"I have just received a tertiary dragon from the plains, which I should
like to see properly used in the interests of the church."
"Catherine is a better model," answered Esther.
"You've not yet seen my dragon. Let me bring him round to you. With
Hazard on his back, he would fly away with you all into the stars."
"There are dragons enough at St. John's," answered Hazard. "I will ride
on none of them."
"You've no sense of the highest art," said Strong. "Science alone is
truth. You are throwing away your last chance to reconcile science and
religion."
So, after much discussion, it was at last decided that Esther Dudley
should begin work at St. John's as a professional decorator under Mr.
Wharton's eye, and that her first task should be to paint a standing
figure of St. Cecilia, some eight or ten feet high, on the wall of the
north transept.
_Chapter IV_
St. John's church was a pleasant spot for such work. The north transept,
high up towards the vault of the roof, was still occupied by a wide
scaffold which shut in the painters and shut out the curious, and ran
the whole length of its three sides, being open towards the body of the
church. When Esther came to inspect her field of labor, she found
herself obliged to choose between a space where her painting would be
conspicuous from below, and one where, except in certain unusual lights,
it could hardly be seen at all. Partly out of delicacy, that she might
not seem to crowd Wharton's own work into the darkness; partly out of
pure diffidence, Esther chose the least conspicuous space, and there a
sort of studio was railed off for her, breast high, within which she was
mistress. Wharton, when painting, was at this time engaged at some
distance, but on the same scaffolding, near the nave.
The great church was silent with the echoing silence which is audible.
Except for a call from workmen below to those at work above, or for the
murmur of the painters as they chatted in intervals of rest, or for
occasional hammering, which echoed in hollow reverberations, no sound
disturbed repose. Here one felt the meaning of retreat and
self-absorption, the dignity of silence which respected itself; the
presence which was not to be touched or seen. To a simple-minded child
like Catherine Brooke, the first effect was as impressive as though she
were in the church of St. Mark's. She was overwhelmed by the space and
silence, the color and form; and as she came close to Wharton's four
great figures of the evangelists and saw how coarsely they were painted,
and looked sheer down from them upon the distant church-floor, she
thought herself in an older world, and would hardly have felt surprised
at finding herself turned into an Italian peasant-girl, and at seeing
Michael Angelo and Raphael, instead of Wharton and Esther, walk in at
the side door, and proceed to paint her in celestial grandeur and
beauty, as the new Madonna of the prairie, over the high altar.
This humility lasted several minutes. Then after glancing steadfastly at
Wharton's figure of John of Patmos which stood next to that which
Esther was to paint, Catherine suddenly broke out:
"Shade of Columbus! You are not going to make me look like that?"
"I suppose I must," replied Esther, mischievously.
"Lean and dingy, in a faded brown blanket?" asked Catherine in evident
anguish.
"So Mr. Wharton says," answered Esther, unrelentingly.
"Not if I'm there," rejoined Catherine, this time with an air of calm
decision. "I'm no such ornery saint as that."
Henceforth she applied all her energies and feminine charms to the task
of preventing this disaster, and her first effort was to make a conquest
of Wharton. Esther stood in fear of the painter, who was apt to be too
earnest to measure his words with great care. He praised little and
found fault much. He broke out in rage with all work that seemed to him
weak or sentimental. He required Esther to make her design on the spot
that he might see moment by moment what it was coming to, and half a
dozen times he condemned it and obliged her to begin anew. Almost every
day occurred some scene of discouragement which made Esther almost
regret that she had undertaken a task so hard.
Catherine, being encouraged by the idea that Esther was partly
struggling for her sake, often undertook to join in the battle and
sometimes got roughly handled for her boldness.
"Why can't you let her go her own way, Mr. Wharton, and see what she
means to do?" asked Catherine one morning, after a week of unprofitable
labor.
"Because she does not come here to go her own way, Miss Brooke, but to
go the right way."
"But don't you see that she is a woman, and you are trying to make a man
of her?"
"An artist must be man, woman and demi-god," replied Wharton sternly.
"You want me to be Michael Angelo," said Esther, "and I hate him. I
don't want to draw as badly as he did."
Wharton gave a little snort of wrath: "I want you to be above your
subject, whatever it is. Don't you see? You are trying to keep down on a
level with it. That is not the path to Paradise. Put heaven in Miss
Brooke's eyes! Heaven is not there now; only earth. She is a flower, if
you like. You are the real saint. It is your own paradise that St.
Cecilia is singing about. I want to make St. Cecilia glow with your
soul, not with Miss Brooke's. Miss Brooke has got no soul yet."
"Neither have I," groaned Esther, making up a little face at Wharton's
vehemence.
"No," said Wharton, seized with a gravity as sudden as his outbreak, "I
suppose not. A soul is like a bird, and needs a sharp tap on its shell
to open it. Never mind! One who has as much feeling for art as you have,
must have soul some where."
This sort of lecture might be well enough for Esther, if she had the
ability to profit by it, but Catherine had no mind to be thus treated as
though she were an early Christian lay-figure. She flushed at hearing
herself coolly flung aside like common clay, and her exquisite eyes half
filled with tears as she broke out:
"I believe you think I'm a beetle because I come from Colorado! Why may
I not have a soul as well as you?"
Wharton started at this burst of feeling; he felt as though he had
really cracked the egg-shell of what he called a soul, in the wrong
person; but he was not to be diverted from his lecture. "There, Miss
Dudley," he said, "look at her now!" Then, catching a crayon, he
continued: "Wait! Let me try it myself!" and began rapidly to draw the
girl's features. Quite upset by this unexpected recoil of her attack,
Catherine would have liked to escape, but the painter, when the fit was
on him, became very imperious, and she dared not oppose his will. When
at length he finished his sketch, he had the civility to beg her pardon.
"This is a man's work," said Esther, studying his drawing. "No woman
would ever have done it. I don't like it. I prefer her as she is and as
I made her."
Wharton himself seemed to be not perfectly satisfied with his own
success, for he made no answer to Esther's criticism, and after one
glance at his sketch, relapsed into moody silence. Perhaps he felt that
what he had drawn was not a St. Cecilia at all, and still less a
Catherine Brooke. He had narrowed the face, deepened its lines, made the
eyes much stronger and darker, and added at least ten years to
Catherine's age, in order to give an expression of passion subsided and
heaven attained.
"You have reached Nirvana," said Esther to Catherine, still studying the
sketch.
"What is Nirvana?" asked Catherine.
"Ask Mr. Wharton. He has put you there."
"Nirvana is what I mean by Paradise," replied Wharton slowly. "It is
eternal life, which, my poet says, consists in seeing God."
"I would not like to look like that," said Catherine in an awe-struck
tone. "Do you think this picture will ever be like me?"
"The gods forbid!" said the painter uneasily.
Catherine, who could not take her eyes from this revelation of the
possible mysteries in her own existence, mysteries which for the first
time seemed to have come so near as to over-shadow her face, now
suddenly turned to Wharton and said with irresistible simplicity:
"Mr. Wharton, will you let me have it? I have no money. Will you give it
to me?"
"You could not buy it. I will give it to you on one condition," replied
Wharton.
"Don't make it a hard one."
"You shall forget that I said you had no soul."
"Oh!" said Catherine greatly relieved; "if I have one, you were the
first to see it."
She carried the sketch away with her, nor has any one caught sight of it
since she rolled it up. She refused to show it or talk of it, until even
Strong was forced to drop the subject, and leave her to dream in peace
of the romance that could give such a light to her eyes.
Strong was one of the few persons allowed to climb up to their perch and
see their work. When he next came, Esther told him of Wharton's lecture,
and of Catherine's sudden rebellion. Delighted with this new flight of
his prairie bird, Strong declared that as they were all bent on taking
likenesses of Catherine, he would like to try his own hand at it, and
show them how an American Saint ought to look when seen by the light of
science. He then set to work with Esther's pencils, and drew a portrait
of Catherine under the figure of a large Colorado beetle, with wings
extended. When it was done he pinned it against the wall.
"Now, Esther!" said he. "Take my advice. No one wants European saints
over here; they are only clerical bric-à-brac, and what little meaning
they ever had is not worth now a tolerable Japanese teapot; but here is
a national saint that every one knows; not an American citizen can come
into your church from Salt Lake City to Nantucket, who will not say that
this is the church for his money; he will believe in your saints, for he
knows them. Paint her so!"
"Very well!" said Catherine. "If Mr. Wharton will consent, I have no
objection."
Wharton took it with his usual seriousness. "I believe you are right,"
said he sadly. "I feel more and more that our work is thrown away. If
Hazard and the committee will consent, Miss Dudley shall paint what she
likes for all me."
No one dared carry die joke so far as to ask Mr. Hazard's consent to
canonize this American saint, and Strong after finishing his sketch, and
labelling it: "_Sta. Catarina 10-Lineata_ (Colorado)," gave it to
Catherine as a companion to Wharton's. For some time she was called the
beetle. Wharton's conscience seemed to smite him for his rudeness, and
Catherine was promoted to the position of favorite. While Esther toiled
over the tiresome draperies of her picture, Catherine would wander off
with Wharton on his tours of inspection; she listened to all the
discussions, and picked up the meaning of his orders and criticisms; in
a short time she began to maintain opinions of her own. Wharton liked to
have her near him, and came to get her when she failed to appear at his
rounds. They became confidential and sympathetic.
"Are you never homesick for your prairie?" he asked one day.
"Not a bit!" she answered. "I like the East. What is the use of having a
world to one's self?"
"What is the use of any thing?" asked Wharton.
"I give it up," she replied. "Does art say that a woman is no use?"
"I know of nothing useful in life," said he, "except what is beautiful
or creates beauty. You are beautiful, and ought to be most so on your
prairie."
"Am I really beautiful?" asked Catherine with much animation. "No one
ever told me so before."
This was coquetry. The young person had often heard of the fact, and,
even had she not, her glass told her of it several times a day. She
meant only that this was the first time the fact came home to her as a
new and exquisite sensation.
"You have the charm of the Colorado hills, and plains," said he. "But
you won't keep it here. You will become self-conscious, and
self-consciousness is worse than ugliness."
"Nonsense!" said Catherine boldly. "I know more art than you, if that is
your notion. Do you suppose girls are so savage in Denver as not to know
when they are pretty? Why, the birds are self-conscious! So are horses!
So are antelopes! I have seen them often showing off their beauties like
New York women, and they are never so pretty as then."
"Don't try it," said he. "If you do, I shall warn you. Tell me, do you
think my figure of St. Paul here self-conscious? I lie awake nights for
fear I have made him so."
Catherine looked long at the figure and then shook her head. "I could
tell you if it were a woman," she said. "All women are more or less
alike; but men are quite different, and even the silly ones may have
brains somewhere. How can I tell?"
"A grain of self-consciousness would spoil him," said Wharton.
"Then men must be very different from women," she replied. "I will give
you leave to paint me on every square inch of the church, walls and
roof, and defy you to spoil any charm you think I have, if you will only
not make me awkward or silly; and you may make me as self-conscious as
Esther's St. Cecilia there, only she calls it modesty."
Catherine was so pulled about and put to such practical uses in art as
to learn something by her own weary labors. A quick girl soon picks up
ideas when she hears clever men talking about matters which they
understand. Esther began to feel a little nervous. Catherine took so
kindly to every thing romantic that Wharton began to get power over her.
He had a queer imagination of his own, which she could not understand,
but which had a sort of fascination for her. She ran errands for him,
and became a sort of celestial messenger about the church. As for
Wharton, he declared that she stood nearer nature than any woman he
knew, and she was in sympathy with his highest emotions. He let her ask
innumerable questions, which he answered or not, as happened to suit his
mood. He paid no attention to Esther's remonstrances at being deprived
of her model, but whenever he wanted Catherine for any purpose, he sent
for her, and left Esther to her own resources. Catherine had her own
reasons for being docile and for keeping him in good humor. She started
with the idea that she did not intend to be painted, if she could help
it, as a first century ascetic, without color, and clothed in a
hair-cloth wrapper; and having once begun the attempt to carry her own
object, she was drawn on without the power to stop.
Her intimacy with Wharton began to make Esther uneasy, so that one day,
when Strong came up, and, missing Catherine, asked what had become of
her, she consulted him on the subject.
"Catherine has gone off with Mr. Wharton to inspect," she said. "He
comes for her or sends for her every day. What can I do about it?"
"Where is the harm?" asked Strong. "If she likes to pass an hour or two
doing that sort of thing, I should think it was good for her."
"But suppose she takes a fancy to him?"
"Oh! No woman could marry Wharton," said Strong. "He would forget her
too often, and she would lose patience with him before he thought of her
again. Give her her head! He will teach her more that is worth her
knowing than she would learn in a life-time in Aunt Sarah's parlor."
"I wish I could give her something else to amuse her."
"Well!" replied Strong. "We will invent something." Catherine returned a
few minutes later, and he asked her how she got on with the task-master,
and whether he had yet recovered her favor.
"Since the beetle turned on him," said Catherine, "we have got on like
two little blind mice. He has been as kind to me as though I were his
mother; but why is he so mysterious? He will not tell me his history."
"He is the same to us all," said Strong. "Some people think he is
ashamed of his origin. He was picked out of the gutters of Cincinnati by
some philanthropist and sent abroad for an education. The fact is that
he cares no more about his origin than you do for being a Sioux Indian,
but he had the misfortune to marry badly in Europe, and hates to talk of
it."
"Then he has a wife already, when he is breaking my young heart?"
exclaimed Catherine.
"I would like to calm your fears, my poor child," said Strong; "but the
truth is that no one knows what has become of his wife. She may be
alive, and she may be dead. Do you want me to find out?"
"I am dying to know," said Catherine; "but I will make him tell me all
about it one of these days."
"Never!" replied Strong. "He lives only in his art since the collapse of
his marriage. He eats and drinks paint."
"Does he really paint so very well?" asked Catherine thoughtfully. "Is
he a great genius?"
"Young woman, we are all of us great geniuses. We never say so, because
we are as modest as we are great, but just look into my book on fossil
batrachians."
"I don't feel the least interest in you or your batrachiums; but I adore
Mr. Wharton."
"What is the good of your adoring Wharton?" asked the professor.
"Short's very good as far as he goes, but the real friend is Codlin, not
Short."
"I shall hate you if you always make fun of me. What do you mean by your
Codlins and Shorts?"
"Did you never read Dickens?" cried Strong.
"I never read a novel in my life, if that is what you are talking
about," answered Catherine.
"Ho! Cousin Esther! The Sioux don't read Dickens. You should join the
tribe."
"I always told you that sensible people never read," said Esther, hard
at work on her painting. "Do you suppose St. Cecilia ever read Dickens
or would have liked him if she had?"
"Perhaps not," said Strong. "I take very little stock in saints, and she
strikes me as a little of a humbug, your Cecilia; but I would like to
know what the effect of the 'Old Curiosity Shop' would be on a
full-blooded Indian squaw. Catherine, will you try to read it if I bring
you a copy here?"
"May I?" asked Catherine. "You know I was taught to believe that novels
are sinful."
Strong stared at her a moment with surprise that any new trait in her
could surprise him, and then went on solemnly: "Angel, you are many
points too good for this wicked city. If you remain here unperverted,
you will injure our trade. I must see to it that your moral tone is
lowered. Will you read a novel of this person named Dickens if Mr.
Hazard will permit you to do so in his church?"
"If Mr. Hazard says I must, I shall do so with pleasure," replied
Catherine with her best company manners; and the Reverend Mr. Hazard,
having been taken into Esther's confidence on the subject, decided,
after reflection, that Miss Brooke's moral nature would not be hurt by
reading Dickens under such circumstances; so the next day Catherine was
plunged into a new world of imagination which so absorbed her thoughts
that for the time Wharton himself seemed common-place. High on her
scaffolding which looked sheer down into the empty, echoing church, with
huge saints and evangelists staring at her from every side, and martyrs
admiring each other's beatitude, Catherine, who was already half
inclined to think life unreal, fell into a dream within a dream, and
wondered which was untrue.
Esther's anxiety about Catherine was for the time put at rest by the
professor's little maneuver, but she had some rather more serious cause
for disquiet about herself, in regard to which she did not care to
consult her cousin or any one else. Wharton and Strong were not the only
men who undertook to enliven her path of professional labor. Every day
at noon, the Reverend Stephen Hazard visited his church to see how
Wharton was coming forward, and this clerical duty was not neglected
after Esther joined the work-people. Much as Mr. Hazard had to do, and
few men in New York were busier, he never forgot to look in for a moment
on the artists, and Esther could not help noticing that this moment
tended to lengthen. He had a way of joining Wharton and Catherine on
their tour of inspection, and then bringing Catherine back to Esther's
work-place, and sitting down for an instant to rest and look at the St.
Cecilia. Time passed rapidly, and once or twice it had come over
Esther's mind that, for a very busy man, Mr. Hazard seemed to waste a
great deal of time. It grew to be a regular habit that between noon and
one o'clock, Esther and Catherine entertained the clergyman of the
parish.
The strain of standing in a pulpit is great. No human being ever yet
constructed was strong enough to offer himself long as a light to
humanity without showing the effect on his constitution. Buddhist saints
stand for years silent, on one leg, or with arms raised above their
heads, but the limbs shrivel, and the mind shrivels with the limbs.
Christian saints have found it necessary from time to time to drop their
arms and to walk on their legs, but they do it with a sort of apology or
defiance, and sometimes do it, if they can, by stealth. One is a saint
or one is not; every man can choose the career that suits him; but to be
saint and sinner at the same time requires singular ingenuity. For this
reason, wise clergymen, whose tastes, though in themselves innocent, may
give scandal to others, enjoy their relaxation, so far as they can, in
privacy. Mr. Hazard liked the society of clever men and agreeable women;
he was bound to keep an eye on the progress of his own church; he
stepped not an inch outside the range of his clerical duty and
privilege; yet ill-natured persons, and there were such in his parish,
might say that he was carrying on a secular flirtation in his own church
under the pretense of doing his duty. Perhaps he felt the risk of
running into this peril. He invited no public attention to the manner in
which he passed this part of his time, and never alluded to the subject
in other company.
To make his incessant attention still more necessary, it happened that
Hazard's knowledge and his library were often drawn upon by Wharton and
his workmen. Not only was he learned in all matters which pertained to
church arrangement and decoration, but his collection of books on the
subject was the best in New York, and his library touched the church
wall. Wharton had a quantity of his books in constant use, and was
incessantly sending to consult about points of doubt. Hazard was bent
upon having every thing correct, and complained sadly when he found that
his wishes were not regarded. He lectured Wharton on the subject of
early Christian art until he saw that Wharton would no longer listen,
and then he went off to Miss Dudley, and lectured her.