THE LITTLE MODEL
When in the preceding autumn Bianca began her picture called "The
Shadow," nobody was more surprised than Hilary that she asked him to find
her a model for the figure. Not knowing the nature of the picture, nor
having been for many years--perhaps never--admitted into the workings of
his wife's spirit, he said:
"Why don't you ask Thyme to sit for you?"
Blanca answered: "She's not the type at all--too matter-of-fact. Besides,
I don't want a lady; the figure's to be half draped."
Hilary smiled.
Blanca knew quite well that he was smiling at this distinction between
ladies and other women, and understood that he was smiling, not so much
at her, but at himself, for secretly agreeing with the distinction she
had made.
And suddenly she smiled too.
There was the whole history of their married life in those two smiles.
They meant so much: so many thousand hours of suppressed irritation, so
many baffled longings and earnest efforts to bring their natures
together. They were the supreme, quiet evidence of the divergence of two
lives--that slow divergence which had been far from being wilful, and was
the more hopeless in that it had been so gradual and so gentle. They had
never really had a quarrel, having enlightened views of marriage; but
they had smiled. They had smiled so often through so many years that no
two people in the world could very well be further from each other.
Their smiles had banned the revelation even to themselves of the tragedy
of their wedded state. It is certain that neither could help those
smiles, which were not intended to wound, but came on their faces as
naturally as moonlight falls on water, out of their inimically
constituted souls.
Hilary spent two afternoons among his artist friends, trying, by means of
the indications he had gathered, to find a model for "The Shadow." He
had found one at last. Her name, Barton, and address had been given him
by a painter of still life, called French.
"She's never sat to me," he said; "my sister discovered her in the West
Country somewhere. She's got a story of some sort. I don't know what.
She came up about three months ago, I think."
"She's not sitting to your sister now?" Hilary asked.
"No," said the painter of still life; "my sister's married and gone out
to India. I don't know whether she'd sit for the half-draped, but I
should think so. She'll have to, sooner or later; she may as well begin,
especially to a woman. There's a something about her that's
attractive--you might try her!" And with these words he resumed the
painting of still life which he had broken off to talk to Hilary.
Hilary had written to this girl to come and see him. She had come just
before dinner the same day.
He found her standing in the middle of his study, not daring, as it
seemed, to go near the furniture, and as there was very little light, he
could hardly see her face. She was resting a foot, very patient, very
still, in an old brown skirt, an ill-shaped blouse, and a blue-green
tam-o'-shanter cap. Hilary turned up the light. He saw a round little
face with broad cheekbones, flower-blue eyes, short lamp-black lashes,
and slightly parted lips. It was difficult to judge of her figure in
those old clothes, but she was neither short nor tall; her neck was white
and well set on, her hair pale brown and abundant. Hilary noted that her
chin, though not receding, was too soft and small; but what he noted
chiefly was her look of patient expectancy, as though beyond the present
she were seeing something, not necessarily pleasant, which had to come.
If he had not known from the painter of still life that she was from the
country, he would have thought her a town-bred girl, she looked so pale.
Her appearance, at all events, was not "too matter-of-fact." Her speech,
however, with its slight West-Country burr, was matter-of-fact enough,
concerned entirely with how long she would have to sit, and the pay she
was to get for it. In the middle of their conversation she sank down on
the floor, and Hilary was driven to restore her with biscuits and
liqueur, which in his haste he took for brandy. It seemed she had not
eaten since her breakfast the day before, which had consisted of a cup of
tea. In answer to his remonstrance, she made this matter-of-fact remark:
"If you haven't money, you can't buy things.... There's no one I can ask
up here; I'm a stranger."
"Then you haven't been getting work?"
"No," the little model answered sullenly; "I don't want to sit as most of
them want me to till I'm obliged." The blood rushed up in her face with
startling vividness, then left it white again.
'Ah!' thought Hilary, 'she has had experience already.'
Both he and his wife were accessible to cases of distress, but the nature
of their charity was different. Hilary was constitutionally unable to
refuse his aid to anything that held out a hand for it. Bianca (whose
sociology was sounder), while affirming that charity was wrong, since in
a properly constituted State no one should need help, referred her cases,
like Stephen, to the "Society for the Prevention of Begging," which took
much time and many pains to ascertain the worst.
But in this case what was of importance was that the poor girl should
have a meal, and after that to find out if she were living in a decent
house; and since she appeared not to be, to recommend her somewhere
better. And as in charity it is always well to kill two birds with one
expenditure of force, it was found that Mrs. Hughs, the seamstress, had a
single room to let unfurnished, and would be more than glad of four
shillings, or even three and six, a week for it. Furniture was also
found for her: a bed that creaked, a washstand, table, and chest of
drawers; a carpet, two chairs, and certain things to cook with; some of
those old photographs and prints that hide in cupboards, and a peculiar
little clock, which frequently forgot the time of day. All these and
some elementary articles of dress were sent round in a little van, with
three ferns whose time had nearly come, and a piece of the plant called
"honesty." Soon after this she came to "sit." She was a very quiet and
passive little model, and was not required to pose half-draped, Bianca
having decided that, after all, "The Shadow" was better represented fully
clothed; for, though she discussed the nude, and looked on it with
freedom, when it came to painting unclothed people, she felt a sort of
physical aversion.
Hilary, who was curious, as a man naturally would be, about anyone who
had fainted from hunger at his feet, came every now and then to see, and
would sit watching this little half-starved girl with kindly and
screwed-up eyes. About his personality there was all the evidence of
that saying current among those who knew him: "Hilary would walk a mile
sooner than tread on an ant." The little model, from the moment when he
poured liqueur between her teeth, seemed to feel he had a claim on her,
for she reserved her small, matter-of-fact confessions for his ears. She
made them in the garden, coming in or going out; or outside, and, now and
then, inside his study, like a child who comes and shows you a sore
finger. Thus, quite suddenly:
"I've four shillings left over this week, Mr. Dallison," or, "Old Mr.
Creed's gone to the hospital to-day, Mr. Dallison."
Her face soon became less bloodless than on that first evening, but it
was still pale, inclined to colour in wrong places on cold days, with
little blue veins about the temples and shadows under the eyes. The lips
were still always a trifle parted, and she still seemed to be looking out
for what was coming, like a little Madonna, or Venus, in a Botticelli
picture. This look of hers, coupled with the matter-of-factness of her
speech, gave its flavour to her personality....
On Christmas Day the picture was on view to Mr. Purcey, who had chanced
to "give his car a run," and to other connoisseurs. Bianca had invited
her model to be present at this function, intending to get her work.
But, slipping at once into a corner, the girl had stood as far as
possible behind a canvas. People, seeing her standing there, and noting
her likeness to the picture, looked at her with curiosity, and passed on,
murmuring that she was an interesting type. They did not talk to her,
either because they were afraid she could not talk of the things they
could talk of, or that they could not talk of the things she could talk
of, or because they were anxious not to seem to patronize her. She
talked to one, therefore. This occasioned Hilary some distress. He kept
coming up and smiling at her, or making tentative remarks or jests, to
which she would reply, "Yes, Mr. Dallison," or "No, Mr. Dallison," as the
case might be.
Seeing him return from one of these little visits, an Art Critic standing
before the picture had smiled, and his round, clean-shaven, sensual face
had assumed a greenish tint in eyes and cheeks, as of the fat in turtle
soup.
The only two other people who had noticed her particularly were those old
acquaintances, Mr. Purcey and Mr. Stone. Mr. Purcey had thought, 'Rather
a good-lookin' girl,' and his eyes strayed somewhat continually in her
direction. There was something piquant and, as it were, unlawfully
enticing to him in the fact that she was a real artist's model.
Mr. Stone's way of noticing her had been different. He had approached in
his slightly inconvenient way, as though seeing but one thing in the
whole world.
"You are living by yourself?" he had said. "I shall come and see you."
Made by the Art Critic or by Mr. Purcey, that somewhat strange remark
would have had one meaning; made by Mr. Stone it obviously had another.
Having finished what he had to say, the author of the book of "Universal
Brotherhood" had bowed and turned to go. Perceiving that he saw before
him the door and nothing else, everybody made way for him at once. The
remarks that usually arose behind his back began to be
heard--"Extraordinary old man!" "You know, he bathes in the Serpentine
all the year round?" "And he cooks his food himself, and does his own
room, they say; and all the rest of his time he writes a book!" "A
perfect crank!"