"And it has brought those two young souls together in a marvellous way,
this common interest in fine art. You will find Maud a much more
serious person, Jane. No, if I were Painter I certainly should not care
a fig whether it proves to be a copy or not. I shouldn't let that
influence me in my love for such an educational wonder."
The bluff was really sublime, but painful. My wife gave a decided hint
to Watkins that his presence in such a family scene was awkward. He
took his hat and cane. Uncle Ezra rose and grasped him cordially by the
hand.
"You have been very generous, Mr. Watkins," he said, in his own sweet
way, "to do such an unpleasant job. It's a large draft to make on the
kindness of a friend."
"Oh, don't mention it, Mr. Williams; and if you want to buy something
really fine, a Van Dyck print--a----"
Uncle Ezra was shooing him toward the door. From the stairs we could
still hear his voice. "Or a Whistler etching for twenty-five pounds, I
could get you, now, a very fine----"
"No, thank you, Mr. Watkins," Uncle Ezra said, firmly. "I don't believe
I have any money just now for such an investment."
My wife tiptoed about the room, making faces at the exposed
masterpieces. "What shall we do?" Uncle Ezra came back into the room,
his face a trifle grayer and more worn. "Capital fellow, that Watkins,"
he said; "so firm and frank."
"Uncle," I ventured at random, "I met Flügel the other day in the
street. You know Flügel's new book on the Renaissance. He's the coming
young critic in art, has made a wonderful reputation the last three
years, is on the _Beaux Arts_ staff, and really _knows_. He is living
out at Frascati. I could telegraph and have him here this afternoon,
perhaps."
"Well, I don't know;" his tone, however, said "Yes." "I don't care much
for expert advice--for specialists. But it wouldn't do any harm to hear
what he has to say. And Maud and Painter have made up their minds that
Maud's is a Titian."
So I ran out and sent off the despatch. My wife took Uncle Ezra down to
the Forum and attempted to console him with the ugliness of genuine
antiquity, while I waited for Flügel. He came in a tremendous hurry,
his little, muddy eyes winking hard behind gold spectacles.
"Ah, yes," he began to paw the pictures over as if they were live
stock, "that was bought for a Bonifazio," he had picked up Maud's
ruby-colored prize. "Of course, of course, it's a copy, an old copy, of
Titian's picture, No. 3,405, in the National Gallery at London. There
is a replica in the Villa Ludovisi here at Rome. It's a stupid copy,
some alterations, all for the bad--worthless--well, not to the
_antichità_, for it must be 1590, I should say. But worthless for us
and in bad condition. I wouldn't give cinque lire for it."
"And the Bissola?" I said. "Oh, that was done in the seventeenth
century--it would make good kindling. But this," he turned away from
Painter's picture with a gesture of contempt, "this is Domenico
Tintoretto fast enough, at least what hasn't been stippled over and
painted out. St. Agnes's leg here is entire, and that tree in the
background is original. A damn bad man, but there are traces of his
slop work. Perhaps the hair is by him, too. Well, good-by, old fellow;
I must be off to dinner."
That was slight consolation; a leg, a tree, and some wisps of hair in a
picture three feet six by four feet eight. Our dinner that evening was
labored. The next morning Uncle Ezra packed his three treasures
tenderly, putting in cotton-wool at the edges, my wife helping him to
make them comfortable. We urged him to stay over with us for a few
days; we would all go on later to Venice. But Uncle Ezra seemed moved
by some hidden cause. Back he would trot at once. "Painter will want
his picture," he said, "he has been waiting on in Venice just for this,
and I must not keep him." Watkins turned up as we were getting into the
cab to see Uncle Ezra off, and insisted upon accompanying us to the
station. My wife took the opportunity to rub into him Flügel's remarks,
which, at least, made Watkins out shady in chronology. At the station
we encountered a new difficulty. The ticket collector would not let the
pictures through the gate. My uncle expostulated in pure Tuscan.
Watkins swore in Roman.
"Give him five lire, Mr. Williams."
Poor Uncle Ezra fumbled in his pocket-book for the piece of money. He
had never bribed in his life. It was a terrible moral fall, to see him
tremblingly offer the piece of scrip. The man refused, "positive
orders, _permesso_ necessary," etc., etc. The bell rang; there was a
rush. Uncle Ezra looked unhappy.
"Here," Watkins shouted, grabbing the precious pictures in a manner far
from reverent, "I'll send these on, Mr. Williams; run for your train."
Uncle Ezra gave one undecided glance, and then yielded. "You will look
after them," he pleaded, "carefully."
"You shall have them safe enough," my wife promised.
"Blast the pasteboards," Watkins put in under his breath, "the best
thing to do with them is to chop 'em up." He was swinging them back and
forth under his arm. My wife took them firmly from him. "He shall have
his pictures, and not from your ribald hands."
A week later Rome became suddenly oppressively warm. We started off for
Venice, Watkins tagging on incorrigibly. "I want to see 'Maud,'" he
explained. The pictures had been packed and sent ahead by express. "The
storm must have burst, tears shed, tempers cooled, mortification set
in," I remarked, as we were being shoved up the Grand Canal toward the
Palazzo Palladio. "There they are in the balcony," my wife exclaimed,
"waving to us. Something is up; Maudie is hanging back, with Aunt Mary,
and Professor Painter is at the other end, with Uncle Ezra."
The first thing that caught the eye after the flurry of greetings was
the impudent blue and red of Uncle Ezra's "Sancta Conversazione,"
Domenico Tintoretto, Savoldo, or what not; St. Agnes's leg and all,
beaming at us from the wall. The other two were not there. My wife
looked at me. Maudie was making herself very gracious with little
Watkins. Painter's solemn face began to lower more and more. Aunt Mary
and Uncle Ezra industriously poured oil by the bucket upon the social
sea.
At last Maud rose: "You _must_ take me over there at once, Mr. Watkins.
It will be such an enjoyment to have someone who really knows about
pictures and has taste." This shot at poor Painter; then to my wife,
"Come, Jane, you will like to see your room."
Painter crossed to me and suggested, lugubriously, a cigar on the
balcony. He smoked a few minutes in gloomy silence.
"Does that fellow know anything?" he emitted at last, jerking his head
at Watkins, who was pouring out information at Uncle Ezra. I began
gently to give Charles Henderson Watkins a fair reputation for
intelligence. "I mean anything about art? Of course it doesn't matter
what he says about my picture, whether it is a copy or not, but Miss
Vantweekle takes it very hard about hers. She blames me for having been
with her when she bought it, and having advised her and encouraged her
to put six hundred dollars into it."
"Six hundred," I gasped.
"Cheap for a Bonifazio, or a _Titian_, as we thought it."
"Too cheap," I murmured.
"Well, I got bitten for about the same on my own account. I sha'n't get
that Rachel's library at Berlin, that's all. The next time you catch me
fooling in a subject where I don't know my bearings--like fine art--You
see Mr. Williams found my picture one day when he was nosing about at
an _antichita's_, and thought it very fine. I admire Mr. Williams
tremendously, and I valued his opinion about art subjects much more
then than I do now. He and Mrs. Williams were wild over it. They had
just bought their picture, and they wanted us each to have one. They
have lots of sentiment, you know."
"Lots," I assented.
"Mrs. Williams got at me, and well, she made me feel that it would
bring me nearer to Miss Vantweekle. You know she goes in for art, and
she used to be impatient with me because I couldn't appreciate. I was
dumb when she walked me up to some old Madonna, and the others would go
on at a great rate. Well, in a word, I bought it for my education, and
I guess I have got it!
"Then the man, he's an old Jew on the Grand Canal--Raffman, you know
him? He got out another picture, the Bonifazio. The Williamses began to
get up steam over that, too. They hung over that thing Mr. Williams
bought, that Savoldo or Domenico Tintoretto, and prowled about the
churches and the galleries finding traces of it here in the style of
this picture and that; in short, we all got into a fever about
pictures, and Miss Vantweekle invested all the money an aunt had given
her before coming abroad, in that Bonifazio.
"I must say that Miss Vantweekle held off some time, was doubtful about
the picture; didn't feel that she wanted to put all her money into it.
But she caught fire in the general excitement, and I may say"--here a
sad sort of conscious smile crept over the young professor's face--"at
that time I had a good deal of influence with her. She bought the
picture, we brought it home, and put it up at the other end of the
hall. We spent hours over that picture, studying out every line,
placing every color. We made up our minds soon enough that it wasn't a
Bonifazio, but we began to think--now don't laugh, or I'll pitch you
over the balcony--it was an early work by Titian. There was an attempt
in it for great things, as Mr. Williams said: no small man could have
planned it. One night we had been talking for hours about them, and we
were all pretty well excited. Mr. Williams suggested getting Watkins's
opinion. Maud--Miss Vantweekle said, loftily, 'Oh! it does not make any
difference what the critics say about it, the picture means everything
to me'; and I, like a fool, felt happier than ever before in my life.
The next morning Mr. Williams telegraphed you and set off."
He waited.
"And when he returned?"
"It's been hell ever since."
He was in no condition to see the comic side of the affair. Nor was
Miss Vantweekle. She was on my wife's bed in tears.
"All poor Aunt Higgins's present gone into that horrid thing," she
moaned, "and all the dresses I was planning to get in Paris. I shall
have to go home looking like a perfect dowd!"
"But think of the influence it has been in your life--the education you
have received from that picture. How can you call all that color, those
noble faces, 'that horrid thing?'" I said, reprovingly. She sat upright.
"See here, Jerome Parker, if you ever say anything like that again, I
will never speak to you any more, or to Jane, though you are my
cousins."
"They have tried to return the picture," my wife explained. "Professor
Painter and Uncle Ezra took it over yesterday; but, of course, the Jew
laughed at them."
"'A copy!' he said." Maud explained, "Why, it's no more a copy than
Titian's 'Assumption.' He could show us the very place in a palace on
the Grand Canal where it had hung for four hundred years. Of course,
all the old masters used the same models, and grouped their pictures
alike. Very probably Titian had a picture something like it. What of
that? He defied us to find the exact original."
"Well," I remarked, soothingly, "that ought to comfort you, I am sure.
Call your picture a new Titian, and sell it when you get home."
"Mr. Watkins says that's an old trick," moaned Maud, "that story about
the palace. He says old Raffman has a pal among the Italian nobility,
and works off copies through him all the time. I won't say anything
about Uncle Ezra; he has been as kind and good as he can be, only a
little too enthusiastic. But Professor Painter!"
She tossed her head.
The atmosphere in the Palazzo Palladio for the next few days was highly
charged.
At dinner Uncle Ezra placidly made remarks about the Domenico
Tintoretto, almost vaingloriously, I thought. "Such a piece of Venice
to carry away. We missed it so much, those days you had it in Rome. It
is so precious that I cannot bear to pack it up and lose sight of it
for five months. Mary, just see that glorious piece of color over
there."
Meantime some kind of conspiracy was on foot. Maud went off whole
mornings with Watkins and Uncle Ezra. We were left out as
unsympathetic. Painter wandered about like a sick ghost. He would sit
glowering at Maud and Watkins while they held whispered conversations
at the other end of the hall. Watkins was the hero. He had accepted
Flügel's judgment with impudent grace.
"A copy of Titian, of course," he said to me; "really, it is quite hard
on poor Miss Vantweekle. People, even learned people, who don't know
about such things, had better not advise. I have had the photographs of
all Titian's pictures sent on, and we have found the original of your
cousin's picture. Isn't it very like?"
It was very like; a figure was left out in the copy, the light was
changed, but still it was a happy guess of Flügel.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" I said to Maud, who had just
joined us.
"Oh, Mr. Watkins has kindly consented to manage the matter for me; I
believe he has a friend here, an artist, Mr. Hare, who will give expert
judgment on it. Then the American vice-consul is a personal friend of
Mr. Watkins, and also Count Corner, the adviser at the Academy. We
shall frighten the old Jew, sha'n't we, Mr. Watkins?"
I walked over to the despised Madonna that was tipped up on its side,
ready to be walked off on another expedition of defamation.
"Poor Bonifazio," I sighed, "Maud, how can you part with a work of fine
art that has meant so much to you?"
"Do you think, Jerome, I would go home and have Uncle Higgins, with his
authentic Rembrandt and all his other pictures, laugh at me and my
Titian? I'd burn it first."
I turned to Uncle Ezra. "Uncle, what strange metamorphosis has happened
to this picture? The spiritual light from that color must shine as
brightly as ever; the intrinsic value remains forever fixed in Maud's
soul; it is desecration to reject such a precious message. Why, it's
like sending back the girl you married because her pedigree proved
defective, or because she had lost her fortune. It's positively brutal!"
Maud darted a venomous glance at me; however, I had put the judge in a
hole.
"I cannot agree with you, Jerome." Uncle Ezra could never be put in a
hole. "Maud's case is a very different one from Mr. Painter's or mine.
We can carry back what we like personally, but for Maud to carry home a
doubtful picture into the atmosphere she has to live in--why, it would
be intolerable--with her uncle a connoisseur, all her friends owners of
masterpieces." Uncle Ezra had a flowing style. "It would expose her to
annoyance, to mortification--constant, daily. Above all, to have taken
a special gift, a fund of her aunt's, and to apply it in this mistaken
fashion is cruel."
Painter remarked bitterly to me afterward, "He wants to crawl on his
share of the responsibility. I'd buy the picture if I could raise the
cash, and end the whole miserable business."
Indeed, Watkins seemed the only one blissfully in his element. As my
wife remarked, Watkins had exchanged his interest in pictures for an
interest in woman. Certainly he had planned his battle well. It came
off the next day. They all left in a gondola at an early hour. Painter
and I watched them from the balcony. After they were seated, Watkins
tossed in carelessly the suspected picture. What went on at the
_antichità's_ no one of the boat-load ever gave away. Watkins had a
hold on the man somehow, and the evidence of the fraud was
overwhelming. About noon they came back, Maud holding an enormous
envelope in her hand.
"I can never, never thank you enough, Mr. Watkins," she beamed at him.
"You have saved me from such mortification and unhappiness, and you
were so _clever_."
That night at dinner Uncle Ezra was more than usually genial, and
beamed upon Maud and Watkins perpetually. Watkins was quite the hero
and did his best to look humble.
"How much rent did the spiritual influence cost, Maud?" I asked. She
was too happy to be offended. "Oh, we bought an old ring to make him
feel pleased, five pounds, and Mr. Hare's services were worth five
pounds, and Mr. Watkins thinks we should give the vice-consul a box of
cigars.
"Let's see; ten pounds and a box of cigars, that's three hundred lire
at the price of exchange. You had the picture just three weeks, a
hundred lire a week for the use of all that education in art, all that
spiritual influence. Quite cheap, I should say."
"And Mr. Watkins's services, Maud!" my wife asked, viciously. There was
a slight commotion at the table.
"May I, Maud?" Watkins murmured.
"As you please, Charles," Maud replied, with her eyes lowered to the
table.
"Maud has given herself," Uncle Ezra said, gleefully.
Painter rose from the table and disappeared into his room. Pretty soon
he came out bearing a tray with a dozen champagne glasses, of
modern-antique Venetian glass.
"Let me present this to you, Miss Vantweekle," he pronounced, solemnly,
"as an engagement token. I, I exchanged my picture for them this
morning."
"Some Asti Spumante, Ricci."
"To the rejected Titian--" I suggested for the first toast.
VENICE, May, 1896.