was
not--papa had studied in France, and was an Englishman, not a Canadian),
and of my own “studio.” While I talked, Mr. Sands went on painting. The
model watched me with, I thought, a very sad expression. Her dark eyes
were as gentle and mournful as a Madonna’s. She didn’t look unlike our
family, being dark and foreign-looking. She was French. Mr. Sands was
painting her arms and hands on the figure on the canvas. He explained
that the face belonged to the wife of Senator Chase. She was the leader
of a very smart set in Brookline. He said the ladies who sat for their
portraits usually got tired by the time their faces were finished, and
he used models for the figures, and especially the hands.
“The average woman,” said Mr. Sands, “has extreme ugly hands. The hands
of Miss St. Denis, as you see, are beautiful--the most beautiful hands
in America.”
I was standing by him at the easel, watching him paint, and I asked him
if it were really a portrait, for the picture looked more like a Grecian
dancing figure. Mr. Sands smiled and said:
“That’s the secret of my success, child. I never paint portraits as
portraits. I dress my sitters in fancy costumes and paint them as some
character. There is Mrs. Olivet. Her husband is a wholesale grocer. I am
going to paint her as Carmen. This spirituelle figure with the filmy
veil about her is Mrs. Ash Browning, a dead-and-alive, wishy-washy
individual; but, as you see, her ‘beauty’ lends itself peculiarly to
the nymph she there represents.”
I was so much interested in listening to him, and watching him work,
that I had forgotten what I had come to see him about, till presently he
said:
“So you are going to join the classes at the Academy?”
That question recalled me, and I said hastily:
“I hope so, by-and-by. First, though, I shall have to get some work to
do.”
He stopped painting and stared at me, with his palette in his hand, and
as he had looked at me when he opened the door.
I unwrapped the package I had brought along with me, and showed him the
piano scarf I had painted as a sample, a landscape I had copied from one
of papa’s and some miniatures I had painted on celluloid. I said:
“People won’t be able to tell the difference from ivory when they are
framed, and I can do them very quickly, as I can trace them from a
photograph underneath, do you see?”
His eyes bulged and he stared at me harder than ever. I also showed him
some charcoal sketches I had done from casts, and a little painting of
our kitten playing on the table. He picked this up and looked at it, and
then set it down, muttering something I thought was: “Not so bad.”
After a moment, he picked it up again and then stared at me a moment and
said:
“I think you have some talent, and you have come to the right place to
_study_.”
“And work, Mr. Sands,” I said. “I’ve come here to earn my living. Can
you give me some painting to do?”
He put down his palette and nodded to Miss St. Clair to rest. Then he
took hold of my hand and said:
“Now, Miss Ascough, I am going to give you some good advice, chiefly
because you are from my old Montreal (Mr. Sands was a Canadian), because
of your father and our friend, good old man Lorenz. Finally, because I
think it is my duty. Now, young lady, take my advice. If your parents
can afford to pay your expenses here, stay and go to the art schools.
_But_ if you expect to make a living by your painting in Boston, take
the next train and go home!”
“I can’t go home!” I cried. “Oh, I’m sure you must be mistaken. Lots of
women earn their livings as artists. Why shouldn’t I? I worked for Count
von Hatzfeldt, and he said I had more talent than the average woman who
paints.”
“How much did he pay you?” demanded Mr. Sands.
“Five dollars a week and sometimes extra,” I said.
[Illustration: I was so interested in listening to him and watching him
work that I had forgotten what I had come to see him about.]
Mr. Sands laughed.
“You would starve on that here even if you could make it, which I doubt.
In Montreal you had your home and friends. It’s a different matter here
altogether.”
I felt as I once did when, as a child, I climbed to the top of a cherry
tree, and Charles had taken away the ladder, and I tried to climb down
without it. I kept repeating desperately:
“I won’t go back! I tell you, I won’t! No, no, nothing will induce me to
go back!”
I gathered up all my paintings. I felt distracted and friendless. Mr.
Sands had returned to his painting and he seemed to have forgotten me. I
saw the model watching me, and she leaned over and said something in a
whisper to Mr. Sands. He put his palette down again and said:
“Come, Miss St. Denis. This will do for to-day. We all need a bit of
refreshment. Miss Ascough looks tired.”
I was, and hungry, too. I had had no lunch, for I lost so much time
looking for Mr. Sands’ studio.
He brought out a bottle wrapped in a napkin, and a big plate of cakes.
He said:
“I want you to taste my own special brand of champagne cocktail.”
He talked a great deal then about brands of wines and mixtures, etc.,
while I munched on the cakes which I found difficulty in swallowing,
because of the lump in my throat. But I was determined not to break down
before them, and I even drank some of the cocktail he had mixed for me.
Presently, I said:
“Well, I guess I’ll go,” and I gathered up my things. Mr. Sands stood up
and put his hands on my shoulders. Miss St. Denis was standing at his
elbow, and she watched me all the time he was speaking.
“Now, Miss Ascough, I am going to make a suggestion to you. I see you
are determined not to go back. Now the only way I can think of your
making a living is by posing.”