"And now," I said, "I shall say a few words of reprimand to Mrs.
Robinson. You need not fear that I shall be too severe with her."
Arthur made no movement, and I left him, and after taking the torn
picture to my car I climbed to the top of the house where I suspected I
should find Blanche.
Her mother-in-law had reluctantly given her leave to use an attic lumber
room, and, amid a litter of old trunks and derelict furniture and
cardboard boxes, she had made a little clearing near the window, where
she worked feverishly at her painting in her rare leisure.
I had seen the room once when I had helped the nurse to carry down a
screen put away there, and suddenly needed in one of Arthur's many
illnesses. I had been touched by the evident attempt to make some sort
of refuge in that large house, where there were several empty rooms on
the lower floors, but--perhaps--no privacy.
I quickly found that Mrs. Robinson tacitly disapproved of Blanche
working in the attic. Her kind face became almost hard when she spoke of
the hours her daughter-in-law spent there, when her sick husband wanted
her downstairs.
I tapped at the door, but there was no answer, and I went in. Blanche
was sitting near the window on a leather trunk.
I expected to find her distressed, but her eyes, as they were raised to
meet mine, were untroubled. An uncomprehending calm dwelt in them. I
saw that she had already forgotten her husband's anger in her complete
absorption in something else.
For the first time it struck me that her mental condition was not quite
normal. Had she then no memory; or did she continually revert, as soon
as she was left to herself to some world of her own imagination, where
her harassed, bewildered soul was refreshed? I remembered the look I had
often seen in her face, the piteous expression of one anxiously
endeavouring and failing to fix her attention.
She was giving the whole of it now to a picture on a low easel before
her. I drew near and looked at it also.
It was a portrait of the goldfish. It was really exactly like him with
his eye turned up on the look out for crumbs. He was outlined against a
charming assortment of foreign shells, strewn artistically on a zinc
floor. The aquarium was encircled by a pretty little grove of cowslips
and primroses, which gave the picture a cheerful and pleasing aspect.
"It is lovely," I said.
"He is a lucky goldfish, isn't he?" she said apathetically.
I pondered long that night over Blanche. I reproached myself that I had
not perceived earlier that she was overwrought. When I came to think of
it her life was deeply overshadowed by her husband's illness. Was it
possible that she was the more talented of the two, and that it was not
congenial to her to spend so much of her time docilely copying Arthur's
pictures? I had never thought of that before. I knew nothing about art
myself, but I could find out. I was becoming much more occupied by this
time, and one of my patients was the celebrated artist, M., whose slow
death I was trying to make as painless as possible.
A day or two later I laid before him the picture Arthur had torn in two.
I can still see M. sitting in his arm-chair in the ragged dressing gown
which he wore day and night, unshaved, wrinkled, sixty.
He threw the larger half of the canvas on the floor, and held the piece
containing the chrysanthemums and their shadow in his thin shaking talon
of a hand, moving it now nearer now further away from his half blind
blood-shot eyes.
I began to explain that only the chrysanthemums were by the wife of the
painter of the picture, but he brushed me aside.
"She can see," he said at last. "And she's honest. I was honest once.
She can't always say all she sees--who can--but she sees _everything_.
Bring me something more of hers."
Reader, after immense cogitation I decided to take him two of Arthur's
compositions, the couple which after hours of agitated vacillation he
considered to be his best. They were all spread out in his studio, and I
had to assist in his decision. He had on several occasions--knowing I
attended the great man--hinted to me that he should like M. to see his
work and advise him upon it, but I had never taken the hint. Mrs.
Robinson was only surprised that he had not pressed to see her son's
pictures earlier. She and Arthur evidently thought I had kept them from
the famous painter's notice until now, as, indeed, I had.
"And I must take something of yours too," I said kindly to Blanche as
she put the two selected works of art into a magnificent portfolio.
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Robinson. "Blanche paints sweetly too, but
mostly copies. She's a wonderful hand at copying."
"I have nothing," said Blanche, "except the goldfish."
"Then I must take him," I said. This was regarded as a great joke by
Arthur and his mother, and they could hardly believe I was in earnest
until I sent Blanche for it.
"It's Goldy to the very life," said Mrs. Robinson fondly, "and the
shells and everything exact. Such a beautiful home for him."
Arthur looked gloomily at the little picture, and for a moment I thought
he would forbid my taking it, but I wrapped it up with decision, put it
in the portfolio with the others, and departed.
I found M. as usual in his armchair in his studio, leaning back livid
and breathless, endeavouring so he whispered "to get forward with his
dying."