ONLY A PORTRAIT-PAINTER.
While Clarissa was pondering on that perplexing question, how she was to
see her brother frequently without Mr. Granger's knowledge, fortune had
favoured her in a manner she had never anticipated. After what Mr. Fairfax
had said to her about Austin Lovel's "set," the last thing she expected
was to meet her brother in society--that fast Bohemian world in which she
supposed him to exist, seemed utterly remote from the faultless circle
of Daniel Granger's acquaintance. It happened, however, that one of the
dearest friends to whom Lady Laura Armstrong had introduced her sweet
Clarissa was a lady of the Leo-Hunter genus--a certain Madame Caballero,
_nee_ Bondichori, a little elderly Frenchwoman, with sparkling black eyes
and inexhaustible vivacity; the widow of a Portuguese wine-merchant; a lady
whose fortune enabled her to occupy a first floor in one of the freestone
palaces of the Champs Elysees, to wear black velvet and diamonds in
perpetuity, and to receive a herd of small lions and a flock of admiring
nobodies twice a-week. The little widow prided herself on her worship
of genius. All members of the lion tribe came alike to her: painters,
sculptors, singers; actors, and performers upon every variety of known
and unknown musical instruments; budding barristers, who had won forensic
laurels by the eloquent defence of some notorious criminal; homoeopathic
doctors, lady doctresses, or lawyeresses, or deaconesses, from America; and
pretty women who had won a kind of renown by something special in the way
of eyebrows, or arms, or shoulders.
To these crowded saloons Mr. Granger brought his wife and daughter one
evening. They found a great many people assembled in three lofty rooms,
hung with amber satin, in the remotest and smallest of which apartments
Madame Caballero made tea _a l'anglaise_, for her intimates; while, in the
largest, some fearful and wonderful instrumental music was going on, with
the very smallest possible amount of attention from the audience. There was
a perpetual buzz of conversation; and there was a considerable sprinkling
of curious-looking people; weird men with long unkempt hair, strong-minded
women, who counterbalanced these in a manner by wearing their hair
preternaturally short. Altogether, the assembly was an unusual one; but
Madame Caballero's guests seemed to enjoy themselves very much. Their good
spirits may have been partly due to the fact that they had the pleasing
anticipation of an excellent supper, furnished with all the choicest
dainties that Chevet can provide; for Madame Caballero's receptions were
of a substantial order, and she owed a good deal of her popularity to the
profusion that distinguished the commissariat department.
Mr. and Mrs. Granger made their way to the inner room by and by. It was the
prettiest room of the three, with a great semi-circular window overlooking
nothing particular in the daytime, but making a handsome amber-hung recess
at night. Here there was a sea-coal fire _a l'anglaise_, and only a subdued
glimmering of wax candles, instead of the broad glare in the larger
saloons. Here, too were to be found the choicest of Madame Caballero's
guests; a cabinet minister, an ambassador, a poet of some standing, and one
of the most distinguished sopranos of the season, a fair-haired German
girl, with great pathetic blue eyes.
Even in this society Madame Caballero was rejoiced to see her sweet Mrs.
Granger and her charming Miss Granger, who was looking unutterably stiff,
in mauve silk and white lace. The lady and her friends had been talking of
some one as the Grangers entered, talking rapturously.
"_J'en raffole!_" exclaimed Madame; "such a charming young man, gifted with
talents of the most original order."
The ambassador was looking at a portrait--the likeness of Madame Caballero
herself--a mere sketch in oils, with a mark of the brush upon it, but
remarkable for the _chic_ and daring of the painter's style, and for that
idealised resemblance which is always so agreeable to the subject.
Clarissa's heart gave a little throb. The picture was like one she had seen
on the easel in the Rue du Chevalier Bayard.
"_Mais c'est charmant!_" exclaimed the ambassador; and the adjective was
echoed in every key by the rest of the little coterie.
"I expect him here this evening," said Madame; "and I shall be very much
gratified if you will permit me to present him to your excellency."
The ambassador bowed. "Any _protegee_ of Madame's," he said, and so on.
Mr. Granger, who was really a judge of art, fastened on to the picture
immediately.
"There's something fresh in the style, Clary," he said. "I should like this
man to paint your portrait. What's the signature? Austin! That's hardly a
French name, I should think--eh, Madame Caballero?"
"No," replied Madame; "Mr. Austin is an Englishman. I shall be charmed if
you will allow him to paint Mrs. Granger; and I'm sure he will be delighted
to have such a subject."
There was a good deal of talk about Mr. Austin's painting, and art in
general. There were some half dozen pictures of the modern French school
in this inner room, which helped to sustain the conversation. Mr. Granger
talked very fair French, of a soundly grammatical order; and Clarissa's
tongue ran almost as gaily as in her schoolgirl days at Belforet. She was
going to see her brother--to see him shining in good society, and not in
the pernicious "set" of which George Fairfax had spoken. The thought was
rapture to her. They might have a few minutes' talk to themselves, perhaps,
before the evening was over. That interview in the Rue du Chevalier Bayard
had been so sadly brief, and her heart too full for many words.
Austin Lovel came in presently, looking his handsomest, in his careful
evening-dress, with a brilliant light in his eyes, and that appearance of
false brightness which is apt to distinguish the man who is burning the
candle of life at both ends. Only by just the faintest elevation of his
eyebrows did he betray his surprise as he looked at his sister; and his
air, on being presented to her a few moments afterwards, was perfect in its
serene unconsciousness.
Mr. Granger talked to him of his picture pleasantly enough, but very much
as he would have talked to his architect, or to one of his clerks in the
great Bradford establishment. There was a marked difference between
the tone of the rich English trader and the German ambassador, when he
expressed himself on the subject of Mr. Austin's talent; but then the
Englishman intended to give the painter a commission, and the German did
not.
"I should like you to paint my wife--and--and--my daughter," said Mr.
Granger, throwing in Sophia as an after-thought. It would be only civil to
have his daughter's portrait painted, he thought.
Mr. Austin bowed. "I shall be most happy," he said. Clarissa's eyes
sparkled with delight. Sophia Granger saw the pleased look, and thought,
"O, the vanity of these children of perdition!" But she did not offer any
objection to the painting of her own likeness.
"When shall we begin?" asked Mr. Granger.
"My time is entirely at your disposal."
"In that case, the sooner the thing is done the better. My wife cannot come
to your studio--she has so many claims upon her time--but that would make
no difficulty, I suppose?"
"Not at all. I can paint Mrs. Granger in her own rooms as well as in mine,
if the light will serve."
"One of our drawing-rooms faces the north," answered Mr. Granger, "and
the windows are large--larger than I like. Any loss of time which you may
suffer in accommodating Mrs. Granger must, of course, be considered in the
price of your pictures."
"I have only one price for my pictures," replied Mr. Austin, with a
loftiness that astonished his patron. "I charge fifty guineas for a
portrait of that kind--whether it is painted for a duke or a grocer in the
Rue St. Honore."
"I will give you a hundred guineas for each of the pictures, if they are
successes," said Mr. Granger. "If they are failures, I will give you your
own price, and make you a present of the canvasses."
"I am not a stoic, and have no objection to accept a premium of a hundred
guineas from so distinguished a capitalist as Mr. Granger," returned Austin
Lovel, smiling. "I don't think Mrs. Granger's portrait will be a failure,"
he added confidently, with a little look at Clarissa.
Sophia Granger saw the look, and resented it. The painter had said nothing
of her portrait. It was of Clarissa's only that he thought. It was a very
small thing; but when her father's wife was concerned, small things were
great in the eyes of Miss Granger.
There was no opportunity for confidential talk between Austin Lovel and his
sister that evening; but Clarissa went home happy in the expectation of
seeing her brother very often in the simplest, easiest way. The portraits
would take some time to paint, of course; indeed Austin might make the
business last almost as long as he liked.
It was rather hard, however, to have to discuss her brother's merits with
Mr. and Miss Granger as if he had been a stranger; and Clarissa had to do
this going home in the carriage that night, and at breakfast next morning.
The young man was handsome, Mr. Granger remarked, but had rather a worn
look--a dissipated look, in point of fact. That sort of people generally
were dissipated.
Mrs. Granger ventured to say that she did not think Mr. Austin looked
dissipated--a little worn, perhaps, but nothing more; and that might be the
effect of hard work.
"My dear Clary, what can you know of the physiology of dissipation? I
tell you that young man is dissipated. I saw him playing _ecarte_ with
a Frenchman just before we left Madame Caballero's; and, unless I am
profoundly mistaken, the man is a gambler."
Clarissa shuddered. She could not forget what George Fairfax had said to
her about her brother's ways, nor the fact that her remittances had seemed
of so little use to him. He seemed in good repute too, and talked of fifty
guineas for a picture with the utmost coolness. He must have earned a good
deal of money, and the money must have gone somewhere. In all the details
of his home there was evidence of extravagance in the past and poverty in
the present.
He came at eleven o'clock on the second morning after Madame Caballero's
reception; came in a hired carriage, with his easel and all the
paraphernalia of his art. Mr. Granger had made a point of being present at
this first sitting, much to the discomfiture of Clarissa, who was yearning
for a long uninterrupted talk with her brother. Even when Mr. Granger
was absent, there would be Miss Granger, most likely, she thought, with
vexation; and, after all, these meetings with Austin would be only half
meetings. It would be pleasant only to see him, to hear his voice; but she
was longing to talk freely of the past, to give him counsel for the future.
The drawing-room looking north was rather a dreary apartment, if any
apartment furnished with blue-satin damask and unlimited gilding can be
called dreary. There was splendour, of course, but it was a chilling kind
of splendour. The room was large and square, with two tall wide windows
commanding a view of one of the dullest streets in new Paris--a street at
the end of which workmen were still busy cutting away a hill, the removal
whereof was necessary for the realisation of the Augustan idea of that
archetypal city, which was to be left all marble. Mr. Granger's apartments
were in a corner house, and he had the advantage of this side view. There
was very little of what Mr. Wemmick called "portable property" in this
northern drawing-room. There were blue-satin divans running along the
walls, a couple of blue-satin easy-chairs, an ormolu stand with a monster
Sevres dish for cards, and that was all--a room in which one might,
"receive," but could scarcely live.
The light was capital, Mr. Austin said. He set up his easel, settled the
position of his sister, after a little discussion with Mr. Granger, and
began work. Clarissa's was to be the first portrait. This being arranged,
Mr. Granger departed to write letters, leaving Sophia established, with her
Berlin-wool work, at one of the windows. Clarissa would not, of course,
like to be left _tete-a-tete_ for two or three hours with a strange
painter, Miss Granger opened.
Yes, it was very pleasant to have him there, even though their talk was
restrained by the presence of a third person, and they could only speak of
indifferent things. Perhaps to Austin Lovel himself it was pleasanter to
have Miss Granger there than to be quite alone with his sister. He was very
fond of Clarissa, but there was much in his past life--some things in his
present life even--that would not bear talking of, and he shrank a little
from his sister's tender questioning. Protected by Miss Granger and her
Berlin-wool spaniels, he was quite at his ease, and ran gaily on about all
manner of things as he sketched his outline and set his palette. He gave
the two ladies a lively picture of existing French art, with little
satirical touches here and there. Even Sophia was amused, and blushed to
find herself comparing the social graces of Mr. Austin the painter with
those of Mr. Tillott the curate, very much to the advantage of the
former--blushed to find herself so much interested in any conversation that
was not strictly utilitarian or evangelical in its drift. Once or twice
Austin spoke of his travels, his Australian experiences; and at each
mention, Clarissa looked up eagerly, anxious to hear more. The history of
her brother's past was a blank to her, and she was keenly interested by the
slightest allusion that cast a ray of light upon it. Mr. Austin did not
care, however, to dwell much upon his own affairs. It was chiefly of
other people that he talked. Throughout that first sitting Miss Granger
maintained a dignified formality, tempered by maidenly graciousness.
The young man was amusing, certainly, and it was not often Miss Granger
permitted herself to be amused. She thought Clarissa was too familiar
with him, treated him too much with an air of perfect equality. A man who
painted portraits for hire should be received, Miss Granger thought, as one
would receive a superior kind of bootmaker.
More than once, in fact, in the course of that agreeable morning, Clarissa
had for a moment forgotten that she was talking to Mr. Austin the painter,
and not to her brother Austin Lovel. More than once an unconscious
warmth or softness in her tone had made Miss Granger look up from her
embroidery-frame with the eyes of wonder.
Mr. Granger came back to the drawing-room, having finished his
letter-writing just as the sitting concluded, and, luncheon being announced
at the same time, asked Mr. Austin to stay for that meal. Austin had no
objection to linger in his sister's society. He wanted to know what kind
of man this Daniel Granger was; and perhaps wanted to see what probability
there was of Daniel Granger's wife being able to supply him with money in
the future. Austin Lovel had, from his earliest boyhood, possessed a fatal
capacity for getting rid of money, and for getting into debt; not common
plain-sailing debt, which would lead at the worst to the Bankruptcy Court,
but liability of a more disreputable and perilous character, involving the
terror of disgrace, and entanglements that would have to be unravelled by a
police-magistrate.
Racing debts, gambling debts, and bill-discounting transactions, had been
the agreeable variety of difficulties which had beset Austin Lovel's
military career; and at the end there had been something--something fully
known to a few only--which had made the immediate sale of his commission
a necessity. He was _allowed_ to sell it; and that was much, his friends
said. If his commanding officer had not been an easy-going kind of man, he
would scarcely have got off so cheaply.
"I wonder how this fellow Granger would treat me, if he knew who I was?" he
thought to himself. "He'd inaugurate our acquaintance by kicking me out of
his house most likely, instead of asking me to luncheon." Notwithstanding
which opinion Mr. Austin sat down to share the sacred bread and salt with
his brother-in-law, and ate a cutlet _a la Maintenon_, and drank half a
bottle of claret, with a perfect enjoyment of the situation. He liked
the idea of being patronised by the man who would not have tolerated his
society for a moment, had he been aware of his identity.
He talked of Parisian life during luncheon, keeping carefully clear of all
subjects which the "young person," as represented by Miss Granger, might
blush to hear; and Mr. Granger, who had only an Englishman's knowledge of
the city, was amused by the pleasant gossip. The meal lasted longer than
usual, and lost all its wonted formality; and the fair Sophia found herself
more and more interested in this fascinating painter, with his brilliant
dark eyes, and sarcastic mouth, and generally agreeable manner. She
sat next him at luncheon, and, when there came a little pause in the
conversation, began to question him about the state of the Parisian poor.
It was very bad, was it not?
Mr. Austin shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know," he said, "but I don't think it would be possible for a man
to starve to death in Paris under the Imperial regime; and it seems very
easy for an Englishman to do it in Spitalfields or Mile-end New Town. You
don't hear of men and women found dead in their garrets from sheer hunger.
But of course there is a good deal of poverty and squalor to be found in
the city."
And then Mr. Austin launched into a graphic description of some interesting
phases of life among the lower classes, borrowed from a novel that had been
recently delighting the reading public of France, but appropriated with
such an air of reality, that Miss Granger fancied this delightful painter
must spend some considerable part of his existence as a district visitor or
city missionary.
"What a pity that Mr. Tillott has not his persuasive powers!" she thought;
Mr. Tillott's eloquence being, in fact, of a very limited order, chiefly
exhibiting itself in little jerky questions about the spiritual and
temporal welfare of his humble parishioners--questions which, in the
vernacular language of agricultural labourers, "put a chap's back up,
somehow."
"I should like to show Mr. Austin the baby, Daniel," Clarissa said to her
husband shyly, while Miss Granger was keeping Austin hard and fast to the
amelioration of the working classes; "he would make such a lovely picture."
Mr. Granger smiled, a quiet well-satisfied smile. He, the strong man, the
millowner and millionaire, was as weak as the weakest woman in all things
concerning the child of his mature age.
"Yes," he said, with some affectation of indifference; "Lovel would make a
nice picture enough. We'll have him painted if you like, Clary, some day.
Send for him, my dear."
She had her hand upon the bell directly.
"Yes," she cried, "he would make the sweetest picture in the world, and
Austin shall paint him."
The familiar mention of the name Austin, _tout court_, scared Mr. Granger
almost as much as a cannon fired close at his elbow might have done. He
stared at his wife with grave displeasure.
"_Mr_. Austin can paint him some day, if you wish it, Clarissa," he said.
Mrs. Granger blushed crimson; again she remembered that this brother she
loved so dearly was only a strange painter of portraits, whom it behoved
her to treat with only the most formal courtesy. She hated the deception;
and having a strong faith in her husband's generosity, was sorely tempted
to put an end to this acted lie on the spot, and to tell him who his guest
was; but fear of her brother's anger stopped her. She had no right to
betray him; she must wait his permission to tell the secret.
"Even Sophia seems to like him," she thought; "and I don't think Daniel
could help being pleased with him, in spite of anything papa may have said
to his prejudice."
The baby was brought, and, being in a benignant humour, was graciously
pleased to look his brightest and prettiest, and in nurse's phraseology, to
"take to" his unknown uncle. The unknown uncle kissed him affectionately,
and said some civil things about the colour of his eyes, and the plumpness
of his limbs--"quite a Rubens baby," and so on, but did not consider a
boy-baby an especially wonderful creature, having had two boy-babies of his
own, and not having particularly wanted them. He looked upon them rather as
chronic perplexities, like accommodation bills that had matured unawares.
"And this is the heir of Arden," he said to himself, as he looked down at
the fat blue-eyed thing struggling in Clarissa's arms, with that desperate
desire to get nowhere in particular, common to infancy. "So this little
lump of humanity is the future lord of the home that should have been mine.
I don't know that I envy him. Country life and Arden would hardly have
suited me. I think I'd rather have an _entresol_ in the Champs Elysees,
and the run of the boulevards, than the gray old Court and a respectable
position. Unless a man's tastes are 'horsey' or agricultural, country life
must be a bore."
Mr. Austin patted the plump young cheeks without any feeling of enmity.
"Poor little beggar! What ghosts will haunt him in the old rooms by-and-by,
I wonder?" he said to himself, smiling down at the child.
* * * * *