Miss Julie had always encouraged Rosaleen’s fondness for drawing. In
fact, it may have been the drawing lessons she had given the little
girl and her fervent talk of “art” which had given Rosaleen the idea of
becoming an artist. But, whether the ambition was implanted by nature or
by Miss Julie, the ability was born with her. She had an undoubted
facility. In the long hours she had spent alone in the flat, she had
comforted herself with her little talent, copying the covers of
magazines and inventing romances around the imbecile beauties. And as
time went on, and her companions at school admired her work, her pride
and her hope increased. She saw in this career as an artist a chance of
escape, for freedom.
When she was graduated from the High School, at eighteen, she said that
she should like to study art seriously. Miss Amy had agreed at once, and
Rosaleen had then showed her an advertisement in the Sunday paper which
she had noticed for some weeks.
EUROPEAN ART TEACHER would accept one or two more young lady pupils.
Very moderate terms. Address F. W.
They had addressed F. W., and in the due course of time received a
letter signed “Faith Waters,” inviting them to call the next afternoon
at four. They had discovered the European Art Teacher living in a dark,
old-fashioned flat on Tenth Street, with one light room at the back
which she had made into a studio by filling it with plaster casts on
crooked shelves put up by her own hands. The teacher herself was a
withered little woman in a crushed and dusty brown dress, with a black
velvet bow in her cottony white hair, and she had the cultured voice of
one who has been to Europe.
Rosaleen looked about at the photographs on the walls of various persons
in stage costume, signed _A ma chère Miss--Bien à vous_--and so on. She
supposed that these were artistic foreign friends of Miss Waters’, never
suspecting that they were nothing more nor less than second rate stage
people to whom she had taught English.
“I suppose you’ve lived abroad a long time?” said Miss Amy.
“Oh, dear me, yes!” said Miss Waters. “I studied in Brussels for
_years_!”
She didn’t explain that this had been thirty years ago, and in a cheap
_pension de demoiselles_, and that she had never seen the inside of a
foreign art school, or studied under any master except the miserable old
man who had taught drawing as an extra to the demoiselles.
“I’ll show you some of my work,” she had said. “I haven’t a proper place
to hang them here. The light is so bad you’ll hardly be able to
judge.... But still....”
She led the way to the dining-room, where her canvases hung in
profusion. She specialised in animal life, kittens, puppies,
and--timidly--horses. The horses were supernaturally stalwart and
spirited, with tremendous chests and heads flung back splendidly, but
Miss Waters was conscious of many weak points in them, grave
deficiencies. She knew that sweet little kittens were more in her line.
Horses were, after all, rather grossly big animals, and she did them
only as an exercise in virtuosity.
Rosaleen and Miss Amy had been a trifle disappointed in Miss Waters’
work. They both had a feeling that animals were not truly artistic.
Flowers, landscapes, women and children, were what they had expected and
desired. Still, a group of six puppies in a row, astoundingly alike and
yet each one in a different attitude, compelled their admiration.
“Of course,” said Miss Waters, “_this_ is my real work. The teaching is
only a side line. But I do _love_ teaching. It is such a wonderful
privilege to help in developing a talent. Some of my pupils are among
the foremost artists in the country.”
She needn’t have gone on so recklessly, because her visitors were
already in quite the frame of mind she desired. That, however, she
couldn’t know.
“Portrait painters, landscape painters, painters of historical and
religious subjects.... I’ve taught them all. And I’ve been--well,” she
confessed, with a modest smile. “I’ve been very fortunate, I must say.
My pupils are among the most celebrated artists in this country. Not
always the best _known_,” she hastened to add. “Their _names_ might not
be familiar to you.... But they _rank_ very high.”
All superfluous. For Rosaleen and Miss Amy the fact of her being an
artist sufficed. They took it for granted that any artist knew all about
art, just as they would have expected any blacksmith to understand all
about horseshoeing. Then and there Rosaleen was put into her hands to be
developed.
And she had been going faithfully, three days a week, for nearly two
years, progressing steadily under the system which Miss Waters had found
successful with her pupils in the past. A great deal of drawing in
charcoal from casts at first, then watercolours, and then oils. When you
began to work with oils, the drudgery was over; accuracy was no longer
required, or outlines. The system also included what Miss Waters called
“just a bit of the History of Art,” short talks and readings, which
contained not a vestige of information about art and some very
remarkable history. It was in fact nothing more than a collection of
anecdotes about artists. Generally there was a king, who visited the
artist in disguise, or came up behind him on tiptoe, and who was struck
dumb by the verisimilitude of the painting before him. That was indeed
the measure of an artist’s greatness--that a horse tried to eat his
painted hay, a bird his fruit, that a man tried to sit upon his picture
of a chair, or to smell his flowers. A picture was a picture.
Rosaleen had progressed beyond casts now, and was devoting herself to
watercolours. She was learning the Rules of Perspective, and her
suspicion was becoming confirmed, that Art was a sort of professional
mystery to be learned as one learned law or medicine. She began to feel
that she was getting a grasp of the thing.
She was an altogether satisfactory pupil and Miss Waters was proud of
her; she was bright, docile, and very industrious.
But what was the matter with her on _this_ morning?
She sat before her patient little drawing of a ruined castle on a
hilltop, unable to draw a line, making a weak little scratch now and
then, and rubbing it out as soon as it had appeared.
“What _is_ the trouble, Rosaleen?” asked Miss Waters. “Don’t you feel
well?”
“Oh, yes, thank you, Miss Waters! I feel well. Only ... I don’t know
how it is ... but--I don’t feel like drawing a bit to-day.”
“I know, my dear child!” said Miss Waters. “I’m the same way myself.
It’s the beautiful autumn weather. It’s hard to concentrate on work. It
puts me in mind of my student days, in Brussels.”
She sighed. Those long years, in Paris and Brussels, trotting about from
one English family to another, teaching drawing, from one jolly
demi-mondaine to another, teaching English; the bare little rooms she
had shivered in, the dismal _pensions_, the dreadful straits in which
she had so often found herself, poor solitary muddle-headed little
foreigner! And yet she had loved it, that illusion of an artistic life;
friendless and poor as she was, she had had her pleasures, had dined at
the little restaurants where she could at least _see_ artists, had spent
hours and days in the picture galleries, had felt gay and adventurous
and irresponsible.
“I’ll tell you what, Rosaleen!” she cried suddenly. “Suppose we both go
out and take a turn round the square? It might do us both good--freshen
our brains!”
Rosaleen looked at the clock. Half past two; her lesson didn’t end till
three, and she had allowed herself half an hour to get up to the
Library. She couldn’t think what to say.
Miss Waters believed that she hesitated because she didn’t want to waste
any of her lesson time.
“We’ll go out, just for a ‘blow’,” she said. “And then you can come back
and work extra late, and we’ll have tea together. I haven’t any pupils
this afternoon.”
“But--I have to stop at the Library and get a book for Miss Amy,” said
Rosaleen. “And--I promised to take it home early.”
Miss Waters looked a trifle disappointed.
“Well, then,” she said. “Go ahead working until your time’s up, and then
I’ll walk up to the Library with you.”
Aghast, horrified, Rosaleen pretended to draw, thinking desperately of
some means of getting rid of Miss Waters. While all the time she could
hear Miss Waters getting ready, scrabbling about in her bedroom,
dropping things, and hunting for other things in bureau drawers.
Presently she came out, and in spite of the mild October day, she was
wearing her dreadful old sealskin coat with the high, puffed shoulders
that made her look so huddled, and perched high on her cottony hair, the
small fur hat that always blew off. It was always an infliction for
Rosaleen to walk with this poor old scarecrow, and on this day it was
nothing short of torture.
Sedately, arm in arm, they walked along Tenth Street and turned up
Fifth Avenue, Miss Waters leaning heavily upon Rosaleen and chattering
with youthful exuberance, roguishly aware of the glances that followed
her. And her hat did blow off, and bowled along ahead of them, like a
dusty, terrified little animal, until a man stopped it with his foot and
with disdain and in silence returned it to the dishevelled artist. She
thanked him, giggling, gathering her cottony hair in both hands to stuff
it back under the hat.
“I thought I had a pin in it,” she explained.
After this, she looked wilder than ever, and the rough October wind
swirling about her skirts revealed a hole in each of her stockings. And
presently she gave a dismayed shriek, and clutched her sealskin coat
about her.
“Oh!” she cried. “The button’s just come off!”
“What button?” asked Rosaleen.
“The button on my coat. Have you a pin, my dear?”
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t. Does it matter much?”
“Of course! How can I keep my coat together?” Miss Waters demanded,
plaintively.
“But--you must have more than _one_ button!”
“No, I really didn’t bother about sewing on the others.... _Oh!_ ... My
_hat_!”
And as she grasped after the hat with both hands the coat flew wide
open, to reveal its tattered rose coloured lining, hanging in shreds,
and the crushed and dusty old dress.
“Hadn’t we better go back?” said Rosaleen. “And I’ll come in and sew
your coat for you.”
Anything would be better than to meet _him_ with this companion; better
to lose him forever.
“Oh, no, thank you, my dear. As long as I’ve gone this far, I’ll go the
rest of the way. I’ll fix it in the library.”
So there was no escape possible. Arm in arm with Miss Waters she must
ascend the imposing flight of steps, enter the library, and advance
along the lofty corridors.
She saw him! Sitting on a bench, reading a magazine with a sort of
severe preoccupation. But Rosaleen knew that he had seen them and was
only pretending he hadn’t. They drew nearer and nearer. She was thinking
frantically. Should she speak to him _anyway_, or was he annoyed at her
for coming with Miss Waters? Or was he simply being tactful, desiring to
avoid embarrassing her with his unsanctioned presence? She couldn’t
decide. They drew nearer and nearer ... they were abreast of him.... She
threw him one anguished glance, but he did not look up from his
magazine.... They passed him, and went into the circulating room.
This was too awful!
“Would you just please ask if they have ‘Some Colonial Chairs’?” she
cried hastily to Miss Waters. “I think I see someone I know....”
And rushed out. But he was no longer sitting on the bench. She caught a
glimpse of him, vanishing round the corner.
She went back to Miss Waters, and had to carry home a huge, heavy volume
which she remembered Miss Amy having had from the library some years
ago.
She got into the bus with it, waved a cheerful good-bye to Miss Waters,
and went off home.