The great day of the year in Valentine’s house was always the day on
which his pictures for the Royal Academy Exhibition were shown in their
completed state to friends and admiring spectators, congregated in his
own painting room. His visitor represented almost every variety of rank
in the social scale; and grew numerous in proportion as they descended
from the higher to the lower degrees. Thus, the aristocracy of race
was usually impersonated, in his studio, by his one noble patron, the
Dowager Countess of Brambledown; the aristocracy of art by two or three
Royal Academicians; and the aristocracy of money by eight or ten highly
respectable families, who came quite as much to look at the Dowager
Countess as to look at the pictures. With these last, the select portion
of the company might be said to terminate; and, after them, flowed in
promiscuously the obscure majority of the visitors--a heterogeneous
congregation of worshippers at the shrine of art, who were some of them
of small importance, some of doubtful importance, some of no importance
at all; and who included within their numbers, not only a sprinkling of
Mr. Blyth’s old-established tradesmen, but also his gardener, his wife’s
old nurse, the brother of his housemaid, and the father of his cook.
Some of his respectable friends deplored, on principle, the “leveling
tendencies” which induced him thus to admit a mixture of all classes
into his painting-room, on the days when he exhibited his pictures.
But Valentine was warmly encouraged in taking this course by no less a
person than Lady Brambledown herself, whose perverse pleasure it was to
exhibit herself to society as an uncompromising Radical, a reviler of
the Peerage, a teller of scandalous Royal anecdotes, and a worshipper of
the memory of Oliver Cromwell.
On the eventful Saturday which was to display his works to an applauding
public of private friends, Mr. Blyth’s studio, thanks to Madonna’s
industry and attention, looked really in perfect order--as neat and
clean as a room could be. A semicircle of all the available chairs in
the house--drawing-room and bed-room chairs intermingled--ranged itself
symmetrically in front of the pictures. That imaginative classical
landscape, “The Golden Age,” reposed grandly on its own easel; while
“Columbus in Sight of the New World”--the largest canvas Mr. Blyth had
ever worked on, encased in the most gorgeous frame he had ever ordered
for one of his own pictures--was hung on the wall at an easy distance
from the ground, having proved too bulky to be safely accommodated by
any easel in Valentine’s possession.
Except Mr. Blyth’s bureau, all the ordinary furniture and general litter
of the room had been cleared out of it, or hidden away behind convenient
draperies in corners. Backwards and forwards over the open space thus
obtained, Mr. Blyth walked expectant, with the elastic skip peculiar
to him; looking ecstatically at his pictures, as he passed and repassed
them--now singing, now whistling; sometimes referring mysteriously to a
small manuscript which he carried in his hand, jauntily tied round
with blue ribbon; sometimes following the lines of the composition in
“Columbus,” by flourishing his right hand before it in the air, with
dreamy artistic grace;--always, turn where he would, instinct from
top to toe with an excitable activity which defied the very idea of
rest--and always hospitably ready to rush to the door and receive the
first enthusiastic visitor with open arms, at a moment’s notice.
Above stairs, in the invalid room, the scene was of a different
kind. Here also the arrival of the expected visitors was an event of
importance; but it was awaited in perfect tranquillity and silence. Mrs.
Blyth lay in her usual position on the couch-side of the bed, turning
over a small portfolio of engravings; and Madonna stood at the front
window, where she could command a full view of the garden gate, and of
the approach from it to the house. This was always her place on the days
when the pictures were shown; for, while occupying this position, she
was able, by signs, to indicate the arrival of the different guests to
her adopted mother, who lay too far from the window to see them. On
all other days of the year, it was Mrs. Blyth who devoted herself
to Madonna’s service, by interpreting for her advantage the pleasant
conversations that she could not hear. On this day, it was Madonna
who devoted herself to Mrs. Blyth’s service, by identifying for her
amusement the visitors whose approach up the garden walk she could not
safely leave her bed to see.
No privilege that the girl enjoyed under Valentine’s roof was more
valued by her than this; for by the exercise of it, she was enabled to
make some slight return in kind for the affectionate attention of
which she was the constant object. Mrs. Blyth always encouraged her to
indicate who the different guests were, as they followed each other,
by signs of her own choosing,--these signs being almost invariably
suggested by some characteristic peculiarity of the person represented,
which her quick observation had detected at a first interview, and which
she copied with the quaintest exactness of imitation. The correctness
with which her memory preserved these signs, and retained, after long
intervals, the recollection of the persons to whom they alluded, was
very extraordinary. The name of any mere acquaintance, who came
seldom to the house, she constantly forgot, having only perhaps had
it interpreted to her once or twice, and not hearing it as others did,
whenever it accidentally occurred in conversation. But if the sign by
which she herself had once designated that acquaintance--no matter how
long ago--happened to be repeated by those about her, it was then
always found that the forgotten person was recalled to her recollection
immediately.
From eleven till three had been notified in the invitation cards as the
time during which the pictures would be on view. It was now long past
ten. Madonna still stood patiently by the window, going on with a new
purse which she was knitting for Valentine; and looking out attentively
now and then towards the road. Mrs. Blyth, humming a tune to herself,
slowly turned over the engravings in her portfolio, and became so
thoroughly absorbed in looking at them, that she forgot altogether how
time was passing, and was quite astonished to hear Madonna suddenly clap
her hands at the window, as a signal that the first punctual visitor had
passed the garden-gate.
Mrs. Blyth raised her eyes from the prints directly, and smiled as she
saw the girl puckering up her fresh, rosy face into a childish imitation
of old age, bending her light figure gravely in a succession of formal
bows, and kissing her hand several times with extreme suavity and
deliberation. These signs were meant to indicate Mrs. Blyth’s father,
the poor engraver, whose old-fashioned habit it was to pay homage to
all his friends among the ladies, by saluting them from afar off with
tremulous bows and gallant kissings of the hand.
“Ah!” thought Mrs. Blyth, nodding, to show that she understood the
signs--“Ah! there’s father. I felt sure he would be the first; and
I know exactly what he will do when he gets in. He will admire the
pictures more than anybody, and have a better opinion to give of
them than anybody else has; but before he can mention a word of it to
Valentine, there will be dozens of people in the painting-room, and then
he will get taken suddenly nervous, and come up here to me.”
While Mrs. Blyth was thinking about her father, Madonna signalized the
advent of two more visitors. First, she raised her hand sharply, and
began pulling at an imaginary whisker on her own smooth cheek--then
stood bolt upright, and folded her arms majestically over her bosom.
Mrs. Blyth immediately recognized the originals of these two pantomime
portrait-sketches. The one represented Mr. Hemlock, the small critic of
a small newspaper, who was principally remarkable for never letting
his whiskers alone for five minutes together. The other portrayed Mr.
Bullivant, the aspiring fair-haired sculptor, who wrote poetry, and
studied dignity in his attitudes so unremittingly, that he could not
even stop to look in at a shop-window, without standing before it as if
he was his own statue.
In a minute or two more, Mrs. Blyth heard a prodigious grating of
wheels, and trampling of horses, and banging of carriage-steps violently
let down. Madonna immediately took a seat on the nearest chair, rolled
the skirt of her dress up into her lap, tucked both her hands inside it,
then drew one out, and imitated the action of snuff-taking--looking up
merrily at Mrs. Blyth, as much as to say, “You can’t mistake that, I
think?”--Impossible! old Lady Brambledown, with her muff and snuff-box,
to the very life.
Close on the Dowager Countess followed a visitor of low degree.
Madonna--looking as if she was a little afraid of the boldness of
her own imitation--began chewing an imaginary quid of tobacco; then
pretended to pull it suddenly out of his month, and throw it away behind
her. It was all over in a moment; but it represented to perfection
Mangles, the gardener; who, though an inveterate chewer of tobacco,
always threw away his quid whenever he confronted his betters, as a duty
that he owed to his own respectability.
Another carriage. Madonna put on a suppositions pair of spectacles,
pretended to pull them off, rub them bright, and put them on again;
then, retiring a little from the window, spread out her dress into the
widest dimensions that it could be made to assume. The new arrivals thus
portrayed, were the doctor, whose spectacles were never clean enough
to please him; and the doctor’s wife, an emaciated fine lady, who
deceitfully suggested the presence of vanished charms, by wearing a
balloon under her gown--which benevolent rumor pronounced to be only a
crinoline petticoat.
Here there was a brief pause in the procession of visitors. Mrs. Blyth
beckoned to Madonna, and began talking on her fingers.
“No signs of Zack yet--are there, love?”
The girl looked anxiously towards the window, and shook her head.
“If he ventures up here, when he does come, we must not be so kind to
him as usual. He has been behaving very badly, and we must see if we
can’t make him ashamed of himself.”
Madonna’s color rose directly. She looked amazed, sorry, perplexed, and
incredulous by turns. Zack behaving badly?--she would never believe it!
“I mean to make him ashamed of himself, if he ventures near me!” pursued
Mrs. Blyth.
“And I shall try if I can’t console him afterwards,” thought Madonna,
turning away her head for fear her face should betray her.
Another ring at the bell! “There he is, perhaps,” continued Mrs. Blyth,
nodding in the direction of the window, as she signed those words.
Madonna ran to look: then turned round, and with a comic air of
disappointment, hooked her thumbs in the arm-holes of an imaginary
waistcoat. Only Mr. Gimble, the picture-dealer, who always criticized
works of art with his hands in that position.
Just then, a soft knock sounded at Mrs. Blyth’s door; and her father
entered, sniffing with a certain perpetual cold of his which nothing
could cure--bowing, kissing his hand, and frightened up-stairs by the
company, just as his daughter had predicted.
“Oh, Lavvie! the Dowager Countess is downstairs, and her ladyship likes
the pictures,” exclaimed the old man, snuffling and smiling infirmly in
a flutter of nervous glee.
“Come and sit down by me, father, and see Madonna doing the visitors.
It’s funnier than any play that ever was acted.”
“And her ladyship likes the pictures,” repeated the engraver, his poor
old watery eyes sparkling with pleasure as he told his little morsel of
good news over again, and sat down by the bedside of his favorite child.
The rings at the bell began to multiply at compound interest. Madonna
was hardly still at the window for a moment, so many were the visitors
whose approach up the garden walk it was now necessary for her to
signalize. Down-stairs, all the vacant seats left in the painting room
were filling rapidly; and the ranks of standers in the back places were
getting two-deep already.
There was Lady Brambledown (whose calls at the studio always lasted the
whole morning), sitting in the center, or place of honor, taking snuff
fiercely, talking liberal sentiments in a cracked voice, and apparently
feeling extreme pleasure in making the respectable middle classes stare
at her in reverent amazement. Also, two Royal Academicians--a
saturnine Academician, swaddled in a voluminous cloak; and a benevolent
Academician, with a slovenly umbrella, and a perpetual smile. Also, the
doctor and his wife, who admired the massive frame of “Columbus,” but
said not a word about the picture itself. Also, Mr. Bullivant, the
sculptor, and Mr. Hemlock, the journalist, exchanging solemnly that
critical small talk, in which such words as “sensuous,” “aesthetic,”
“objective,” and “subjective,” occupy prominent places, and out of which
no man ever has succeeded, or ever will succeed, in extricating an
idea. Also, Mr. Gimble, fluently laudatory, with the whole alphabet of
Art-Jargon at his fingers’ ends, and without the slightest comprehension
of the subject to embarrass him in his flow of language. Also, certain
respectable families who tried vainly to understand the pictures,
opposed by other respectable families who never tried at all, but
confined themselves exclusively to the Dowager Countess. Also, the
obscure general visitors, who more than made up in enthusiasm what
they wanted in distinction. And, finally, the absolute democracy, or
downright low-life party among the spectators--represented for the
time being by Mr. Blyth’s gardener, and Mr. Blyth’s cook’s father--who,
standing together modestly outside the door, agreed, in awe-struck
whispers, that the “Golden Age” was a Tasty Thing, and “Columbus in
sight of the New World,” a Beautiful Piece.
All Valentine’s restlessness before the Visitors arrived was as
nothing compared with his rapturous activity, now that they were fairly
assembled. Not once had he stood still, or ceased talking since the
first spectator entered the room. And not once, probably, would he have
permitted either his legs or his tongue to take the slightest repose
until the last guest had departed from the Studio, but for Lady
Brambledown, who accidentally hit on the only available means of fixing
his attention to one thing, and keeping him comparatively quiet in one
place.
“I say, Blyth,” cried her ladyship (she never prefixed the word “Mister”
to the names of any of her male friends)--“I say, Blyth, I can’t for the
life of me understand your picture of Columbus. You talked some time ago
about explaining it in detail. When are you going to begin?”
“Directly, my dear madam, directly: I was only waiting till the room got
well filled,” answered Valentine, taking up the long wand which he used
to steady his hand while he was painting, and producing the manuscript
tied round with blue ribbon. “The fact is--I don’t know whether you mind
it?--I have just thrown together a few thoughts on art, as a sort of
introduction to--to Columbus, in short. They are written down on this
paper--the thoughts are. Would anybody be kind enough to read them,
while I point out what they mean on the picture? I only ask, because it
seems egotistical to be reading my opinions about my own works.--_Will_
anybody be kind enough?” repeated Mr. Blyth, walking all along the
semicircle of chairs, and politely offering his manuscript to anybody
who would take it.
Not a hand was held out. Bashfulness is frequently infectious; and it
proved to be so on this particular occasion.
“Nonsense, Blyth!” exclaimed Lady Brambledown. “Read it yourself.
Egotistical? Stuff! Everybody’s egotistical. I hate modest men; they’re
all rascals. Read it and assert your own importance. You have a better
right to do so than most of your neighbors, for you belong to the
aristocracy of talent--the only aristocracy, in my opinion, that is
worth a straw.” Here her ladyship took a pinch of snuff, and looked at
the middle-class families, as much as to say:--“There! what do you think
of that from a Member of your darling Peerage?”
Thus encouraged, Valentine took his station (wand in hand) beneath
“Columbus,” and unrolled the manuscript.
“What a very peculiar man Mr. Blyth is!” whispered one of the lady
visitors to an acquaintance behind her.
“And what a very unusual mixture of people he seems to have asked!”
rejoined the other, looking towards the doorway, where the democracy
loomed diffident in Sunday clothes.
“The pictures which I have the honor to exhibit,” began Valentine from
the manuscript, “have been painted on a principle--”
“I beg your pardon, Blyth,” interrupted Lady Brambledown, whose sharp
ears had caught the remark made on Valentine and his “mixture of
people,” and whose liberal principles were thereby instantly stimulated
into publicly asserting themselves. “I beg your pardon; but where’s my
old ally, the gardener, who was here last time?--Out at the door is
he? What does he mean by not coming in? Here, gardener! come behind my
chair.”
The gardener approached, internally writhing under the honor of public
notice, and covered with confusion in consequence of the noise his boots
made on the floor.
“How do you do? and how are your family? What did you stop out at the
door for? You’re one of Mr. Blyth’s guests, and have as much right
inside as any of the rest of us. Stand there, and listen, and look about
you, and inform your mind. This is an age of progress, gardener; your
class is coming uppermost, and time it did too. Go on, Blyth.” And again
the Dowager Countess took a pinch of snuff, looking contemptuously at
the lady who had spoken of the “mixture of people.”
“I take the liberty,” continued Valentine, resuming the manuscript, “of
dividing all art into two great classes, the landscape subjects, and
the figure subjects; and I venture to describe these classes, in their
highest development, under the respective titles of Art Pastoral and
Art Mystic. The ‘Golden Age’ is an attempt to exemplify Art Pastoral.
‘Columbus in Sight of the New World’ is an effort to express myself
in Art Mystic. In ‘The Golden Age’ “--(everybody looked at Columbus
immediately)--“In the ‘Golden Age,’” continued Mr. Blyth, waving
his wand persuasively towards the right picture, “you have, in the
foreground-bushes, the middle-distance trees, the horizon mountains, and
the superincumbent sky, what I would fain hope is a tolerably faithful
transcript of mere nature. But in the group of buildings to the right”
(here the wand touched the architectural city, with its acres of
steps and forests of pillars), “in the dancing nymphs, and the musing
philosopher” (Mr. Blyth rapped the philosopher familiarly on the head
with the padded end of his wand), “you have the Ideal--the elevating
poetical view of ordinary objects, like cities, happy female peasants,
and thoughtful spectators. Thus nature is exalted; and thus Art
Pastoral--no!--thus Art Pastoral exalts--no! I beg your pardon--thus Art
Pastoral and Nature exalt each other, and--I beg your pardon again!--in
short, exalt each other--”
Here Valentine broke down at the end of a paragraph; and the gardener
made an abortive effort to get back to the doorway.
“Capital, Blyth!” cried Lady Brambledown. “Liberal, comprehensive,
progressive, profound. Gardener, don’t fidget!”
“The true philosophy of art--the true philosophy of art, my lady,” added
Mr. Gimble, the picture-dealer.
“Crude?” said Mr. Hemlock, the critic, appealing confidentially to Mr.
Bullivant, the sculptor.
“What?” inquired that gentleman.
“Blyth’s principles of criticism,” answered Mr. Hemlock.
“Oh, yes! extremely so,” said Mr. Bullivant.
“Having glanced at Art Pastoral, as attempted in the ‘Golden Age,’”
pursued Valentine, turning over a leaf, “I will now, with your
permission, proceed to Art Mystic and ‘Columbus.’ Art Mystic, I would
briefly endeavor to define, as aiming at the illustration of fact on
the highest imaginative principles. It takes a scene, for instance, from
history, and represents that scene as exactly and naturally as possible.
And here the ordinary thinker might be apt to say, Art Mystic has done
enough.” (“So it has,” muttered Mr. Hemlock.) “On the contrary, Art
Mystic has only begun. Besides the representation of the scene itself,
the spirit of the age”--(“Ah! quite right,” said Lady Brambledown; “yes,
yes, the spirit of the age.”)--“the spirit of the age which produced
that scene, must also be indicated, mystically, by the introduction of
those angelic or infernal winged forms--those cherubs and airy
female geniuses--those demons and dragons of darkness--which so
many illustrious painters have long since taught us to recognize as
impersonating to the eye the good and evil influences, Virtue and
Vice, Glory and Shame, Success and Failure, Past and Future, Heaven
and Earth--all on the same canvas.” Here Mr. Blyth stopped again:
this passage had cost him some trouble, and he was proud of having got
smoothly to the end of it.
“Glorious!” cried enthusiastic Mr. Gimble.
“Turgid,” muttered critical Mr. Hemlock.
“Very,” assented compliant Mr. Bullivant.
“Go on--get to the picture--don’t stop so often,” said Lady Brambledown.
“Bless my soul, how the man does fidget!” This was not directed at
Valentine (who, however, richly deserved it), but at the unhappy
gardener, who had made a second attempt to escape to the sheltering
obscurity of the doorway, and had been betrayed by his boots.
“To exemplify what has just been remarked, by the picture at my side,”
proceeded Mr. Blyth. “The moment sought to be represented is sunrise
on the 12th of October, 1492, when the great Columbus first saw land
clearly at the end of his voyage. Observe, now, in the upper portions
of the composition, how the spirit of the age is mystically developed
before the spectator. Of the two winged female figures hovering in the
morning clouds, immediately over Columbus and his ship, the first is the
Spirit of Discovery, holding the orb of the world in her left hand, and
pointing with a laurel crown (typical of Columbus’s fame) towards the
newly-discovered Continent. The other figure symbolizes the Spirit of
Royal Patronage, impersonated by Queen Isabella, Columbus’s warm
friend and patron, who offered her jewels to pay his expenses, and
who, throughout his perilous voyage, was with him in spirit, as here
represented. The tawny figure with feathered head, floating hair,
and wildly-extended pinions, soaring upward from the western horizon,
represents the Genius of America advancing to meet her great discoverer;
while the shadowy countenances, looming dimly through the morning mist
behind her, are portrait-types of Washington and Franklin, who would
never have flourished in America, if that continent had not been
discovered, and who are here, therefore, associated prophetically with
the first voyagers from the Old World to the New.”
Pausing once more, Mr. Blyth used his explanatory wand freely on the
Spirit of Discovery, the Spirit of Royal Patronage, and the Genius
of America--not forgetting an indicative knock a-piece for the embryo
physiognomies of Washington and Franklin. Everybody’s eyes followed the
progress of the wand vacantly; but nobody spoke, except Mr. Hemlock,
who frowned and whispered--“Bosh!” to Mr. Bullivant; who smiled, and
whispered--“Quite so,” to Mr. Hemlock.
“Let me now ask your attention,” resumed Valentine, “to the same mystic
style of treatment, as carried from the sky into the sea. Writhing
defeated behind Columbus’s ship, in the depths of the transparent
Atlantic, you have shadowy types of the difficulties and enemies that
the dauntless navigator had to contend with. Crushed headlong into the
waters, sinks first the Spirit of Superstition, delineated by monastic
robes--the council of monks having set itself against Columbus from the
very first. Behind the Spirit of Superstition, and impersonated by
a fillet of purple grapes around her head, descends the Genius
of Portugal--the Portuguese having repulsed Columbus, and having
treacherously sent out frigates to stop his discovery, by taking him
prisoner. The scaly forms entwined around these two, represent Envy,
Hatred, Malice, Ignorance, and Crime generally; and thus the mystic
element is, so to speak, led through the sea out of the picture.”
(Another pause. Nobody said a word, but everybody was relieved by the
final departure of the mystic element.)
“All that now remains to be noticed,” continued Mr. Blyth, “is the
central portion of the composition, which is occupied by Columbus and
his ships, and which represents the scene as it may actually be
supposed to have occurred. Here we get to Reality, and to that sort of
correctly-imitative art which is simple enough to explain itself. As
a proof of this, let me point attention to the rig of the ships, the
actions of the sailors, and, more than all, to Columbus himself. Weeks
of the most laborious consultation of authorities of which the artist
is capable, have been expended over the impersonation of that
one figure,--expended, I would say, in obtaining that faithful
representation of individual character, which it is my earnest desire to
combine with the higher or mystic element. One instance of this fidelity
to Nature I may perhaps be permitted to point out in the person of
Columbus, in conclusion. Pray observe him, standing rapturously on the
high stern of his vessel--and oblige me, at the same time, by minutely
inspecting his outstretched arms. First, however, let me remind you
that this great man went to sea at the age of fourteen, and cast himself
freely into all the hardships of nautical life; next, let me beg you
to enter into my train of thought, and consider these hardships as
naturally comprising, among other things, industrious haulings at ropes
and manful tuggings at long oars; and, finally, let me now direct your
attention to the manner in which the muscular system of the famous
navigator is developed about the arms in anatomical harmony with this
idea. Follow the wand closely, and observe, bursting, as it were,
through his sleeves, the characteristic vigor of Columbus’s _Biceps
Flexor Cubiti_--”
“Mercy on us! what’s that?” cried Lady Brambledown. “Anything improper?”
“The _Biceps Flexor Cubiti,_ your ladyship,” began the Doctor, delighted
to pour professional information into the mind of a Dowager Countess,
“may be literally interpreted as the Two-Headed Bender of the Elbow, and
is a muscle situated on, what we term, the Os--”
“Follow the wand, my dear madam, pray follow the wand! This is the
_Biceps,”_ interrupted Valentine, tapping till the canvas quivered again
on the upper part of Columbus’s arms, which obtruded their muscular
condition through a pair of tight-fitting chamoy leather sleeves. “The
_Biceps,_ Lady Brambledown, is a tremendously strong muscle--”
“Which arises in the human body, your Ladyship,” interposed the Doctor,
“by two heads--”
“Which is used,” continued Valentine, cutting him short--“I beg your
pardon, Doctor, but this is important--which is used--”
“I beg yours,” rejoined the Doctor, testily. “The origin of the muscle,
or place where it arises, is the first thing to be described. The use
comes afterwards. It is an axiom of anatomical science--”
“But, my dear sir!” cried Valentine--
“No,” said the Doctor, peremptorily, “you must really excuse me. This is
a professional point. If I allow erroneous explanations of the muscular
system to pass unchecked in my presence--”
“I don’t want to make any!” cried Mr. Blyth, gesticulating violently in
the direction of Columbus. “I only want to--”
“To describe the use of a muscle before you describe the place of its
origin in the human body,” persisted the Doctor. “No, my dear sir! I
can’t sanction it. No, indeed! I really _can_ NOT sanction it!”
“Will you let me say two words?” asked Valentine.
“Two hundred thousand, my good sir, on any other subject,” assented the
Doctor, with a sarcastic smile; “but on _this_ subject--”
“On art?” shouted Mr. Blyth, with a tap on Columbus, which struck a
sound from the canvas like a thump on a muffled drum. “On art, Doctor? I
only want to say that, as Columbus’s early life must have exercised him
considerably in hauling ropes and pulling oars, I have shown the large
development of his _Biceps_ muscle (which is principally used in those
actions) through his sleeves, as a good characteristic point to insist
on in his physical formation.--That’s all! As to the origin--”
“The origin of the _Biceps Flexor Cubiti,_ your Ladyship,” resumed the
pertinacious Doctor; “is by two heads. The first begins, if I may so
express myself, _tendinous,_ from the glenoid cavity of the scapula--”
“That man is a pedantic jackass,” whispered Mr. Hemlock to his friend.
“And yet he hasn’t a bad head for a bust!” rejoined Mr. Bullivant.
“Pray, Mr. Blyth,” pleaded the polite and ever-admiring Mr.
Gimble--“pray let me beg you, in the name of the company to proceed with
your most interesting and suggestive explanations and views on art!”
“Indeed, Mr. Gimble,” said Valentine, a little crest-fallen under the
anatomical castigation inflicted on him by the Doctor, “I am very much
delighted and gratified by your approval; but I have nothing more to
read. I thought that point about Columbus a good point to leave off
with, and considered that I might safely allow the rest of the picture
to explain itself to the intelligent spectator.”
Hearing this, some of the spectators, evidently distrusting their own
intelligence, rose to take leave--new visitors making their appearance,
however, to fill the vacant chairs and receive Mr. Blyth’s hearty
welcome. Meanwhile, through all the bustle of departing and arriving
friends, and through all the fast-strengthening hum of general talk,
the voice of the unyielding doctor still murmured solemnly of “capsular
ligaments,” “adjacent tendons,” and “corracoid processes” to Lady
Brambledown, who listened to him with satirical curiosity, as a species
of polite medical buffoon whom it rather amused her to become acquainted
with.
Among the next applicants for admission at the painting-room door were
two whom Valentine had expected to see at a much earlier period of the
day--Mr. Matthew Marksman and Zack.
“How late you are!” he said, as he shook hands with young Thorpe.
“I wish I could have come earlier, my dear fellow,” answered Zack,
rather importantly; “but I had some business to do” (he had been
recovering his watch from the pawnbroker); “and my friend here had some
business to do also” (Mr. Marksman had been toasting red herrings for an
early dinner); “and so somehow we couldn’t get here before. Mat, let me
introduce you. This is my old friend, Mr. Blyth, whom I told you of.”
Valentine had barely time to take the hand of the new guest before his
attention was claimed by fresh visitors. Young Thorpe did the honors of
the painting-room in the artist’s absence. “Lots of people, as I told
you. My friend’s a great genius,” whispered Zack, wondering, as he
spoke, whether the scene of civilized life now displayed before Mr.
Marksman would at all tend to upset his barbarian self-possession.
No: not in the least. There stood Mat, just as grave, cool, and quietly
observant of things about him as ever. Neither the pictures, nor
the company, nor the staring of many eyes that wondered at his black
skull-cap and scarred swarthy face, were capable of disturbing the
Olympian serenity of this Jupiter of the back-woods.
“There!” cried Zack, pointing triumphantly across the room to
“Columbus.” “Cudgel your brains, old boy, and guess what that is a
picture of, without coming to me to help you.”
Mat attentively surveyed the figure of Columbus, the rig of his ship,
and the wings of the typical female spirits, hovering overhead in
the morning clouds--thought a little--then gravely and deliberately
answered:--
“Peter Wilkins taking a voyage along with his flying wives.”
Zack pulled out his handkerchief, and stifled his laughter as well as he
could, out of consideration for Mat, who, however, took not the smallest
notice of him, but added, still staring intently at the picture.
“Peter Wilkins was the only book I had, when I was a lad aboard ship.
I used to read it over and over again, at odds and ends of spare time,
till I pretty nigh got it by heart. That was many a year ago; and a good
lot of what I knowed then I don’t know now. But, mind ye, it’s my belief
that Peter Wilkins was something of a sailor.”
“Well?” whispered Zack, humoring him, “suppose he was, what of that?”
“Do you think a man as was anything of a sailor would ever be fool
enough to put to sea in such a craft as that?” asked Mr. Marksman,
pointing scornfully to Columbus’s ship.
“Hush! old Rough and Tough: the picture hasn’t anything to do with Peter
Wilkins,” said Zack. “Keep quiet, and wait here a minute for me. There
are some friends of mine at the other end of the room that I must go and
speak to. And, I say, if Blyth comes up to you and asks you about the
picture, say it’s Columbus, and remarkably like him.”
Left by himself, Mat looked about for better standing-room than he then
happened to occupy; and seeing a vacant space left between the door-post
and Mr. Blyth’s bureau, retreated to it. Putting his hands in his
pockets, he leaned comfortably against the wall, and began to examine
the room and everything in it at his leisure. It was not long, however,
before he was disturbed. One of his neighbors, seeing that his back was
against a large paper sketch nailed on the wall behind him, told him
bluntly that he was doing mischief there, and made him change his
position. He moved accordingly to the door-post; but even here he was
not left in repose. A fresh relay of visitors arrived, and obliged him
to make way for them to pass into the room--which he did by politely
rolling himself round the door-post into the passage.
As he disappeared in this way, Mr. Blyth bustled up to the place
where Mat had been standing, and received his guests there, with great
cordiality, but also with some appearance of flurry and perplexity of
mind. The fact was, that Lady Brambledown had just remembered that she
had not examined Valentine’s works yet, through one of those artistic
tubes which effectively concentrate the rays of light on a picture, when
applied to the eye. Knowing, by former experience, that the studio
was furnished with one of these little instruments, her ladyship now
intimated her ardent desire to use it instantly on “Columbus.” Valentine
promised to get it, with his usual ready politeness; but he had not the
slightest idea where it actually was, for all that. Among the litter
of small things that had been cleared out of the way, when the
painting-room was put in order, there were several which he vaguely
remembered having huddled together for safety in the bottom of his
bureau. The tube might possibly have been among them; so in this place
he determined to look for it--being quite ignorant, if the search turned
out unsuccessful, where he ought to look next.
After begging the new visitors to walk in, he opened the bureau, which
was large and old-fashioned, with a little bright key hanging by a chain
that he unhooked from his watch-guard; and began searching inside amid
infinite confusion--all his attention concentrated in the effort to
discover the lost tube. It was not to be found in the bottom of the
bureau. He next looked, after a little preliminary hesitation, into
a long narrow drawer opening beneath some pigeon-hole recesses at the
back.
The tube was not there, either; and he shut the drawer to again,
carefully and gently--for inside it was the Hair Bracelet that had
belonged to Madonna’s mother, lying on the white handkerchief, which
had also been taken from the dead woman’s pocket. Just as he closed
the drawer, he heard footsteps at his right hand, and turned in that
direction rather suspiciously--locking down the lid of the bureau as he
looked round. It was only the civil Mr. Gimble, wanting to know what
Mr. Blyth was searching for, and whether he could help him. Valentine
mentioned the loss of the tube; and Mr. Gimble immediately volunteered
to make one of pasteboard. “Ten thousand thanks,” said Mr. Blyth,
hooking the key to his watch-guard again, as he returned to Lady
Brambledown with his friend. “Ten thousand thanks; but the worst of it
is, I don’t know where to find the pasteboard.”
If, instead of turning to the right hand to speak to Mr. Gimble,
Valentine had turned to the left, he would have seen that, just as he
opened the bureau and began to search in it, Mr. Marksman finding the
way into the painting-room clear once more, had rolled himself quietly
round the door-post again; and had then, just as quietly, bent forward a
little, so as to look sideways into the bureau with those observant eyes
of his which nothing could escape, and which had been trained by his
old Indian experience to be always unscrupulously at work, watching
something. Little did Mr. Blyth think, as he walked away, talking with
Mr. Gimble, and carefully hooking his key on to its swivel again, that
Zack’s strange friend had seen as much of the inside of the bureau as he
had seen of it himself.
“He shut up his big box uncommon sharp, when that smilin’ little chap
come near him,” thought Mat. “And yet there didn’t seem nothing in it
that strangers mightn’t see. There wasn’t no money there--at least none
that _I_ set eyes on. Well! it’s not my business. Let’s have another
look at the picter.”
In the affairs of art, as in other matters, important discoveries are
sometimes made, and great events occasionally accomplished, by very
ignoble agencies. Mat’s deplorable ignorance of Painting in general,
and grossly illiterate misunderstanding of the subject represented by
Columbus in particular, seemed to mark him out as the last man in the
world who could possibly be associated with Art Mystic in the character
of guardian genius. Yet such was the proud position which he was
now selected by Fate to occupy. In plain words, Mr. Blyth’s greatest
historical work had been for some little time in imminent danger
of destruction by falling; and Mat’s “look at the picter,” was the
all-important look which enabled him to be the first person in the room
who perceived that it was in peril.
The eye with which Mr. Marksman now regarded the picture was certainly
the eye of a barbarian; but the eye with which he afterwards examined
the supports by which it was suspended, was the eye of a sailor, and of
a good practical carpenter to boot. He saw directly, that one of the two
iron clamps to which the frame-lines of “Columbus” were attached, had
been carelessly driven into a part of the wall that was not strong
enough to hold it against the downward stress of the heavy frame. Little
warning driblets of loosened plaster had been trickling down rapidly
behind the canvas; but nobody heard them fall in the general buzz of
talking; and nobody noticed the thin, fine crack above the iron clamp,
which was now lengthening stealthily minute by minute.
“Just let me by, will you?” said Mat quietly to some of his neighbors.
“I want to stop those flying women and the man in the crank ship from
coming down by the long run.”
Dozens of alarmed ladies and gentlemen started up from their chairs.
Mat pushed through them unceremoniously; and was indebted to his want of
politeness for being in time to save the picture. With a grating crack,
and an accompanying descent of a perfect slab of plaster, the loose
clamp came clean out of the wall, just as Mat seized the unsupported end
and side of the frame in his sturdy hands, and so prevented the picture
from taking the fatal swing downwards, which would have infallibly
torn it from the remaining fastening, and precipitated it on the chairs
beneath.
A prodigious confusion and clamoring of tongues ensued; Mr. Blyth being
louder, wilder, and more utterly useless in the present emergency than
any of his neighbors. Mat, cool as ever, kept his hold of the picture;
and, taking no notice of the confused advice and cumbersome help offered
to him, called to Zack to fetch a ladder, or, failing that, to “get a
hoist” on some chairs, and cut the rope from the clamp that remained
firm. Wooden steps, as young Thorpe knew, were usually kept in the
painting-room. Where had they been removed to now? Mr. Blyth’s memory
was lost altogether in his excitement. Zack made a speculative dash
at the flowing draperies which concealed the lumber in one corner, and
dragged out the steps in triumph.
“All right; take your time, young ‘un: there’s a knife in my left-hand
breeches’ pocket,” said Mat. “Now then, cut away at that bit of
rope’s-end, and hold on tight at top, while I lower away at bottom.
Steady! Take it easy, and--there you are!” With which words, the
guardian genius left Art-Mystic resting safely on the floor, and began
to shake his coattails free of the plaster that had dropped on them.
“My dear sir! you have saved the finest picture I ever painted,” cried
Valentine, warmly seizing him by both hands. “I can’t find words to
express my gratitude and admiration--”
“Don’t worry yourself about that,” answered Mat; “I don’t suppose I
should understand you if you _could_ find ‘em. If you want the picter
put up again, I’ll do it. And if you want the carpenter’s muddle head
punched, who put it up before, I shouldn’t much mind doing that either,”
added Mat, looking at the hole from which the clamp had been torn with
an expression of the profoundest workmanlike disgust.
A new commotion in the room--near the door this time--prevented Mr.
Blyth from giving an immediate answer to the two friendly propositions
just submitted to him.
At the first alarm of danger, all the ladies--headed by the Dowager
Countess, in whom the instinct of self-preservation was largely
developed--had got as far away as they could from the falling picture,
before they ventured to look round at the process by which it was at
last safely landed on the floor. Just as this had been accomplished,
Lady Brambledown--who stood nearest to the doorway--caught sight of
Madonna in the passage that led to it. Mrs. Blyth had heard the noise
and confusion downstairs, and finding that her bell was not answered
by the servants, and that it was next to impossible to overcome her
father’s nervous horror of confronting the company alone, had sent
Madonna down-stairs with him, to assist in finding out what had happened
in the studio.
While descending the stairs with her companion, the girl had anticipated
that they might easily discover whether anything was amiss, without
going further than the passage, by merely peeping through the studio
door. But all chance of escaping the ordeal of the painting-room was
lost the moment Lady Brambledown set eyes on her. The Dowager Countess
was one of Madonna’s warmest admirers; and now expressed that admiration
by pouncing on her with immense affection and enthusiasm from the
painting-room door-way. Other people, to whom the deaf and dumb girl
was a much more interesting sight than “Columbus,” or the “Golden Age,”
crowded round her; all trying together, with great amiability and small
intelligence, to explain what had happened by signs which no human being
could possibly understand. Fortunately for Madonna, Zack (who ever since
he had cut the picture down had been assailed by an incessant fire
of questions about his strange friend, from dozens of inquisitive
gentlemen) happened to look towards her, over the ladies’ heads, and
came directly to explain the danger from which “Columbus” had escaped.
She tried hard to get away, and bear the intelligence to Mrs. Blyth;
but Lady Brambledown, feeling amiably unwilling to resign her too soon,
pitched on the poor engraver standing tremulous in the passage, as being
quite clever enough to carry a message up-stairs, and sent him off to
take the latest news from the studio to his daughter immediately.
Thus it was that when Mr. Blyth left Zack’s friend to see what was going
on near the door, he found Madonna in the painting-room, surrounded
by sympathizing and admiring ladies. The first words of explanation by
which Lady Brambledown answered his mute look of inquiry, reminded him
of the anxiety and alarm that his wife must have suffered; and he ran
up-stairs directly, promising to be back again in a minute or two.
Mat carelessly followed Valentine to the group at the
doorway--carelessly looked over some ladies’ bonnets--and saw Madonna,
offering her slate to the Dowager Countess at that moment.
The sweet feminine gentleness and youthful softness of the girl’s face,
looked inexpressibly lovely, as she now stood shy and confused under the
eager eyes that were all gazing on her. Her dress, too, had never more
powerfully aided the natural attractions of her face and figure by its
own loveable charms of simplicity and modesty, than now, when the plain
grey merino gown, and neat little black silk apron which she always
wore, were contrasted with the fashionable frippery of fine colors
shining all around her. Was the rough Mr. Marksman himself lured at
first sight into acknowledging her influence? If he was, his face and
manner showed it very strangely.
Almost at the instant when his eyes fell on her, that clay-cold change
which had altered the color of his swarthy cheeks in the hosier’s shop
at Dibbledean, passed over them again. The first amazed look that he
cast on her, slowly darkened, while his eyes rested on her face, into
a fixed, heavy, vacant stare of superstitious awe. He never moved,
he hardly seemed to breathe, until the head of a person before him
accidentally intercepted his view. Then he stepped back a few paces;
looked about him bewildered, as if he had forgotten where he was;
and turned quickly towards the door, as if resolved to leave the room
immediately.
But there was some inexplicable influence at work in his heart that drew
him back, in spite of his own will. He retraced his steps to the group
round Madonna--looked at her once more--and, from that moment, never
lost sight of her till she went up stairs again. Whichever way her
face turned, he followed the direction, outside the circle, so as to
be always in front of it. When Valentine re-appeared in the studio, and
Madonna besought him by a look, to set her free from general admiration,
and send her back to Mrs. Blyth, Mat was watching her over the painter’s
shoulder. And when young Thorpe, who had devoted himself to helping her
in communicating with the visitors, nodded to her as she left the room,
his friend from the backwoods was close behind him.