I
The train was half an hour late and the drive from the station longer
than he had supposed, so that when he reached the house its inmates had
dispersed to dress for dinner and he was conducted straight to his room.
The curtains were drawn in this asylum, the candles were lighted, the
fire was bright, and when the servant had quickly put out his clothes
the comfortable little place became suggestive--seemed to promise a
pleasant house, a various party, talks, acquaintances, affinities, to
say nothing of very good cheer. He was too occupied with his profession
to pay many country visits, but he had heard people who had more time
for them speak of establishments where 'they do you very well.' He
foresaw that the proprietors of Stayes would do him very well. In his
bedroom at a country house he always looked first at the books on the
shelf and the prints on the walls; he considered that these things gave
a sort of measure of the culture and even of the character of his hosts.
Though he had but little time to devote to them on this occasion a
cursory inspection assured him that if the literature, as usual, was
mainly American and humorous the art consisted neither of the
water-colour studies of the children nor of 'goody' engravings. The
walls were adorned with old-fashioned lithographs, principally portraits
of country gentlemen with high collars and riding gloves: this
suggested--and it was encouraging--that the tradition of portraiture was
held in esteem. There was the customary novel of Mr. Le Fanu, for the
bedside; the ideal reading in a country house for the hours after
midnight. Oliver Lyon could scarcely forbear beginning it while he
buttoned his shirt.
Perhaps that is why he not only found every one assembled in the hall
when he went down, but perceived from the way the move to dinner was
instantly made that they had been waiting for him. There was no delay,
to introduce him to a lady, for he went out in a group of unmatched men,
without this appendage. The men, straggling behind, sidled and edged as
usual at the door of the dining-room, and the _denouement_ of this
little comedy was that he came to his place last of all. This made him
think that he was in a sufficiently distinguished company, for if he had
been humiliated (which he was not), he could not have consoled himself
with the reflection that such a fate was natural to an obscure,
struggling young artist. He could no longer think of himself as very
young, alas, and if his position was not so brilliant as it ought to be
he could no longer justify it by calling it a struggle. He was something
of a celebrity and he was apparently in a society of celebrities. This
idea added to the curiosity with which he looked up and down the long
table as he settled himself in his place.
It was a numerous party--five and twenty people; rather an odd occasion
to have proposed to him, as he thought. He would not be surrounded by
the quiet that ministers to good work; however, it had never interfered
with his work to see the spectacle of human life before him in the
intervals. And though he did not know it, it was never quiet at Stayes.
When he was working well he found himself in that happy state--the
happiest of all for an artist--in which things in general contribute to
the particular idea and fall in with it, help it on and justify it, so
that he feels for the hour as if nothing in the world can happen to him,
even if it come in the guise of disaster or suffering, that will not be
an enhancement of his subject. Moreover there was an exhilaration (he
had felt it before) in the rapid change of scene--the jump, in the dusk
of the afternoon, from foggy London and his familiar studio to a centre
of festivity in the middle of Hertfordshire and a drama half acted, a
drama of pretty women and noted men and wonderful orchids in silver
jars. He observed as a not unimportant fact that one of the pretty women
was beside him: a gentleman sat on his other hand. But he went into his
neighbours little as yet: he was busy looking out for Sir David, whom he
had never seen and about whom he naturally was curious.
Evidently, however, Sir David was not at dinner, a circumstance
sufficiently explained by the other circumstance which constituted our
friend's principal knowledge of him--his being ninety years of age.
Oliver Lyon had looked forward with great pleasure to the chance of
painting a nonagenarian, and though the old man's absence from table was
something of a disappointment (it was an opportunity the less to
observe him before going to work), it seemed a sign that he was rather a
sacred and perhaps therefore an impressive relic. Lyon looked at his son
with the greater interest--wondered whether the glazed bloom of his
cheek had been transmitted from Sir David. That would be jolly to paint,
in the old man--the withered ruddiness of a winter apple, especially if
the eye were still alive and the white hair carried out the frosty look.
Arthur Ashmore's hair had a midsummer glow, but Lyon was glad his
commission had been to delineate the father rather than the son, in
spite of his never having seen the one and of the other being seated
there before him now in the happy expansion of liberal hospitality.
Arthur Ashmore was a fresh-coloured, thick-necked English gentleman, but
he was just not a subject; he might have been a farmer and he might have
been a banker: you could scarcely paint him in characters. His wife did
not make up the amount; she was a large, bright, negative woman, who had
the same air as her husband of being somehow tremendously new; a sort of
appearance of fresh varnish (Lyon could scarcely tell whether it came
from her complexion or from her clothes), so that one felt she ought to
sit in a gilt frame, suggesting reference to a catalogue or a
price-list. It was as if she were already rather a bad though expensive
portrait, knocked off by an eminent hand, and Lyon had no wish to copy
that work. The pretty woman on his right was engaged with her neighbour
and the gentleman on his other side looked shrinking and scared, so that
he had time to lose himself in his favourite diversion of watching face
after face. This amusement gave him the greatest pleasure he knew, and
he often thought it a mercy that the human mask did interest him and
that it was not less vivid than it was (sometimes it ran its success in
this line very close), since he was to make his living by reproducing
it. Even if Arthur Ashmore would not be inspiring to paint (a certain
anxiety rose in him lest if he should make a hit with her father-in-law
Mrs. Arthur should take it into her head that he had now proved himself
worthy to _aborder_ her husband); even if he had looked a little less
like a page (fine as to print and margin) without punctuation, he would
still be a refreshing, iridescent surface. But the gentleman four
persons off--what was he? Would he be a subject, or was his face only
the legible door-plate of his identity, burnished with punctual washing
and shaving--the least thing that was decent that you would know him by?
This face arrested Oliver Lyon: it struck him at first as very handsome.
The gentleman might still be called young, and his features were
regular: he had a plentiful, fair moustache that curled up at the ends,
a brilliant, gallant, almost adventurous air, and a big shining
breastpin in the middle of his shirt. He appeared a fine satisfied soul,
and Lyon perceived that wherever he rested his friendly eye there fell
an influence as pleasant as the September sun--as if he could make
grapes and pears or even human affection ripen by looking at them. What
was odd in him was a certain mixture of the correct and the extravagant:
as if he were an adventurer imitating a gentleman with rare perfection
or a gentleman who had taken a fancy to go about with hidden arms. He
might have been a dethroned prince or the war-correspondent of a
newspaper: he represented both enterprise and tradition, good manners
and bad taste. Lyon at length fell into conversation with the lady
beside him--they dispensed, as he had had to dispense at dinner-parties
before, with an introduction--by asking who this personage might be.
'Oh, he's Colonel Capadose, don't you know?' Lyon didn't know and he
asked for further information. His neighbour had a sociable manner and
evidently was accustomed to quick transitions; she turned from her other
interlocutor with a methodical air, as a good cook lifts the cover of
the next saucepan. 'He has been a great deal in India--isn't he rather
celebrated?' she inquired. Lyon confessed he had never heard of him, and
she went on, 'Well, perhaps he isn't; but he says he is, and if you
think it, that's just the same, isn't it?'
'If _you_ think it?'
'I mean if he thinks it--that's just as good, I suppose.'
'Do you mean that he says that which is not?'
'Oh dear, no--because I never know. He is exceedingly clever and
amusing--quite the cleverest person in the house, unless indeed you are
more so. But that I can't tell yet, can I? I only know about the people
I know; I think that's celebrity enough!'
'Enough for them?'
'Oh, I see you're clever. Enough for me! But I have heard of you,' the
lady went on. 'I know your pictures; I admire them. But I don't think
you look like them.'
'They are mostly portraits,' Lyon said; 'and what I usually try for is
not my own resemblance.'
'I see what you mean. But they have much more colour. And now you are
going to do some one here?'
'I have been invited to do Sir David. I'm rather disappointed at not
seeing him this evening.'
'Oh, he goes to bed at some unnatural hour--eight o'clock or something
of that sort. You know he's rather an old mummy.'
'An old mummy?' Oliver Lyon repeated.
'I mean he wears half a dozen waistcoats, and that sort of thing. He's
always cold.'
'I have never seen him and never seen any portrait or photograph of
him,' Lyon said. 'I'm surprised at his never having had anything
done--at their waiting all these years.'
'Ah, that's because he was afraid, you know; it was a kind of
superstition. He was sure that if anything were done he would die
directly afterwards. He has only consented to-day.'
'He's ready to die then?'
'Oh, now he's so old he doesn't care.'
'Well, I hope I shan't kill him,' said Lyon. 'It was rather unnatural in
his son to send for me.'
'Oh, they have nothing to gain--everything is theirs already!' his
companion rejoined, as if she took this speech quite literally. Her
talkativeness was systematic--she fraternised as seriously as she might
have played whist. 'They do as they like--they fill the house with
people--they have _carte blanche_.'
'I see--but there's still the title.'
'Yes, but what is it?'
Our artist broke into laughter at this, whereat his companion stared.
Before he had recovered himself she was scouring the plain with her
other neighbour. The gentleman on his left at last risked an
observation, and they had some fragmentary talk. This personage played
his part with difficulty: he uttered a remark as a lady fires a pistol,
looking the other way. To catch the ball Lyon had to bend his ear, and
this movement led to his observing a handsome creature who was seated on
the same side, beyond his interlocutor. Her profile was presented to him
and at first he was only struck with its beauty; then it produced an
impression still more agreeable--a sense of undimmed remembrance and
intimate association. He had not recognised her on the instant only
because he had so little expected to see her there; he had not seen her
anywhere for so long, and no news of her ever came to him. She was often
in his thoughts, but she had passed out of his life. He thought of her
twice a week; that may be called often in relation to a person one has
not seen for twelve years. The moment after he recognised her he felt
how true it was that it was only she who could look like that: of the
most charming head in the world (and this lady had it) there could never
be a replica. She was leaning forward a little; she remained in profile,
apparently listening to some one on the other side of her. She was
listening, but she was also looking, and after a moment Lyon followed
the direction of her eyes. They rested upon the gentleman who had been
described to him as Colonel Capadose--rested, as it appeared to him,
with a kind of habitual, visible complacency. This was not strange, for
the Colonel was unmistakably formed to attract the sympathetic gaze of
woman; but Lyon was slightly disappointed that she could let _him_ look
at her so long without giving him a glance. There was nothing between
them to-day and he had no rights, but she must have known he was coming
(it was of course not such a tremendous event, but she could not have
been staying in the house without hearing of it), and it was not natural
that that should absolutely fail to affect her.
She was looking at Colonel Capadose as if she were in love with him--a
queer accident for the proudest, most reserved of women. But doubtless
it was all right, if her husband liked it or didn't notice it: he had
heard indefinitely, years before, that she was married, and he took for
granted (as he had not heard that she had become a widow) the presence
of the happy man on whom she had conferred what she had refused to
_him_, the poor art-student at Munich. Colonel Capadose appeared to be
aware of nothing, and this circumstance, incongruously enough, rather
irritated Lyon than gratified him. Suddenly the lady turned her head,
showing her full face to our hero. He was so prepared with a greeting
that he instantly smiled, as a shaken jug overflows; but she gave him no
response, turned away again and sank back in her chair. All that her
face said in that instant was, 'You see I'm as handsome as ever.' To
which he mentally subjoined, 'Yes, and as much good it does me!' He
asked the young man beside him if he knew who that beautiful being
was--the fifth person beyond him. The young man leaned forward,
considered and then said, 'I think she's Mrs. Capadose.'
'Do you mean his wife--that fellow's?' And Lyon indicated the subject
of the information given him by his other neighbour.
'Oh, is _he_ Mr. Capadose?' said the young man, who appeared very vague.
He admitted his vagueness and explained it by saying that there were so
many people and he had come only the day before. What was definite to
Lyon was that Mrs. Capadose was in love with her husband; so that he
wished more than ever that he had married her.
'She's very faithful,' he found himself saying three minutes later to
the lady on his right. He added that he meant Mrs. Capadose.
'Ah, you know her then?'
'I knew her once upon a time--when I was living abroad.'
'Why then were you asking me about her husband?'
'Precisely for that reason. She married after that--I didn't even know
her present name.'
'How then do you know it now?'
'This gentleman has just told me--he appears to know.'
'I didn't know he knew anything,' said the lady, glancing forward.
'I don't think he knows anything but that.'
'Then you have found out for yourself that she is faithful. What do you
mean by that?'
'Ah, you mustn't question me--I want to question you,' Lyon said. 'How
do you all like her here?'
'You ask too much! I can only speak for myself. I think she's hard.'
'That's only because she's honest and straightforward.'
'Do you mean I like people in proportion as they deceive?'
'I think we all do, so long as we don't find them out,' Lyon said. 'And
then there's something in her face--a sort of Roman type, in spite of
her having such an English eye. In fact she's English down to the
ground; but her complexion, her low forehead and that beautiful close
little wave in her dark hair make her look like a glorified
_contadina_.'
'Yes, and she always sticks pins and daggers into her head, to increase
that effect. I must say I like her husband better: he is so clever.'
'Well, when I knew her there was no comparison that could injure her.
She was altogether the most delightful thing in Munich.'
'In Munich?'
'Her people lived there; they were not rich--in pursuit of economy in
fact, and Munich was very cheap. Her father was the younger son of some
noble house; he had married a second time and had a lot of little mouths
to feed. She was the child of the first wife and she didn't like her
stepmother, but she was charming to her little brothers and sisters. I
once made a sketch of her as Werther's Charlotte, cutting bread and
butter while they clustered all round her. All the artists in the place
were in love with her but she wouldn't look at 'the likes' of us. She
was too proud--I grant you that; but she wasn't stuck up nor young
ladyish; she was simple and frank and kind about it. She used to remind
me of Thackeray's Ethel Newcome. She told me she must marry well: it was
the one thing she could do for her family. I suppose you would say that
she _has_ married well.'
'She told _you_?' smiled Lyon's neighbour.
'Oh, of course I proposed to her too. But she evidently thinks so
herself!' he added.
When the ladies left the table the host as usual bade the gentlemen draw
together, so that Lyon found himself opposite to Colonel Capadose. The
conversation was mainly about the 'run,' for it had apparently been a
great day in the hunting-field. Most of the gentlemen communicated their
adventures and opinions, but Colonel Capadose's pleasant voice was the
most audible in the chorus. It was a bright and fresh but masculine
organ, just such a voice as, to Lyon's sense, such a 'fine man' ought to
have had. It appeared from his remarks that he was a very straight
rider, which was also very much what Lyon would have expected. Not that
he swaggered, for his allusions were very quietly and casually made; but
they were all too dangerous experiments and close shaves. Lyon perceived
after a little that the attention paid by the company to the Colonel's
remarks was not in direct relation to the interest they seemed to offer;
the result of which was that the speaker, who noticed that _he_ at least
was listening, began to treat him as his particular auditor and to fix
his eyes on him as he talked. Lyon had nothing to do but to look
sympathetic and assent--Colonel Capadose appeared to take so much
sympathy and assent for granted. A neighbouring squire had had an
accident; he had come a cropper in an awkward place--just at the
finish--with consequences that looked grave. He had struck his head; he
remained insensible, up to the last accounts: there had evidently been
concussion of the brain. There was some exchange of views as to his
recovery--how soon it would take place or whether it would take place at
all; which led the Colonel to confide to our artist across the table
that _he_ shouldn't despair of a fellow even if he didn't come round for
weeks--for weeks and weeks and weeks--for months, almost for years. He
leaned forward; Lyon leaned forward to listen, and Colonel Capadose
mentioned that he knew from personal experience that there was really no
limit to the time one might lie unconscious without being any the worse
for it. It had happened to him in Ireland, years before; he had been
pitched out of a dogcart, had turned a sheer somersault and landed on
his head. They thought he was dead, but he wasn't; they carried him
first to the nearest cabin, where he lay for some days with the pigs,
and then to an inn in a neighbouring town--it was a near thing they
didn't put him under ground. He had been completely insensible--without
a ray of recognition of any human thing--for three whole months; had not
a glimmer of consciousness of any blessed thing. It was touch and go to
that degree that they couldn't come near him, they couldn't feed him,
they could scarcely look at him. Then one day he had opened his eyes--as
fit as a flea!
'I give you my honour it had done me good--it rested my brain.' He
appeared to intimate that with an intelligence so active as his these
periods of repose were providential. Lyon thought his story very
striking, but he wanted to ask him whether he had not shammed a
little--not in relating it, but in keeping so quiet. He hesitated
however, in time, to imply a doubt--he was so impressed with the tone in
which Colonel Capadose said that it was the turn of a hair that they
hadn't buried him alive. That had happened to a friend of his in
India--a fellow who was supposed to have died of jungle fever--they
clapped him into a coffin. He was going on to recite the further fate of
this unfortunate gentleman when Mr. Ashmore made a move and every one
got up to adjourn to the drawing-room. Lyon noticed that by this time no
one was heeding what his new friend said to him. They came round on
either side of the table and met while the gentlemen dawdled before
going out.
'And do you mean that your friend was literally buried alive?' asked
Lyon, in some suspense.
Colonel Capadose looked at him a moment, as if he had already lost the
thread of the conversation. Then his face brightened--and when it
brightened it was doubly handsome. 'Upon my soul he was chucked into the
ground!'
'And was he left there?'
'He was left there till I came and hauled him out.'
'_You_ came?'
'I dreamed about him--it's the most extraordinary story: I heard him
calling to me in the night. I took upon myself to dig him up. You know
there are people in India--a kind of beastly race, the ghouls--who
violate graves. I had a sort of presentiment that they would get at him
first. I rode straight, I can tell you; and, by Jove, a couple of them
had just broken ground! Crack--crack, from a couple of barrels, and they
showed me their heels, as you may believe. Would you credit that I took
him out myself? The air brought him to and he was none the worse. He
has got his pension--he came home the other day; he would do anything
for me.'
'He called to you in the night?' said Lyon, much startled.
'That's the interesting point. Now _what was it_? It wasn't his ghost,
because he wasn't dead. It wasn't himself, because he couldn't. It was
something or other! You see India's a strange country--there's an
element of the mysterious: the air is full of things you can't explain.'
They passed out of the dining-room, and Colonel Capadose, who went among
the first, was separated from Lyon; but a minute later, before they
reached the drawing-room, he joined him again. 'Ashmore tells me who you
are. Of course I have often heard of you--I'm very glad to make your
acquaintance; my wife used to know you.'
'I'm glad she remembers me. I recognised her at dinner and I was afraid
she didn't.'
'Ah, I daresay she was ashamed,' said the Colonel, with indulgent
humour.
'Ashamed of me?' Lyon replied, in the same key.
'Wasn't there something about a picture? Yes; you painted her portrait.'
'Many times,' said the artist; 'and she may very well have been ashamed
of what I made of her.'
'Well, I wasn't, my dear sir; it was the sight of that picture, which
you were so good as to present to her, that made me first fall in love
with her.'
'Do you mean that one with the children--cutting bread and butter?'
'Bread and butter? Bless me, no--vine leaves and a leopard skin--a kind
of Bacchante.'
'Ah, yes,' said Lyon; 'I remember. It was the first decent portrait I
painted. I should be curious to see it to-day.'
'Don't ask her to show it to you--she'll be mortified!' the Colonel
exclaimed.
'Mortified?'
'We parted with it--in the most disinterested manner,' he laughed. 'An
old friend of my wife's--her family had known him intimately when they
lived in Germany--took the most extraordinary fancy to it: the Grand
Duke of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein, don't you know? He came out to
Bombay while we were there and he spotted your picture (you know he's
one of the greatest collectors in Europe), and made such eyes at it
that, upon my word--it happened to be his birthday--she told him he
might have it, to get rid of him. He was perfectly enchanted--but we
miss the picture.'
'It is very good of you,' Lyon said. 'If it's in a great collection--a
work of my incompetent youth--I am infinitely honoured.'
'Oh, he has got it in one of his castles; I don't know which--you know
he has so many. He sent us, before he left India--to return the
compliment--a magnificent old vase.'
'That was more than the thing was worth,' Lyon remarked.
Colonel Capadose gave no heed to this observation; he seemed to be
thinking of something. After a moment he said, 'If you'll come and see
us in town she'll show you the vase.' And as they passed into the
drawing-room he gave the artist a friendly propulsion. 'Go and speak to
her; there she is--she'll be delighted.'
Oliver Lyon took but a few steps into the wide saloon; he stood there a
moment looking at the bright composition of the lamplit group of fair
women, the single figures, the great setting of white and gold, the
panels of old damask, in the centre of each of which was a single
celebrated picture. There was a subdued lustre in the scene and an air
as of the shining trains of dresses tumbled over the carpet. At the
furthest end of the room sat Mrs. Capadose, rather isolated; she was on
a small sofa, with an empty place beside her. Lyon could not flatter
himself she had been keeping it for him; her failure to respond to his
recognition at table contradicted that, but he felt an extreme desire to
go and occupy it. Moreover he had her husband's sanction; so he crossed
the room, stepping over the tails of gowns, and stood before his old
friend.
'I hope you don't mean to repudiate me,' he said.
She looked up at him with an expression of unalloyed pleasure. 'I am so
glad to see you. I was delighted when I heard you were coming.'
'I tried to get a smile from you at dinner--but I couldn't.'
'I didn't see--I didn't understand. Besides, I hate smirking and
telegraphing. Also I'm very shy--you won't have forgotten that. Now we
can communicate comfortably.' And she made a better place for him on the
little sofa. He sat down and they had a talk that he enjoyed, while the
reason for which he used to like her so came back to him, as well as a
good deal of the very same old liking. She was still the least spoiled
beauty he had ever seen, with an absence of coquetry or any insinuating
art that seemed almost like an omitted faculty; there were moments when
she struck her interlocutor as some fine creature from an asylum--a
surprising deaf-mute or one of the operative blind. Her noble pagan head
gave her privileges that she neglected, and when people were admiring
her brow she was wondering whether there were a good fire in her
bedroom. She was simple, kind and good; inexpressive but not inhuman or
stupid. Now and again she dropped something that had a sifted, selected
air--the sound of an impression at first hand. She had no imagination,
but she had added up her feelings, some of her reflections, about life.
Lyon talked of the old days in Munich, reminded her of incidents,
pleasures and pains, asked her about her father and the others; and she
told him in return that she was so impressed with his own fame, his
brilliant position in the world, that she had not felt very sure he
would speak to her or that his little sign at table was meant for her.
This was plainly a perfectly truthful speech--she was incapable of any
other--and he was affected by such humility on the part of a woman whose
grand line was unique. Her father was dead; one of her brothers was in
the navy and the other on a ranch in America; two of her sisters were
married and the youngest was just coming out and very pretty. She didn't
mention her stepmother. She asked him about his own personal history and
he said that the principal thing that had happened to him was that he
had never married.
'Oh, you ought to,' she answered. 'It's the best thing.'
'I like that--from you!' he returned.
'Why not from me? I am very happy.'
'That's just why I can't be. It's cruel of you to praise your state. But
I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of your husband. We
had a good bit of talk in the other room.'
'You must know him better--you must know him really well,' said Mrs.
Capadose.
'I am sure that the further you go the more you find. But he makes a
fine show, too.'