WHEN he got outside his rooms, which were in a turning off Piccadilly,
Strange looked up and down the street and at his watch.
“I shall not bother with luncheon, that ham will last till eight,” he
said, “I shall go to the Club and I suppose I must see Aunt Moll. I’ll
go there to tea, she’ll be up probably, and perhaps awake by that time.”
He struck out for his Club and made a rapid tour of the premises but he
found there was no good to be got there, the billiard-rooms were empty
and the reading-rooms were given over to half a dozen old fellows
suffering from gout and senile decay.
“It’s too early and too late for anything,” he muttered, as he lighted a
fresh cigar on the steps, “it will be a full week, besides, before I get
into the swing again. I shall try Brydon.”
With that he swung off down the street, past some big thoroughfares,
then he cut across a mesh of alleys and courts, out into some dingy
squares, landing at last in Bloomsbury Square. He walked round till he
got to a tall narrow house in a corner, where he pulled up, pushed open
the door, which was ajar, and went upstairs to the fifth story where he
found a door with “Mr. Brydon” painted on it in big letters. He opened
it, and walked in.
A big fair boy with a cigarette in his mouth was sitting before an
easel, touching up a background; he spoke in a soft tired voice without
turning an inch of himself.
“Excuse me, Carry, I can’t possibly stand up, I am wrestling with a
curtain. Kindly sit down and begin your apologies. Was Ma’s ‘neuralgy’
bad, or the baby? Was it ‘it’? I am not quite certain as to the sex of
the last.—By the way, don’t they come with undue speed, those babies, or
do you spread all the diseases out on one?—Or did Pa go for you and
render your nose unfit for immortality? Two hours behind time to-day,
that’s nothing to you in the day’s work, no doubt, but I may remark that
it’s slightly inconvenient to me, as I prefer daylight to dark to catch
the super-excellent tones of your skin.”
“I should have thought on the whole that the glow——”
“Strange!” he cried with a soft slow gurgle of intense delight, and
lifting himself clumsily up from his seat, he caught Strange’s hand in a
close clasp and pushed him back into an old frilled arm-chair.
“I thought you were in Algeria. It was a dangerous experiment, old
fellow; the betting was ten to one that I was painting off a model, and
I am continually overlooking that lock. You’re only just back, I see.
What a glorious dusty smooth red you’ve got on your cheeks! For goodness
sake, let me have it before gas and sich play the deuce with it.”
“Take it, my child, take it. What a pity you didn’t have the beard too!
that was a far more glorious red, and a sight dustier, but I parted with
it this morning.”
“Thank you, I’ve seen your bristles once; I never wish to behold them
again. Now smoke, and I’ll just have a shy at catching that tint, it’s
precisely what I want for this beggar’s cheek. My model had it to
perfection, but they clapped him into quad for prigging saveloys, and
when he comes out he will be useless, the colour of bad paste.”
“Your room’s hardly serious enough; it’s pretty, in a doll’s-house
style.”
“Serious! I can’t afford that. One can’t extract seriousness from rags,
but the colours are good and the cost small. Look at the drapery hiding
the crack in the wall in that corner, fourpence-halfpenny the yard and a
reduction by the piece!”
“And you probably went dinnerless for that!” thought Strange, watching
the tall heavy-looking fellow, with his straight, limp brown hair
hanging over his forehead in a way that gave him a queer, foolish look,
an effect that his big alive eyes were constantly contradicting.
The soft, sleepy tones of his voice which, only that they happened to be
peculiarly clear, would never have been heard at all, added rather to
this effect. Strange, however, was quite aware that the eyes of the
fellow spoke the truth, and that the hair and the soft speech lied.
His father had been curate in the parish where Strange’s father was the
Squire, and even then the big boy had been good to the little one, and
the unequal friendship was still kept up between the two. It was a
pleasant little corner in the life of the older man, it was the best
part of life to the boy, and no one had a notion of the intense love and
gratitude he bore to the big notable man who took the trouble to know
him.
Strange had stood by him in the bad crisis of his life, when things had
come to a head and his father, the curate, had put down his foot and
damned art permanently, and the boy, for his part, had comprehensively
damned the church, and had then stepped out of the parental porch with a
five-pound note in his pocket, and in his eyes the yearning greed for
colour.
“How are you getting on?” said Strange.
“Oh, I live, and I hardly owe a thing, which is a consolation, in case I
happened to die off in a hurry, and had to be beholden to the governor
to fork up. I have no feelings at all about the funeral expenses or the
shroud, I shall make no provision for these, they seem in his line,
somehow. But it would cut the old man up frightfully if he had to pay
the models or the beer, or anything smacking of the devil, you
know—Would you mind turning your face an inch to the right?”
“What are you at? Haven’t you got the brick-dust yet?”
“Yes, in a way, but I want to sketch you,” said Brydon, measuring him
with his pencil, “I won’t be long; you look so cool, and big, and
‘kinder’ dogged, you’ve given me a notion. You’ve grown frightfully
since you went away, especially about the eyes, they’ve got so beastly
deep and intricate, why don’t you have eyes like decent God-fearing
mortals?”
“Ask my parents; if they refuse you the information, I can only refer
you to my godfather and godmother—By the way, what’s wrong with you,
Charlie?”
“Me!—Nothing!—I had another bout of rheumatic fever a month ago, and I
have felt a trifle stodgy since at times, especially after a grind up
these stairs.”
“Heart!” thought Strange. “Poor beggar! it’ll be hard on him if he’s
carried off before he learns to draw. Will you dine with me to-day?”
Brydon’s face lit, he had ecstatic memories of dinners with Strange, and
as a matter of fact his dinners for two days past, had consisted of
bread—and mustard to give it a relish.
“Thank you, old man, I can’t—I can’t go anywhere till Friday.”
“Why, in Heaven’s name?”
“I have some black and white to do,” he said mixing some paint
hurriedly.
Strange took a glance at his back view and shrugged his shoulders.
“The beggar’s sure to let it out, he always does,” he reflected.
After a few minutes’ silent painting Brydon turned round.
“I generally tell you most things,” he said, “if you wait long enough,
and you know by this time what an abject ass I am, so you may as well
hear the climax.
“I was down sketching in Surrey last month. I went after the fever—I
didn’t feel as if I could stand the stairs just then—and I found a girl
in a cottage there who was willing to sit for me whenever I wanted her.
She was—divine! Look!” he got up slowly and took a little canvas from
behind the door. “Look! Did Greuse ever have such a head to paint from?
I fell in love with her. Of course, it was that colour that did it;
that, and her poses, and all her little ways and movements, and her soft
little voice—oh—oh—you know the sort of fool I am! I lodged at her
mother’s house, and the pair nursed me as if I were a sick
cat—well—Look!—I had to leave that place at a moment’s notice or I don’t
know what might have happened—you know. I paid up and cleared.
“Would you believe it, I hadn’t been home a week, when who should appear
one night past ten o’clock but that girl? Upon my word, I broke out in a
cold sweat all over. I’m as weak as water, and—she was divine. I tell
you—I had an awful job altogether. I quieted her down first, then I had
to bathe her feet, such pretty pink little ones, but all torn and
bruised. If you believe me, she had walked from ten miles this side of
Godalming. I got her some food and gave her up my bed, and somehow or
other I got her back next day; she’d have stayed on any terms, poor
little soul! Girls are queer fish,” he said modestly, “one never can
tell what’ll fetch them. It was all pretty hot on the mother, however,
so I gave her the few shillings I had, and then she wrote to say that
the girl got fever from the walk, so of course I’ve had to help them,
and I regret to say my boots have gone for a change to mine uncle’s. I
shall be paid on Friday, and then I’ll bloom back into my pristine glory
and accept invitations.
“I wonder,” he went on reflectively, “if there’s any way of keeping a
fellow from making a fool of himself. If you have happened to hear of
any in your travels, an anti-love philtre now, for Heaven’s sake divulge
it, it ruins one’s work getting in love in a promiscuous way, it’s a
brutal nuisance too, and devilish expensive. I know I always have to pay
compound interest for my pleasures in this line, and they’re absolutely
mawkish too, in their innocence,” he added, with a little injured sigh.
Strange watched the boy curiously, wondering what possible motive, or
train of motives, combined to keep his life so clean, with its every
condition on the side of uncleanness.
“He has neither convictions nor religion to hold him, he is as
passionate and sensual a fellow as any going, he is steeped to the lips
in Zola and others of that ilk; theoretically, innocence and he are as
far apart as the poles. He is a fool, no doubt, but I wish to God the
folly would last.”
Brydon guessed the elder man’s thoughts, or perhaps his own were running
on the same lines, as he sketched in the strong steady cool face with a
breadth of technique that was marvellous in a boy of his age and
opportunities.
“I wonder myself,” he said, “I don’t make more of my pleasures. A fellow
has opportunities somehow,” he added with pleasing diffidence, “no
matter how poor he is but I have a sort of notion I might lose in Art
what I should gain in pleasure. It would be idiotic to run that risk,
wouldn’t it? I have a sort of theory, it’s probably rot though it has a
sound of truth about it, that the cleaner one keeps one’s body and soul,
the clearer one’s eyes keep and the better able to tackle the truth in
Nature.”
He paused, a little embarrassed; any expression, even of the most
primitive morality, brings a blush of shame to the cheek of youth.
“That sounds like a workable theory,” assented Strange, “and upon my
word, I believe you will find it so. The opposite is playing the deuce
with the modern Italian school, and it strikes one like a blow in a lot
of the work of the youngsters there. I would thresh out that theory, if
I were you, nothing half and half will do.”
“No,” said Brydon ruefully, “no, that is where the grind comes in.”
Strange laughed, the fellow’s face and accent fitted his speech so
comically.
“I suppose I must let him get over the boot business himself, he’s so
beastly cocky, but I’m convinced he’s hungry. I wonder how much the jade
got out of him! Charlie,” he then said aloud, “I must be off, I shall
expect you on Friday at my Club. If I were you, old chap, I should stop
that young person’s supplies, the fever must be off her by this time.”
“I have a sort of awful conviction that it’s going to be intermittent,
and that nothing but a change of address will have any effect upon
it—but, oh, old man, if you could have seen that girl,” he concluded
regarding her head mournfully, with his own on one side, and with an
overwhelming longing for the Egyptian flesh-pots surging up within him.
Strange slapped him on the shoulder, “Just as well not, fevers come
expensive, whether they take you, or the victim to your charms.
Good-bye.”
END OF VOL. I.
SELECTIONS FROM
MESSRS. HUTCHINSON’S LIST.
---------------------
_BY W. L. REES._
=The Life and Times of Sir George Grey.= K.C.B. By W. L. REES. With
Photogravure Portraits. In demy 8vo. buckram gilt, 2 vols. 32/-. and
in one vol. 12/-.
The _Daily Telegraph_ (Leader) says:—“A work of extraordinary interest.”
_BY DOUGLAS SLADEN._
=The Japs at Home.= With over 50 Full-Page and other Illustrations.
Third edition. In demy 8vo. cloth, 6/-.
The _Times_ says:—“His notes and impressions make capital reading, and
we feel on closing the volume that it is not a bad substitute for a
visit to Japan.”
_BY GILBERT PARKER._
=Round the Compass in Australia.= Demy 8vo. cloth gilt, fully
illustrated, 3/6.
The _Pall Mall Gazette_ says:—“Mr. PARKER may fairly claim to have
produced one of the most readable of recent works on Australia.”
_BY MRS. OLIPHANT._
=The Cuckoo in the Nest.= A Fifth Edition. With Illustrations by G. H.
EDWARDS. In crown 8vo. cloth gilt, 6_s._
The _Athenæum_ says:—“Mrs. OLIPHANT’S most successful novel.”
_BY F. FRANKFORT MOORE._
=“I Forbid the Banns.”= The Story of a Comedy which was played
seriously. Sixth Edition. Cr. 8vo. cloth gilt, 6/-.
The _Athenæum_ says:—“So racy and brilliant a novel.”
_By the author of “I FORBID THE BANNS.”_
=Daireen.= A Novel. Second Edition. In crown 8vo. cloth gilt, 6/-.
_BY CLARK RUSSELL._
=The Tragedy of Ida Noble.= With over Forty full-page and smaller
Illustrations by EVERARD HOPKINS. In crown 8vo. buckram gilt, gilt
top, 6/-.
The _Times_ says:—“Mr. CLARK RUSSELL has never written a better story
than ‘The Tragedy of Ida Noble.’”
_BY AMELIA E. BARR._
=A Singer from the Sea.= In crown 8vo. cloth gilt, 5/-.
_BY ANNIE S. SWAN._
=A Bitter Debt.= A Tale of the Black Country. With Illustrations by D.
MURRAY SMITH. In cr. 8vo., cloth gilt, 5/-.
_BY B. L. FARJEON._
=The Last Tenant.= A Novel. In crown 8vo. cloth gilt, 5/-.
The _Globe_ says:—“In ‘The Last Tenant’ Mr. B. L. FARJEON shows all his
old skill as a plot-weaver, and all his usual ingenuity in the choice
and arrangement of incidents.... ‘The Last Tenant’ is a capital tale.”
_BY MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD._
=A Wild Proxy.= By the Author of “Aunt Anne.” In crown 8vo., cloth gilt,
3_s._ 6_d._
The _Athenæum_ says:—“Strikingly original, clever, fresh, cynical,
epigrammatic, stimulating, picturesque.”
_BY DICK DONOVAN._
=From Clue to Capture.= A Series of Thrilling Detective Stories. With
numerous Illustrations by PAUL HARDY. In crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3_s._
6_d._
_BY TWENTY-FOUR DISTINGUISHED NOVELISTS_
=The Fate of Fenella.= Fourth Edition. In crown 8vo., cloth gilt, with
over 70 Original Illustrations, 3_s._ 6_d._
THE AUTHORS ARE:—HELEN MATHERS, JUSTIN H. M’CARTHY, MRS. TROLLOPE, A.
CONAN DOYLE, MAY CROMMELIN, F. C. PHILLIPS, “RITA,” JOSEPH HATTON,
MRS. LOVETT CAMERON, BRAM STOKER, FLORENCE MARRYAT, FRANK DANBY, MRS.
EDWARD KENNARD, RICHARD DOWLING, MRS. HUNGERFORD, ARTHUR A’BECKETT, G.
MANVILLE FENN, JEAN MIDDLEMASS, H. W. LUCY, CLO. GRAVES, F. ANSTEY,
“TASMA,” CLEMENT SCOTT, AND ADELINE SERGEANT.
The _Academy_ says;—“An ingenious success.”
_By the author of “BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.”_
=Under the Great Seal.= By JOSEPH HATTON, Third Edition. In crown 8vo.
cloth, 3/6.
The _Daily Telegraph_ says:—“This thrilling story, every salient
incident is more or less tragical.”
_BY SEVEN POPULAR AUTHORS._
=Seven Christmas Eves.= Being the Romance of a Social Evolution. By CLO.
GRAVES, B. L. FARJEON, FLORENCE MARRYAT, G. MANVILLE FENN, MRS.
CAMPBELL PRAED, JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY, and CLEMENT SCOTT. With 28
Original Illustrations by DUDLEY HARDY. In cr. 8vo, cloth gilt, 3_s._
6_d._
_BY H. B. MARRIOT-WATSON._
=The Web of the Spider.= A Story of New Zealand Adventure. With
Frontispiece by STANLEY S. WOOD. Cr. 8vo. cloth gilt, 3_s._ 6_d._
The _Times_ says:—“We are quite unable to give any idea of the thrilling
events.... It is magnificent.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., 34 PATERNOSTER ROW.
Transcriber’s Note
This book uses inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, which were
retained in the ebook version. Ditto marks used to represent repeated
text have been replaced with the text that they represent. Some
corrections have been made to the text, including normalizing
punctuation. Further corrections are noted below:
p. 133: his prediliction for that religion -> his predilection for that
religion
p. 151: and get very keen and eager -> and got very keen and eager