Mr. Hopwood Blunt was tall and fair, a brawny young Englishman still,
though the champagne of fashionable restaurants and racecourses was
beginning to show itself in a slight puffiness in his handsome florid
cheeks. He shook hands carelessly with Miss Clive, whom he called Cis,
and declared himself dead beat. She hastened to hand him her chair.
'I know what's the matter with you,' she said, 'too much champagne
last night at the Cafe Royal.'
'Wrong again. We weren't at the Cafe Royal, we dined at the Bristol.
Don't like the place; give me the good old Cafe Savoy.'
'How many bottles?'
'Don't know; know that I didn't drink my share. It was something I had
after.'
Then followed an account of the company and the dinner. The
conversation was carried on in allusions, and Mildred heard something
about Tommy's girl and a horse that was worth backing at Kempton. At
last it occurred to Cissy to introduce Mildred. Mr. Hopwood Blunt made
a faint pretence of rising from his chair, and the conversation turned
on the 'Bather.'
'I think you ought to make her a little better looking. What do you
say, Miss Lawson? Cis is painting that picture for a smoking-room, and
in the smoking-room we like pretty girls.'
He thought that they ought to see a little more of the lady's face;
and he did not approve of the drapery. Cissy argued that she could not
alter Etty's composition; she reproved him for his facetiousness, and
was visibly annoyed at the glances he bestowed on Mildred. A moment
after Ralph appeared.
'Don't let me disturb you,' he said, 'I did not know where you were,
Miss Lawson, that was all. I thought you might like me to see how
you're getting on.'
Ralph and Mildred walked through two galleries in silence. Elsie had
gone out to lunch with Walter; the old lady with the grey ringlets,
who copied Gainsborough's 'Watering Place,' was downstairs having a
cup of coffee and a roll; the cripple leaned on his crutch, and
compared his drawing of Mrs. Siddons's nose with Gainsborough's. Ralph
waited till he hopped away, and Mildred was grateful to him for the
delay; she did not care for her neighbours to see what work her master
did on her picture.
'You've got the background wrong,' he said, taking off a yellowish
grey with the knife. 'The cloud in the left-hand corner is the deepest
dark you have in the picture,' and he prepared a tone. 'What a lovely
quality Reynolds has got into the sky! ... This face is not
sufficiently foreshortened. Too long from the nose to the chin,' he
said, taking off an eighth of an inch. Then the mouth had to be
raised. Mildred watched, nervous with apprehension lest Elsie or the
old lady or the cripple should return and interrupt him.
'There, it is better now,' he said, surveying the picture, his head on
one side.
'I should think it was,' she answered enthusiastically. 'I shall be
able to get on now. I could not get the drawing of that face right.
And the sky--what a difference! I like it as well as the original.
It's quite as good.'
Ralph laughed, and they walked through the galleries. The question, of
course, arose, which was the greater, the Turner or the Claude?
Mildred thought that she liked the Claude.
'One is romance, the other is common sense.'
'If the Turner is romance, I wonder I don't prefer it to the Claude. I
love romance.'
'School-girl romance, very likely.' Mildred didn't answer and, without
noticing her, Ralph continued, 'I like Turner best in the grey and
English manner: that picture, for instance, on the other side of the
doorway. How much simpler, how much more original, how much more
beautiful. That grey and yellow sky, the delicacy of the purple in the
clouds. But even in classical landscape Turner did better than Claude
--Turner created--all that architecture is dreamed; Claude copied
his.'
At the end of each little sentence he stared at Mildred, half ashamed
at having expressed himself so badly, half surprised at having
expressed himself so well. Anxious to draw him out, she said:
'But the picture you admire is merely a strip of sea with some
fishing-boats. I've seen it a hundred times before--at Brighton, at
Westgate, at whatever seaside place we go to, just like that, only not
quite so dark.'
'Yes, just like that, only not quite so dark. That "not quite so dark"
makes the difference. Turner didn't copy, he transposed what he saw.
Transposed what he saw,' he repeated. 'I don't explain myself very
well, I don't know if you understand. But what I mean is that the more
realistic you are the better; so long as you transpose, there must
always be a transposition of tones.'
Mildred admitted that she did not quite understand. Ralph stammered,
and relinquished the attempt to explain. They walked in silence until
they came to the Rembrandts--the portrait of the painter as a young
man and the portrait of the 'Jew Merchant.' Mildred preferred the
portrait of the young man. 'But not because it's a young man,' she
pleaded, 'but because it is, it is---'
'Compared with the "Jew Merchant" it is like a coloured photograph...
Look at him, he rises up grand and mysterious as a pyramid, the other
is as insignificant as life. Look at the Jew's face, it is done with
one tint; a synthesis, a dark red, and the face is as it were made out
of nothing--hardly anything, and yet everything is said... You can't
say where the picture begins or ends, the Jew surges out of the
darkness like a vision. Look at his robe, a few folds, that is all,
and yet he's completely dressed, and his hand, how large, how great...
Don't you see, don't you understand?'
'I think I do,' Mildred replied a little wistfully, and she cast a
last look on the young man whom she must admire no more. Ralph opened
the door marked _students only_, and they went down the stone steps.
When they came to where the men and women separated for their
different rooms, Mildred asked Ralph if he were going out to lunch? He
hesitated, and then answered that it took too long to go to a
restaurant. Mildred guessed by his manner that he had no money.
'There's no place in the gallery where we can get lunch--you women are
luckier than us men. What do they give you in your room?'
'You mean in the way of meat? Cold meat, beef and ham, pork pies. But
I don't care for meat, I never touch it.'
'What do you eat?'
'There are some nice cakes. I'll go and get some; we'll share them.'
'No, no, I really am not hungry, much obliged.'
'Oh, do let me go and get some cakes, it'll be such fun, and so much
nicer than sitting with a lot of women in that little room.'
They shared their cakes, walking up and down the great stone passages,
and this was the beginning of their intimacy. On the following week
she wrote to say what train she was coming up by; he met her at the
station, and they went together to the National Gallery. But their way
led through St. James' Park; they lingered there, and, as the season
advanced, their lingerings in the park grew longer and longer.
'What a pretty park this is. It always seems to me like a lady's
boudoir, or what I imagine a lady's boudoir must be like.'
'Have you never seen a lady's boudoir?'
'No; I don't think I have. I've never been in what you call society. I
had to make my living ever since I was sixteen. My father was a small
tradesman in Brixton. When I was sixteen I had to make my own living.
I used to draw in the illustrated papers. I began by making two pounds
a week. Then, as I got on, I used to live as much as possible in the
country. You can't paint landscapes in London.'
'You must have had a hard time.'
'I suppose I had. It was all right as long as I kept to my newspaper
work. But I was ambitious, and wanted to paint in oils; but I never
had a hundred pounds in front of me. I could only get away for a
fortnight or a month at a time. Then, as things got better, I had to
help my family. My father died, and I had to look after my mother.'
Mildred raised her eyes and looked at him affectionately.
'I think I could have done something if I had had a fair chance.'
'Done something? But you have done something. Have you forgotten what
the _Spectator_ said of your farmyard?'
'That's nothing. If I hadn't to think of getting my living I could do
better than that. Oil painting is the easiest material of all until
you come to a certain point; after that point, when you begin to think
of quality and transparency, it is most difficult.'
They were standing on the bridge. The water below them was full of
ducks. The birds balanced themselves like little boats on the waves,
and Mildred thought of her five hundred a year and the pleasure it
would be to help Ralph to paint the pictures he wanted to paint. She
imagined him a great artist; his success would be her doing. At that
same moment he was thinking that there never had been any pleasure in
his life; and Mildred--her hat, her expensive dress, her sunshade--
seemed in such bitter contrast to himself, to his own life, that he
could not hide a natural irritation.
'Your life has been all pleasure,' he said, glancing at her
disdainfully.
'No, indeed, it has not. My life has been miserable enough. We are
rich, it is true, but our riches have never brought me happiness. The
best time I've had has been since I met you.'
'Is that true? I wonder if that's true.'
Their eyes met and she said hastily, with seeming desire to change the
subject:
'So you're a Londoner born and bred, and yet you'd like to live in the
country.'
'Only for my painting. I love London, but you can't paint landscapes
in London.'
'I wonder why not. You said you loved this park. There's nothing more
beautiful in the country--those trees, this quiet, misty lake; it is
exquisite, and yet I suppose it wouldn't make a picture.'
'I don't know. I've often thought of trying to do something with it.
But what's beautiful to look at doesn't do well in a picture. The
hills and dales in the Green Park are perfect--their artificiality is
their beauty. There's one bit that I like especially.'
'Which is that?'
'The bit by Buckingham Palace where the sheep feed; the trees there
are beautiful, large spreading trees, and they give the place a false
air of Arcady. But in a picture it wouldn't do.'
'Why?'
'I can't say. I don't think it would mean much if it were painted.'
'You couldn't have a shepherd, or if you had he'd have to be cross-
gartered, and his lady-love in flowery silk would have to be sitting
on a bank, and there is not a bank there, you'd have to invent one.'
'That's it; the park is eighteenth century, a comedy of the
restoration.'
'But why couldn't you paint that?' said Mildred, pointing to where a
beautiful building passed across the vista.
'I suppose one ought to be able to. The turrets in the distance are
fine. But no, it wouldn't make a picture. The landscape painter never
will be able to do much with London. He'll have to live in the
country, and if he can't afford to do that he'd better turn it up.'
'Elsie Laurence and Cissy Clive are going to France soon. They say
that's the only place to study. In the summer they're going to a place
called Barbizon, near Fontainebleau. I was thinking of going with
them.'
'Were you? I wish I were going. Especially to Barbizon. The country
would suit me.'
Mildred longed to say, 'I shall be glad if you'll let me lend you the
money,' but she didn't dare. At the end of a long silence, Ralph said:
'I think we'd better be going on. It must be nearly ten.'