HOW "LA BELLE DAME" LED JACK ASTRAY
Jack set to work with somewhat feverish ardour to collect the necessary
materials for his task. In a minute or two Pallister entered the little
room.
"Can I help in any way?" he inquired.
Jack glanced up.
"Yes. You might go and get one of my clean painting-blouses from the
box, and give it to Lord Winborough. He must put it on, or he will get
smothered with this messy stuff."
Pallister obeyed. Shaking out the laundress's folds, he laid the clean
garment insinuatingly over a chair. Then noticing that Winborough was
standing surveying the charcoal outline of Maudie, he whistled softly to
himself, made a grimace, and skipped rapidly back to the safety of the
plaster-room. For the nonce Geoff and his cousin were left alone.
Oft-times who can tell precisely how it was, or why or whence a quarrel
sprang to life? Geoff was resolved not to mention Evarne; Winborough was
practically bound by honour to the same course. Yet certain it is that
this one subject--religiously tabooed, yet all the time uppermost in
both minds--somehow came to the front. Then a word taken amiss, a tone
of the voice, a glance of the eye, and hot anger sapped the resolutions
of cooler moments. In the main, both cousins held firm to their original
determinations. Geoff made no mention of the imminence of his marriage;
Winborough guarded his fatal secret loyally. But despite this, their
voices, raised loud in wrath, penetrated to the ears of Jack and
Pallister in the plaster-room.
"Good gracious, what's up?" queried Pallister, with a startled
expression. "Do you suppose Lord Winborough has found out that Maudie
has been here?"
"Of course not. Can't you guess? I'll bet anything you like they're
quarrelling over Geoff's engagement."
"They jolly well are quarrelling, aren't they?"
"I should just think so. I wonder what we had better do."
"Is everything ready? How very awkward. We can hardly intrude in the
middle of a family debate, can we?"
They remained in doubt, listening with growing concern to the storm that
was raging in the next room. In a few minutes the question of the course
they were to take was settled for them. The door of the studio opening
on to the little corridor was flung wide, and Winborough's voice was
heard calling in curt, imperative tones--
"Mr. Hardy! Mr. Hardy!"
With a bound Jack appeared at the door of the plaster-room. Winborough's
face was flushed with anger, his words were brief and final.
"Possibly I may write to you about this bust. I'll consider the matter.
Good-day."
Waiting for no response, he turned and strode across the studio to the
other door. There he spun round suddenly on his heel and flung a final
threat at Geoff.
"As to you--well--you'll be convinced of your folly very shortly. On
Thursday morning you will receive a packet of papers from my lawyer that
may serve to bring you to your senses. After that, I wash my hands of
you."
So saying, he left the room, and in another moment the front door had
banged behind him.
"What's up," inquired Pallister with assumed innocence, entering the
studio. "Where's his lordship gone to, running off just when we are
ready for him?"
Geoff made no answer. He sat moodily by the table, his chin resting upon
his clenched hand. He murmured a few words beneath his breath, but
bestowed not the least attention upon his two companions.
Jack spoke despondently.
"I'm afraid Lord Winborough isn't going to let me do that bust after
all. Didn't you hear what he said? That possibly he would write to me.
Only 'possibly.' I know those 'possiblies.'"
Pallister's countenance assumed an expression of incredulous disgust.
"Oh, I say--lost our lord! What's the matter with him?"
Jack remained silent, unable to answer his query. Geoff pulled himself
together.
"It can't be helped," he said briefly. "Winborough and I have been
expressing our candid opinion of one another, and one of the results is,
as Jack surmises, that the sittings for the bust are indefinitely
postponed. Where is Evarne? Hasn't she returned yet?"
"No, I expect she went a little way with Maudie."
"I'm glad she didn't see that brute," announced Geoff, going to the
window and looking frowningly after the motorcar that was bearing his
cousin swiftly down the road.
"What a fine old row," murmured Pallister. Then keen regret for the
abandoned life-mask swept across his mind, and he cried impulsively:
"Oh, I say, though! What a beastly disappointment it all is. Don't you
think you're a jolly nuisance, Geoff, spoiling all our arrangements so
calmly?"
Geoff turned sharply round at this piece of impertinence, but ere the
angry retort had passed his lips, his eye fell upon Jack, who was
sitting silently apart, both his attitude and expression betraying the
uttermost dejection. Geoff crossed over and stood before his friend.
"I am sorry, Jack," he said simply.
"Don't trouble about me," was the somewhat sullen answer. "Luck is
always against me--always has been--always will be, I suppose. He won't
write. He was only doing it to oblige you. Of course I knew that well
enough. Now I shall stick in the mud forever, I suppose. I never seem to
get a chance like other fellows. Well--never mind! Don't let's talk
about it any more."
Here Pallister laid his hand somewhat timidly on Geoff's arm.
"I didn't mean to vex you," he said in a very small voice.
Geoff turned his gaze from Jack for a moment. Pallister's troubled
countenance touched him.
"That's all right," he said with a fleeting smile, at the same time
giving a reassuring pat to the hand that lay on his arm. Then he forgot
all about that youth again, and looked with worried eyes at his friend
once more.
Jack was dismally wiping his fingers free from plaster. This task
completed, he stood up.
"I may just as well go home," he said, "there's nothing for me to do
here. I--I shall have to think about what new piece of work I can
commence."
"What rubbish!" cried Geoff encouragingly, putting his hands on Jack's
shoulders and giving them an affectionate squeeze. Then pushing him back
into the vacated seat: "Whatever should you go home for? You can think
quite as well here, you dear old duffer, and we can help you. I'm
awfully sorry about Winborough, though I know that does no good, does
it? But look here, Jack. I know a few other people of public interest.
We'll find someone else quite as good for our purpose to fill the
breach. I'll see to it for you. Now, who shall it be? What about----"
But before he could make any suggestion Pallister interposed eagerly.
"I say, what about himself, Jackie, my boy? Since he is going to do such
a romantic story-bookish thing as marry the most beautiful model alive,
it will make him a far more interesting person than old Winborough has
been for many a year. If you could sculpt a bust of Miss Stornway also,
so that you could exhibit the two together at the Academy or
somewhere--why, everybody would be planking down their shilling just to
see your work; your name would be in everybody's mouth; orders would
come rolling in; you'd make your reputation in a day. Now, isn't that a
brilliant idea of mine? We're always forgetting the little fact that
Geoff really is an important person. But he is, you know, both as the
rising great artist and as a future peer."
Jack hardly waited for the conclusion of this speech before he
interposed. There was already a fresh note of hope in his voice.
"It's perfectly true--it is indeed. Not all that talk about orders
rolling in and reputations made in a day. I know that sort of thing
doesn't happen. But what he said about you, Geoff, was true. If you
would only sit for me, it would be every whit as helpful as if Lord
Winborough had done so. As you say, Pallister, even more valuable, as
this marriage with Miss Stornway is quite certain to arouse interest.
Will you consent?"
The proposed victim laughed.
"I didn't bargain for this," he declared. "Perhaps, after all, you had
better go home, Jack, and do your thinking there, away from this young
man and his brilliant ideas!"
"So even you can't deny it is a splendid solution of the difficulty!"
declared Pallister gleefully.
Evidently Jack was of the same way of thinking. The sullen unhappy
expression had entirely vanished from his features.
"Please do, Geoff," he said very earnestly; and this proved
all-sufficient. His friend gave the required promise without further
hesitation.
"But I must warn you," he went on, "that I am going away--out of
England--very soon indeed. It may be several months before I can sit for
you. Hadn't you better choose someone else, after all?"
But Jack was adamant.
"No indeed. But I can take a mask now, can't I? Then with its aid I can
get well forward without you. You'll let me do it at once, won't you?
Everything is ready."
"Well, I don't know, I can't stop long. I've got to get down to the
City."
"But a mask is quite a short job. It can easily be finished before
lunch."
This was not to be gainsaid, and the afternoon gave more than sufficient
time for Geoff's other still more urgent affairs. Thus he gave in with
the brief remark--
"Set to work, then."
Pallister indulged in a leap of delight.
"Now, Jack! How do we start? What can I do?"
"First of all, hand Geoff that blouse, while I bring in the materials."
Pallister seized the clean holland overall, and while Geoff removed his
coat and obediently arrayed himself therein, the youth sped away to lend
his indispensable assistance in the plaster-room.
Soon all was ready. The long divan was drawn forward. Geoff lay down,
moving his head restlessly until it was endurably at ease amid the
protecting towels. Jack wrapped further cloths carefully over the fair
hair, tucked yet another round his subject's neck, then set to work with
cold-cream, quills and cotton wool.
"Don't forget that when you raise your left hand it means 'yes,' and
your right means 'no,'" he said, as he proceeded to mix the plaster with
warm water. After a moment he announced, "It's all ready now."
"Forge ahead, then," said Geoff cheerfully, as he noisily and
ostentatiously sucked in a last draught of fresh air. Then he smiled,
but seeing the first spoonful of liquid plaster approaching his face, he
shut his eyes quickly, composed his features, and resigned himself to
fate.
After the first layer was safely on, the two strings that were required
for cutting up the mask were laid in place and pressed down firmly. Then
the remainder of the plaster was used. Pallister watched every stage
with eager interest.
"Can you hear anything now?" he queried.
"Our voices even don't reach him unless we shout very loudly, but all
the time he is hearing his own heart thud, thud, thudding. I know!"
They waited in silence until the moment should be reached when the
plaster was in a fit condition for Jack to draw up the two strings and
thus divide the mask. As they sat there a slight tumult was heard in the
street without. It was merely a couple of dogs fighting, yet under any
circumstances Pallister found it impossible to remain impervious to
external excitements. In an instant he was at the window.
"Pooh! I hoped it was a mad dog, but it's only a silly fight, and now
even that's over," he remarked in disgusted tones.
He was turning away, when suddenly he stopped short, bent forward, then
beckoned excitedly to Jack.
"I say, Do come here! Hurry up and look. Don't you dare grumble at your
luck again, for I'll eat my hat if here isn't your long-sought 'Belle
Dame'! Isn't that just the red hair and pale little face you want?"
In a second Jack was by his side. His glance followed Pallister's
directing finger, and he positively gasped.
"Good heavens!" he cried excitedly, staring down into the street. "It's
exactly what I've been looking for! Pallister, it's like a dream!"
Undeniably the girl was uncommon--beautiful in her own curious
style--individual--almost peculiar.
"But do you think she would pose for you? It's wildly unlikely that she
should just happen to be a model."
Some magnetic wave had apparently drawn the passing damsel's attention
upwards towards Pallister. She saw him beckon; saw another masculine
figure appear by his side in response to the summons. She had cast down
her eyes demurely enough and walked on, but at this moment she looked
back, flashing a quick glance upwards over her shoulder. Seeing the two
men gazing as if spellbound at her retreating figure, she smiled at
them. It was a fleeting smile, wicked and subtle, narrowing her eyes and
bringing alluring dimples into either cheek. Then she passed on her way.
"I'm positive she would sit for you, if you paid her enough," commented
Pallister sagely. "Hi, there! Hi!--Miss!"
But the girl did not hear his voice.
And then Jack fell away from grace. The hand of ambition beckoned, and
the faint whisperings of duty proved impotent to stay his following
steps.
"I must go; I must get her!" he declared hoarsely, shaken from his
habitual calm. "My luck will indeed turn now. I shall win everything
from that picture. It will drive me mad never to paint it. Pallister,
you can keep an eye on Geoff, can't you? He's all right; he wants
nothing whatsoever but to be left alone. The mask is very nearly ready
to come off now, but that's a slow job. I can't stop, can I? Geoff won't
be scared by the waiting. He's been through it before, you know. You
just sit quietly by him."
"Trust me; I'll nurse him," assented Pallister gaily. "Buck up, old
chap, or she'll be gone."
But the remainder of his sentence was wasted upon the atmosphere. Jack
was already bounding downstairs, every other thought excluded from his
mind by the mental picture of a pale-faced girl smiling upwards over her
shoulder.
"I shall succeed now! I shall succeed! I know it--if I can get this girl
to sit!"
Thus his innermost conviction spoke loudly as he hurried along the busy
street; yet every second the tiny voice of conscience grew more
clamorous and insistent. Under such urgent stress of circumstances,
surely any artist would have maintained that it was forgivable enough to
have thus left Geoffrey for several minutes longer than was necessary,
in what was certainly an unpleasant and possibly a dangerous situation!
But knowing Frank Pallister, would not one and all have asserted that
under any pretext it was infamous that Jack should abandon his friend to
so unreliable and careless--let alone totally inexperienced--an
assistant?
"I must go back. Soon--almost immediately," Jack declared within
himself; and with his mind torn in two directions, he hurried on with
yet more frantic haste in pursuit of this long-desired and widely-sought
model.
Meanwhile, heedless of the instructions to sit by Geoff and watch him,
Pallister adopted the more interesting occupation of following the
pursuit from his post of vantage at the window. He gave Jack an
encouraging cheer as that young man appeared from out the house, rushed
through the garden and along the road. Suddenly the watcher beheld a
state of affairs that filled him with dismay. The quarry turned out of
the main road and continued her journey down a side-street, while Jack,
still hurrying along the crowded thoroughfare, ran straight over this
crossing without so much as thinking to glance down it in his haste. He
passed it by heedlessly, continuing his now vain journey onwards.
Pallister literally danced with distress.
"He will lose her--oh, the idiot! Hi, Jack! Jack! Round that corner."
But Jack was much too far off to hear this shout. In an instant
Pallister's mind was made up. He alone could save the situation. He made
a dash towards the door.
Suddenly he remembered Geoff, and stopped his hurried rush so abruptly
that he slid several yards on the polished boards. But Frank Pallister,
Esq., that youth of energy and enterprise, was not easily to be baulked
when one of his brilliant ideas was on hand. He sped hastily back to the
couch.
"Hullo, Geoff! I say, Geoff! You all right?"
The left hand of the prostrate figure was immediately raised in token of
assent. With his mind now perfectly at ease, Pallister darted
downstairs. He was in a glow of self-appreciation. What resource he
showed in all emergencies! What a truly valuable all-round friend he
was, to be sure!