IN ARTIST-LAND
One winter morning the monotony of the studio in which Evarne was posing
was broken by the unannounced entrance of a young man.
Mr. Towning, the owner of the domain, threw down his palette, and
greeted the newcomer heartily.
"Why, it's Hardy! Haven't seen you for ages, old chap."
"Up to my eyes in work. And I see you're hard at it too. Don't let me
interrupt business."
Thus adjured, Towning recommenced his interrupted occupation, while his
visitor stood by and scrutinised his labours.
"You're making a fine thing of that," was the verdict. "The
colour scheme is delightful--absolutely. That touch of blue just
there--splendid! I say, what a splendid model you've got."
Towning lowered his voice a trifle.
"Yes, and that touch of blue was her suggestion, if you please. What do
you think of that? Have you not seen her before--Evarne Stornway?"
"Oh, is that who it is? Of course I've heard of her. Only last week some
chap was in to see Geoff, and he fairly raved over her. By Jove, he
wasn't far wrong either."
"She's quite uncommon, isn't she? It's not often one finds a glorious
shape like that, more's the pity. By the way, what's Geoff Danvers
working at now?"
"He's off to Venice at the end of March. He's going to paint abroad till
next winter."
"Lucky dog. It's all right to have plenty of money, isn't it?"
"But there are not many who use it as Geoff does. Heaven knows what I
should do without him, and now he is not going alone to Venice."
"No?"
"He's taking two young chaps, Melcarp and Thorpe, with him. It will be
the time of their lives. They haven't got a spare penny piece between
them, and could as easily have taken themselves to study in the moon as
in Italy. Geoff is paying all their expenses, and making out that it's a
favour on their part that they're coming. Vows he would die of dulness
without company. Melcarp and Thorpe are half off their heads with
excitement."
"Lucky beggars. What will you do when he's gone?"
"Oh, plod along in the studio as usual. I have got a fine idea for a
picture, and I am hunting for a model. The subject is a couple of lines
of Keates's 'Belle Dame sans Merci,' and I want a girl with
reddish-golden hair and a palish face; gleaming eyes, deep set; and
cruel red lips--all curves. Not a fine bouncing wench at all, but one of
those weird, fascinating, fragile sort of women--you know what I mean."
"But you surely don't expect to find exactly what you want?"
"Scarcely. But if I could only get the right coloured hair with the pale
face it would be something. To tell the truth, Towning," the young
artist avowed, with a moment's outburst of confidence, "I haven't got as
much imagination as an artist really wants. I don't get a clear vision
of things in my mind; I just get a shadowy sort of notion. But unless I
can have some degree of reality before me, very similar to my vague
fancy--well, I am nowhere. My idea just dies away."
"Paint portraits. There's more money in that than in anything else, you
know."
"Oh, that reminds me of a bit of real luck. When Lord Winborough returns
to England in the autumn, he has promised to let me do a bust of him to
exhibit. Splendid chance, isn't it? But I am awfully set on doing that
'Belle Dame' picture."
"Perhaps Miss Stornway knows of a girl with red-gold hair and all the
rest of it. By the way, it's time."
He ceased working, and slightly nodded to Evarne. She stood up,
stretched her arms over her head, gave a couple of tiny kicks to take
the stiffness from one of her knees, then slipped behind the screen that
formed a temporary dressing-room. She reappeared, clad in a loose
crimson wrapper, and sat down by the fire.
The young men joined her.
"You heard what we were talking about, of course, Miss Stornway?"
questioned Towning. "Is there a 'Belle Dame' among your friends?"
But Evarne was unable to render assistance. She knew of two models with
red-gold hair, but the accompanying round, rosy faces and _retroussé_
noses of both were in no way mystic and interesting. All she could do
was to promise to remember the requirement, and to send any likely
damsel along for inspection.
"Thank you. But you're about the fiftieth person who's on the lookout,"
returned Jack Hardy ruefully.
When he finally took his departure, he walked slowly back to Kensington,
a cloud of discontent upon his brow. His mind was full of his picture,
the great work he was longing to commence, yet--morbidly conscious of
his own limitations--he was resolutely determined not to start without
having found a suitable model for the central figure.
"I _must_ get on! I _must_ make headway! All my youth is passing!"
He almost snarled these words aloud. Earnest, enthusiastic, patiently
hard-working, Jack Hardy was devoid of one spark of divine inspiration,
and knew it but too well for his peace of mind. He saw his own handiwork
without gloss or glamour; viewed it as it was in stern reality, good in
composition, in technique, but commonplace--oh! Phoebus Apollo and all
ye Muses--how sadly commonplace! Not a man or woman, trained and
practised as he was, but could have done equally well. In the ripest
fruit of his hand and brain there was absolutely nothing individual;
scarce a trace of originality; no magnetism, no grip. Never had Jack
Hardy completed a work, and looking upon it said within himself: "None
but I could have produced just this result. Only the combination of
heart and brain and soul and knowledge that makes Me could have evolved
this picture. I myself am in it."
As a student, a great future had been prophesied for him, and in those
days he had believed in himself. But time had glided by, his thirtieth
year was past, his powers had matured without enlarging their scope, and
with bitter reluctance he commenced to realise that he now saw the full
extent to which his capacity would ever attain. He might become more
certain, more facile, but nothing else. No longer could he still look
forward and upward, confident in what would be revealed when the summit
of the hill he so laboriously climbed was reached. He was there, and lo!
it was but the crowded tableland of mediocrity!
His thoughts were bitter as he walked through the streets that day. Why
had Nature so utterly denied him that divine "something" that no
industry can give, no study can acquire? "I can but despise my own men
and women," he thought. "I am no creator! I make forms in paint, but I
cannot give them the breath of life. I make them beautiful--strictly
speaking--yet there is no beauty in them. I am a craftsman, a
mechanic--not an artist."
But he had a stout heart and a dogged obstinacy that refused to yield.
Surely this fervid ambition to abandon himself to imaginative work must
be the outcome of some fire of inspiration, however small and
smouldering. Let him only find that woman with the gleaming pale face
and the sunlike hair, and he surely could and would produce his
masterpiece.
He looked around as he walked. Even if he discovered his personified
dream out of the ranks of professional models, he meant to leave no
stone unturned to persuade her to sit for his great picture.
He shivered somewhat as the chill winter blasts rushed by. Money was far
from plentiful in Jack's pockets. In true artistic style he inhabited a
garret in Bohemia, and it was only by the strictest economy that he was
enabled to exist on the work he sold, aided by the small sum of money he
had inherited from his mother.
Yet the studio belonging to the top suite in the handsome block of flats
that he entered, and in which he was obviously quite at home, bore every
sign of ample wealth. A spacious and lofty apartment, it was obviously
no makeshift, but had been destined by its architect to behold artistic
labours. This was clearly shown by its top-lights, and its one very huge
window, unusually wide and deep.
From the front entrance of the flat of which it formed part, this studio
was reached by crossing a wide hall, on the left side of which opened
the living-rooms of the suite. But the entire right-hand half of the
flat, looking north, was devoted to the requirements of Art. At the
farther end of the studio itself a door opened on to a short passage on
each side of which was a quite small room. That on the right was the
model's dressing-room; it communicated also directly with the studio,
but the other little room had its only opening into the short corridor.
It was destined for the storing of plaster and other materials used in
modelling, and possessed the useful addition of a tiny sink with hot and
cold water. A door at the farther end of the dividing passage gave
access to a flight of stairs which ultimately led out to Langthorne
Place, where was the back entrance of the block of flats.
The studio itself was verily a fascinating spot, with its exquisite
replicas of classical statues; its curious swords and armour; its
plaques; its Damascus shawls and Eastern draperies; divans and lavishly
carved chairs and tables. Vases of curious build, harmonious outline, or
rich colour stood around, several--despite the wintry season--filled
with pink and crimson roses.
But for all this luxury, it was obviously a workshop. The scent of the
flowers struggled feebly through the stronger odour of oils and
turpentine, while a couple of the vases were utilised to hold spiky
clusters of innumerable paint-brushes. The statue of Venus was next to
the life-sized lay figure; the Salviati mirror reflected, besides a
bronze Mercury, a grim skeleton and a plaster cast of a head with the
outer skin removed to show the facial muscles. Numerous studies and
unfinished sketches decorated or defaced the walls, while heavy-looking
books on anatomy and perspective were to be found by the side of
daintily-bound poets and some of the newest novels. There was quite
enough of dust and disorder to show this _atelier_ to be the haunt of
earnest workers, and the young man, clad in a much-besmeared painting
overall, who stood before a large canvas, scarcely glanced aside as Jack
entered.
In this industrious artist Jack beheld his best and truest friend. It
was to the good-nature of Geoffrey Danvers that he owed the privilege of
working in this splendid studio from morning to evening, and making it
practically his home; it was Geoff's generosity that freed him from any
difficulties concerning the cost of canvas, colours and models.
Meeting at an Art school in Paris, a close comradeship had sprung up
between the two young Englishmen, and when Geoff returned to London and
took up his abode in this flat with its fine studio, he was not slow in
suggesting that Jack Hardy should continue to be his brother-in-art.
He knew his friend's poverty, knew that without some such help he would
be condemned to waste many of his days turning out "pot-boilers," and
was heartily glad to be able to save him from this embittering
employment. For the present, at all events, Jack was quite freed from
every expense connected with his work. He procured all his materials
from Geoff's colour dealer, and never even saw the bills, while each
week the fee for his model got itself paid in the same convenient
manner.
But money was indeed scarcely an object to Geoff. He was possessed of
far more than enough for the simple life that was his choice. He really
could not see that any unusual kindliness or generosity lay in his
favourite diversion of playing "fairy godfather" to other young artists,
clever yet needy. All his aspirations for the future, all his interest
in the present, lay in Art--his life's occupation--and he pursued it
with a devotion, an ardour, that could not have been surpassed had he
known his whole ultimate welfare to depend upon his success.
And surely the gods loved Geoffrey Danvers! Not only did he bring to his
labours a brain in which the capacity for unwearying endeavour
co-existed with ever-active enthusiasm and alert intelligence; more than
that--to him had been given an imaginative soul that swam easily and
always in a boundless sea of fantasy and dreams. His good right hand
followed instincts, obeyed emotions and upwelling thoughts, all
unguessed-at and undreamed-of by plodding, heavy-minded Jack Hardy. Thus
came forth work pulsating with that power, that appeal, that life, for
which Jack yearned, that he struggled for, prayed for--in vain--all in
vain.
An hour later the two young men sat down to lunch. Jack's opening
statement was startling.
"I've seen the most beautiful woman alive."
"That's a big order. Your 'Belle Dame'? No, you couldn't have kept that
great fact to yourself for so long."
"I should think not. No, it's that Miss Stornway whom Flinders spoke of.
You remember--the 'Diana' of Montford's last year's Academy picture.
She's sitting for Towning now. She is lovely--really. She looks as
strong and lithe and graceful as the goddess herself. Never worn corsets
in her life, I understand. Her face is perfectly exquisite too--pure
Greek. Her hair waves back from halfway down her forehead, like that of
Venus there."
"Dark, is she?"
"Almost black hair, big brown eyes, quite a brunette really; but one
might think she was fair, she has such a clear complexion, such a
smooth, satin-like skin. Go out to Towning's and see her. It's really
worth while."
"We'll have her to sit here. I can see you are anxious to paint from
her."
"I must confess I am."
"You had better write at once then. Since she is such a paragon of
beauty I expect she has a waiting list of engagements."
A couple of days later proved Geoffrey to be a true prophet.
"We have indeed got to wait our turn, it seems. Miss Stornway can't come
until the middle of March," announced Jack, studying the response to his
letter. "Ten weeks ahead. Why, that is about when you'll be going away."
"That doesn't matter at all. If I have got my 'Death of Orpheus'
finished I might make a few studies of her, to use up my last few days
here; but she is coming for you, you know."