“It is not I who take him or want him. I will not come here again.”
As I turned, he barred my way.
“No,” he said, near sobbing, “I lied. Do what you will with us: make
us angels or swine--I am content, so long as I may serve you.”
As he spoke, the door opened, and de Crespigny entered. He greeted me
with a rather shifty look, I thought, and his manner seemed too
distraught to affect any particular notice of his servant’s obvious
emotion.
“O, well, _ma bella_ Unanina,” said he; “but a little sitting for this
afternoon, please.”
I flushed, and was about to refuse to remain at all, when an imploring
scowl from Gogo softened me. With plenty of hauteur, I stalked into a
little curtained-off alcove which was consecrated to me for
tiring-room, and there dressed for model. When I emerged again, my
feet and arms were bare, my hair loose in a golden fillet, and, for
the rest, I wore a kind of seraph smock, in which _les convenances_
had been constrained to clothe me for the peerless Una.
For as Una I was being painted. Looking one day through de Crespigny’s
portfolios, I had come upon some “impressions,” royal, strenuous, of
lions in the Tower menagerie, and was admiring the lithe, strong
darlings, when his voice breathed behind me, with that little eternal
foolish giggle.
“Have you decided, naughty?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I will be the fairy lady whom the lion came to
devour, and remained to serve and protect, because she was so pure and
innocent.”
He did not know who I meant; so I found him the book and place.
“Ah, to be sure!” said he, reading eagerly. “She laid her stole aside,
did she? Yes, it is an inspiration. It will suit me, if it does you.”
So I was painted wonderfully as Una, making my own “stole” from one of
Patty’s bedgowns, and glorying, out of my very shamefacedness, to feed
the inspiration, while it lasted, of this impassioned art. Now, for
days it had wrought without slackening, so that it was an offence to
me to find it suddenly become, it seemed, without apparent cause or
reason, out of tune with its subject. He worked fitfully, dully,
almost, as it were, disregarding my presence, and drawling
commonplaces the while to Gogo, who had returned to his pestle and
mortar, and was grinding away sullenly.
“Gogo,” he yawned presently, after an idle, preoccupied silence,
“which would you rather marry, a woman of wit or virtue?”
“Neither, you blattering genius!” cried the other, turning round with
such an instant roar that I was almost frightened off my perch.
The master, accustomed to his strange fellow’s moods, only laughed,
and leaned back indolent.
“Why, you old dear?” said he.
Gogo thundered.
“She’s a rotten fish at best, shining the more the more corrupt she
is.”
“But if she don’t shine?” said de Crespigny coolly.
“Then she’s a dull fish,” said Gogo, “but a fish still.”
The other mused, and sniggered.
“--Who’s for ever playing to be caught,” added Gogo, grumbling. “She
loves the angle. Play her what you like, man, only throw her back when
hooked.”
“Mr. Gogo!” I exclaimed.
“Ay, Mistress Una,” said he, “you’re all pretty players, from miss to
my lady dowager. Don’t tell me. You all love to excite the emotions
you don’t understand, and then off with you from the stage, sweet
ethereals, to the suppers of steak and porter which you do, while Jack
and my lord are wetting their pillows with tears over your
sensibility.”
“Thank you,” I said, rising, highly offended. “As I, for one, am not
playing to be hooked, I’ll take your warning in time.”
I had expected de Crespigny to strike in, in angry protest over his
servant’s insolence; but, to my astonishment, he did not move or
interfere. A little pregnant silence ensued, and the tears were
already rising to my eyes, when, to my horror, I heard madam’s voice
at the door.
“De Crespigny,” she said, “may I come in for once?”
He stumbled to his feet, and stood paralysed a moment, before he
answered--
“A minute. You know the conditions: I must hide it away, and then”--
When she entered a little later, there was he standing to receive her
with a spasmodic grin; his easel was empty, Gogo pounded at his
mortar, and I--I was shrunk behind the curtain, peeping in a very
shiver of terror.
She looked at him with a little shaky propitiating smile. Her eyes
were red, as if she had been crying. She tried to speak, and could
not. He understood so far, the poor clown, and bade his servant
withdraw. When they were alone, she turned upon him with a little
appealing motion of her hands.
“Am I never to be allowed to see it?” she asked.
He frowned, and bit his trembling lip.
“No, no,” she said, “I know the sensitiveness of your beautiful art.
Only, O, Noel! I cannot rest where we ended just now. Believe me, it
was so far from my wish to offend or alarm you. But time goes on, and
the pledge this finished picture was to redeem is withheld, until I am
at a loss how to explain.”
“To whom?” he muttered sullenly, “to that priest? O, I know. What
right has he, a grudging Churchman, and you a saint?”
“O, indeed, I am but a weak woman!” she said, with a faint smile, “and
he an anointed Father. He does right--dear, he does--to be jealous for
his daughter. It is only that he would ask you, that I would ask you,
what period”--
“Art is not to be forced,” he interrupted her peevishly. “I made the
finishing of this picture, as it was begun--as it was begun, mind--the
condition of my being received into your Church. Didn’t I, now?”
“Yes,” she sighed; “but there are some vows better broken.”
“A bad recommendation to what you call the truth,” he sneered.
“But, Noel, it _is_ the truth,” she cried. “O, say you are convinced
that it is!”
“Well, I don’t know,” he answered, “since you bid me to a lie.”
“I will take the burden,” she cried, her eyes streaming, “to save the
soul I love.”
She hardly breathed the final word. For a wonder, the poor creature
she entreated found enough in it to move him.
“There,” he said, “don’t distress yourself, Sophia. I’ll work
hot-handed on the picture to-morrow. There, I promise I will.”
“Thank you, Noel,” she whispered, so kindling, so grateful, that de
Crespigny shrunk before her. “I--I won’t interrupt you any longer. It
was like you, kind and considerate, not to blame me for breaking your
rule.”
The room remained so still after her going that I thought he too had
followed, until, stealing out presently in a panic, I found him seated
in a corner, biting his nails.
“I had better go now, hadn’t I?” I whispered, half choking.
“Yes,” he growled, “to the devil!”
X.
I BEWITCH A MONSTER
On the following morning, going indifferently by the studio, where
was a back way into the grounds, I encountered Gogo.
“He’s at work on the portrait,” he said, standing moodily against the
room door. “He’ll be at it all day. It’s no good your coming.”
I tossed my head, vouchsafing no reply, and, singing to myself, passed
on and out.
The day after, descending the stairs, I observed that the studio door
was left ajar. I laughed, taking no other notice, and went my way into
the garden.
On the third day, seeing de Crespigny walk out with his Sophia, I
borrowed the opportunity to slip down and investigate. The truth was,
I was devoured with curiosity to learn how madam’s little explosion
had stimulated the artistic verve, and to obtain a glimpse of the
portrait, even, if necessary, by bending myself to the corruption of
my poor infatuated Gogo. But I was to be disappointed, for the room
was empty, and the canvas locked into its press.
Peering here and there, considerably chagrined, in the hope of
discovering the key, I came, in the alcove, upon the full-sleeved
waistcoat in which the artist usually worked, and, diving eagerly into
the pockets thereof, found, not the key indeed, but some scraps of
paper, much scribbled over, which instantly aroused my curiosity, and,
presently, my amusement.
“Ho-ho!” thought I, “you are inspired in other than the pictured arts,
are you, my gentleman? A poet, and fainting in the perfume of some
little naughty Mignonette!”
So he had fancy-named the subject of his agonised Muse; and, indeed,
why should I prevaricate to myself about the application? I blushed a
little, making myself merry over these suffering scrawls and
scratches, of which, I was sure, my own poor little person must be the
victim. I had a face, it seemed, the calendar of innocence; _une bonne
poitrine_; a sweetest little double chin, like a robin’s throat
swelled with song. I put my hand to my neck. I could not but admit
that the poor man had taken a poetic licence; but, in truth, it was a
very example of the licence that was wont to drug his art. The flesh
held his fine imagination in thrall, and laboured his first spiritual
conceptions into Parisian models. He was divine only in his
sketches--impressions. When he wrought to improve upon them, he became
transubstantiated.
So this was his repentance! He had spent the brief period of it in
painting me in verse, since he was debarred my presence in actuality.
I smiled, reading--
“Mignonette, Mignonette,
Of all flowers the pet.”
and “Indeed!” thought I, tossing my head; “but not _yours_ as yet,
sir!”
While I studied to disentangle the scribble, I heard breathing near
me, and started to find Gogo regarding me with a cynical,
half-diverted scowl. The creature walked like a cat on carpet. He had
no creaking leather to betray him.
“So-ho!” growled he; “you can yet blush to be found out by your dog?”