AT THE ACADEMY.
Alec had not, indeed, forgotten Laura Mowbray; though he had long since
awakened from his first dream of love. Now, at twenty-two, he looked
back on himself at nineteen as not only very young, but very foolish.
He had half forgotten the episode of his wild declaration of love;
but when he heard that Laura was near him once more, he was filled
with a variety of emotions. At one time he determined to do nothing,
to forget her if he could; at another time he was almost ready to set
out and begin an insane search for her through the streets of London.
He confessed to himself that though he had been intimate with Miss
Mowbray he really knew her very slightly. He wanted to see her again,
to learn something more of her; and yet he hesitated about deliberately
setting to work to renew the old acquaintance.
As often happens in such a case, chance decided the matter for him.
Two or three days after hearing that Laura was in town, Alec received
a letter from his sister, in which she told him that their uncle James
and his family had taken a furnished house in London, No. 21, Claremont
Gardens, W., and meant to stay there some months.
The old man had become much more feeble during the last three years.
And instead of making the best of things, and meeting the inevitable
weakness of old age with a cheerful courage, he chose to consider
himself a great invalid, and made his health the chief consideration
of his life. This, of course, did not tend to improve either his
health or his temper; and he had been for the last two years dragging
his family about from one watering-place to another, to Aunt Jean’s
great disgust. She, good woman, was made of sterner stuff than her
rich cousin. She did not approve of the unsettled life she was forced
to lead; and she did not believe that her relative was even as much in
need of care and attention as he really was.
As for Laura Mowbray, she possessed that enviable disposition
(shared by people of all sorts and conditions) of making the best
of things. She took care to keep out of her guardian’s way when he
was in a specially irritable mood; she flattered and soothed him not
unsuccessfully now and then; she avoided Miss Lindsay as much as
possible; and she seized upon every opportunity of amusing herself. She
was by no means sorry to visit first one spa and then another, though
she was forced to witness from the outside gaieties which no one asked
her to share.
‘One day,’ she would say to herself, drawing her lips over her set
teeth, as she sat listening to the band to which the other guests in
the hotel were dancing. But she often received attentions from stray
visitors, which helped in some degree to console her for the lack of
amusements. When she heard that Mr. Lindsay had determined to spend
some months in London, so as to secure the services of the famous Dr.
Sheepshanks, Laura was overjoyed.
Of course Alec called to ask for his uncle, and he was quite shocked
to find him looking so ill. His face was pinched and haggard, his hand
thin and trembling; so that, to Alec’s inexperienced eyes, it seemed
as if death had already set his seal upon him. Old Mr. Lindsay was
secretly pleased with Alec’s demeanour. The young man could not express
his concern, but it appeared plainly enough in his face and manner. He
evidently believed that his great-uncle was in a condition demanding
great care, sympathy, and consideration; and that was exactly what Mr.
Lindsay wanted the world to believe concerning him. He made Alec sit
down beside him, and asked him many questions in a feeble, piping
voice, about his work, his prospects, and his ultimate aims. James
Lindsay was entirely changed from the fussy, consequential, conceited
being of three or four years before. Alec was almost touched by the
meekness and painfulness (so to speak) of the old man’s manner.
‘That’ll do now, Alec, my man,’ he said, when he was at length tired of
his companion. ‘Go downstairs and see your aunt Jean.’ (Here he sighed
and lifted his eyebrows as if the very mention of that lady’s name gave
him an opportunity of exercising the virtue of patience.) ‘Come and see
me again soon. Good-day;’ and he lay back as if exhausted, and closed
his eyes.
Alec stole on tiptoe from the room, and went down to the drawing-room,
where he found his aunt (as he called her) seated alone.
‘I was very sorry to see Uncle James so poorly,’ said Alec, as he took
her hand.
Aunt Jean said nothing; but her sniff and look of contempt were
sufficiently expressive.
‘Don’t you think my uncle very ill?’ asked Alec, opening his eyes.
‘He micht be waur,’ said Aunt Jean.
She always spoke a broader dialect abroad than she did at home, as
a protest against what she deemed the affectation and ‘mimmou’d’
character of the English utterance.
‘He seemed very weak,’ said Alec, surprised and a little shocked at the
old lady’s want of sympathy.
‘Maist fowk’s no as strang at seventy-fower as they were at seventeen,’
replied Aunt Jean, smoothing out her apron as she spoke.
Then the conversation turned upon other matters; and Alec began to fear
that he would have to leave without seeing Laura. But just as he was
preparing to go a knock was heard at the hall-door, and Laura came in
from a stroll in the gardens.
She looked, it seemed to Alec, exactly the same as she had done when
he last saw her. But he had not time to think of her looks. It was
she herself, after these years--and three years are a long period to
us all before we are four-and-twenty--standing before him. His heart
beat as he took her hand, and though he was able to speak and look as
if she were a mere ordinary acquaintance, each knew that it was not
so. How far her old power over Alec was broken, Laura did not know;
but she saw quite plainly, from a hundred little indications, that he
was not indifferent to her. There was very little conversation, and
such as there was was chiefly about trifles--the respective merits of
Harrogate, Buxton, and Aix-le-Bains, the welfare of Alec’s sister, and
so on. Alec could not afterwards remember what they talked about, but
he remembered the picture which Laura made, as she sat in a small, low
chair at the window, playing with one of her gloves, and looking, Alec
thought, more sweet and graceful than any human being had looked since
his eyes had last rested upon her.
The next time Alec went to ask after his uncle, he found that his
cousin, James Semple, had arrived from Glasgow, and was staying in the
house. After a short visit to his uncle’s sick-room, he was passing
through the hall, when he met Semple and Miss Lindsay.
‘You’ll stay to lunch, Alec, and go with us to the Academy?’ said
Semple, when they had shaken hands. Miss Mowbray has had a friend
come to see her--she is rather a swell at painting, and that sort of
thing, I believe--and we intend going to the Academy as soon as we have
finished lunch.
Alec thought it was very good-natured of Semple to propose that he
should join the party, and he consented at once to stay. In a few
minutes Laura and her friend, Miss Sewell, made their appearance; and
only Alec’s native sense of propriety prevented his staring at Miss
Sewell with all his might. She was very tall, very pale, and very
thin, and she was dressed in a rather exaggerated form of the ‘Greek’
costume. A broad scarf of the same material as her dress was carried
across her breast, and fastened in some way upon her left shoulder. Her
hair was gathered into a great knot at the back of her head; and her
sleeves were as tight as sleeves could by any possibility be. When she
spoke it was in a languid, deliberate way, suggestive of refinement,
and a superior delicacy of organization. Miss Lindsay regarded this
young lady with mingled amazement and dislike; and only a strong sense
of her duty as hostess kept her from openly expressing her condemnation.
The conversation at table was not very brilliant.
‘Are you fond of pictures, Miss Sewell?’ inquired Mr. Semple from the
foot of the table.
Miss Sewell glanced slowly round at Laura, as if for enlightenment as
to the purpose of so absurd a question, before she tranquilly replied:
‘Everyone is, I suppose, Mr. Semple.’
But it was nearly impossible to make that gentleman feel that one was
even trying to snub him.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied; ‘I know a lot of men, very intelligent men,
who don’t know a single one of the points of a picture. But art has
made vast strides of late years: there’s no denying that.’
Miss Sewell slowly and impressively turned her shoulder on Mr. Semple,
and thenceforward ignored his existence.
It was not till the little party reached Burlington House that Alec
understood the reason why he had been asked to join the party. Semple
monopolized Laura, and Alec was expected to look after Miss Sewell.
The care of that young lady on such an occasion was no sinecure. She
was full of enthusiasm, which was about one-tenth part real; and she
found in nearly every picture some indication of genius.
‘What an admirable tone there is in that little bit!’ she would say.
Alec was dumb.
‘Don’t you think the breadth of effect there is perfectly wonderful?’
she asked, stopping before a great, aimless, carelessly-painted canvas.
‘I’m afraid I--I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alec.
‘The breadth, the feeling of vastness, of superiority to--to--you
understand?’ replied Miss Sewell, in a very intense tone.
But Alec was staring at the picture.
‘I don’t know what a picture should be,’ said he, very deliberately;
‘but I know what a hillside _is_, and _that_ thing has no resemblance
to it whatever.’
‘Oh, we must educate you, Mr. Lindsay,’ said the girl, with a little
laugh.
‘I don’t want to be educated!’ said Alec stoutly. ‘I think half the
things here are coarse, stupid daubs, and half the rest are pretty,
but senseless. They have no meaning. They don’t help you to love beauty
or nature more--not one bit.’
‘Pray, sir,’ said a caustic voice behind Alec, ‘did you ever try to
paint a picture?’
An old man, with keen black eyes, deep-set under bushy gray eyebrows,
was the speaker.
‘Never in my life,’ said Alec.
‘Then you don’t know how difficult it is to paint a good one.’
‘I think it is wonderful that they are half as good as they are,’
returned Alec.
The stranger stared, and the young man went on:
‘I think it is wonderful that a man should be able to make likenesses
of mountains, and seas, and clouds. But as men have learned how to do
it, I think those who can’t do it better than this,’ pointing at a
picture as he spoke, ‘had better leave their work at home till they can
make it more like nature. And at least they might choose beautiful or
picturesque subjects, and not waste their time over tables and chairs,
curtains and rugs, ladies’ dresses and knickknacks.’
The old man smiled grimly, and nodded once or twice as he turned away.
‘Do find out who that is,’ said Miss Sewell; ‘I feel certain he is
somebody.’
Miss Sewell was right. It was Sir Theodore Carson, the greatest
painter of the day; and Miss Sewell at once resolved to profit by her
experience and abandon enthusiasm for depreciation.
Meanwhile Semple had been asking his companion:
‘Why does Miss Sewell dress in that absurd way?’
‘You mustn’t speak disrespectfully of my friend, sir,’ said Laura.
‘But dear Alice was always given to fancies. First she was learned and
literary; then she was a regular athlete--she nearly ruined her health,
trying to walk from London to Bath in two days--or five days, I forget
which. Then she became original and classical, and slightly æsthetic.
Next time I see her, she is sure to be something different.’
It was rather a tiresome afternoon for Alec; but it came to an end at
last.
‘What a handsome cousin you have, Laura!’ said Alice Sewell to her
friend in the privacy of her bedroom that afternoon.
‘Do you think so? I never thought of Mr. Semple as particularly
handsome.’
‘I don’t mean that fat, disagreeable-looking creature, you stupid girl!
I mean the tall one, Mr. Alec Lindsay. He has beautiful eyes, and such
a strong, independent way of speaking.’
‘What a curious girl you are, Alice! I thought he would have been far
too unconventional for you.’
‘Don’t you like him?’ asked Alice in reply.
‘Yes,’ said Laura, in a hesitating way. She was on the point of
telling her friend that she had had Alec at her feet; but she refrained.
‘They are both in love with you,’ said Alice tranquilly. ‘Which do you
mean to take?’
‘I’m afraid it must be the other one,’ said Laura, turning away with a
little sigh.
‘Why?’
‘Oh, Alec has so little sense. He might have been his uncle’s heir, I
believe; and he has simply neglected his interests. He will always be a
poor man.’ And the girl sighed again.
‘And this Mr. Semple?’
‘Oh, he is pretty sure to be rich.’
‘Don’t decide too hastily, Laura, my dear,’ said the elder girl. And
Laura smiled, as much as to say that she perfectly understood the
situation, and felt quite competent to direct her own affairs.
And in holding this opinion she only did herself justice.