SUCCESS.
When Laurie Renton drove from the padrona’s door in Mr. Rich’s carriage,
opposite to that patron of art, it was his sense of the comicality of
the situation which came uppermost. Art student, art critic, artist, he
had been with a certain satisfaction in each office. But to be showman
and salesman too was a new branch. These are the vicissitudes to which a
man is subject who puts himself under the dominion of a woman, in the
absolute and unconditional way which Laurie had done. But that was not
how he regarded the matter. He was pleased to do it even for Suffolk’s
sake; though he could not but laugh within himself when he took his seat
on the luxurious cushions, with the couple opposite to him who breathed
wealth, and filled the very atmosphere with its exhalations. One of the
exhalations was not so pleasant as could be wished; for Mrs. Rich’s
favourite perfume was of a character too distinct and decided for the
narrow enclosure of a carriage; but the rustle of her silk, and the soft
warmth of her velvet and her furs, and the wealthy look about her
altogether,--wealthy and liberal and self-important and kindly,--was not
without a certain human interest. She had been a pretty woman. Laurie,
whose eyes were open to such particulars, was at once aware of that; and
she was a good-looking woman of her age still. Her husband had less
apparent character about him; but there was in both a consciousness of
being able to give pleasure and scatter benefit around them, which was
not unprepossessing. No doubt they were vulgar, perhaps
purse-proud,--horribly ostentatiously rich. But they meant to benefit
other people with their wealth, which was always something in their
favour. Laurie glided with natural skill into the part allotted to him.
He talked of Renton; of his mother’s invalid condition, which made it
impossible for her to call; and of his young brother Frank the
Guardsman,--for he had not yet negotiated his exchange,--whose battalion
was stationed at Royalborough, and who, he was sure, would be glad to
make their acquaintance. And then he went on to Suffolk’s story with the
most natural sequence;--a man so full of talent, so laborious, so
devoted to art, with such a pretty little wife!
‘Ah, there we have you, Mr. Renton!’ said jolly Mrs. Rich; ‘but it is
naughty to talk so of a married lady. You ought to have eyes only for
the pretty girls.’
‘A pretty young woman is a pretty young woman, whether she’s married or
single,’ said her husband; ‘but I don’t like a man who goes on painting
pictures that don’t sell. What is the good of it? No man in business
would think of such a thing. It’s a sinful waste of capital as well as a
waste of time. He ought to have changed his style. I’ll tell him so. You
do a many foolish things, Mr. Renton, you artists, for want of a plain
common-sense man of business to give you a little advice.’
‘That is very possible,’ said Laurie, with candour; ‘but even in
business a man may go on with a speculation for a long time, though it
is not immediately successful, if he is sure it will succeed in the
end;--so long as he can afford to wait.’
‘Ah, yes, that is the whole question,’ said Mr. Rich,--‘as long as he
can afford to wait; but a man should think of his wife and children. If
I had a little family dependent on me, and had to paint for a living,
I’d make them comfortable, Mr. Renton, if I had to change my style every
other day.’
‘But that is not so easy as you think,’ said Laurie; ‘and the wife and
children do not complain. Mrs. Suffolk is as proud of those boys in the
Forum as she is of her own babies.’
‘Are there boys in the picture?’ said Mrs. Rich. ‘Then I shall like it
for one. And she must be a nice little woman; but you young men, you
should not go paying attention to a married lady. It is not because it
is wrong,--for I never was so strait-laced as some, and never objected
to a bit of fun,--but it keeps you from marrying and settling, which is
dreadful. You are all so selfish, you gentlemen. As long as you have a
woman to go and tell your little tales to, and get her sympathy and so
forth, and no danger of going any further, you are quite satisfied;--and
the girls are left, and nobody pays any attention to them. That is what
I don’t approve of. We matrons have had our day, Mr. Renton, and we
should be content with it. When I see married women dancing and going
on, and young girls sitting without partners, I could beat them, though,
perhaps, it is vulgar of me to say so. I like a young man when he falls
in love honestly, as people did in my days, with a nice young girl.’
‘We can’t all afford to fall in love,’ said Laurie, laughing, yet with a
faint, distant recollection of the possibility he had himself given up.
Curious it was how far off that looked now! But, like most sinners, he
was utterly unconscious that there was any moral which he could apply to
his own case in this little sermon. His mind glanced off to somebody
else whom, perhaps, it might have touched. ‘And as for Mrs. Suffolk,’ he
added, ‘she does not think there is a man in the world who comes within
a hundred miles of her Reginald; and, as I said, she is as proud of
those boys in the Forum----’
‘What’s the Forum? Tell me the story; I like to know the story of every
picture,’ said Mr. Rich. And Laurie told, to ears which received it
with all the interest of ignorance, that well-known tale. Mr. Rich
thought he had read something about it in a book; and shook his head
over an incident so remote in antiquity. ‘I like English subjects,’ said
the patron. ‘I don’t care for your Italian things. I never was in Italy
myself, and how should I know if they are true or not? English pictures
are the things for me.’
Then Mrs. Rich reminded the millionnaire that he had promised to take
her to Italy next winter, and that it would be well in the meantime to
make a little acquaintance with that country. And Laurie fell back on
the ‘Sword,’ giving his companions the benefit of his own article,
which, being a solitary effort, he had kept in his memory. It was a
scene of genteel comedy, in which he was at once actor and
audience,--and perhaps no other description of audience had such an
exquisite sense of the points of the drama. He went through his part
with a fluency which amazed himself, and chuckled and clapped his hands
in secret with an infinite sense of his own humour. Mr. Rich’s grand
coachman was too fine to know the locality, and made a great many turns
and rounds before he reached Suffolk’s door, which left time for the
little play to play itself out. It was curious to see the vast woman of
wealth in her vast seal-skin cloak, in her rustling silken train, with
plumes nodding on her bonnet, and lace streaming, get in at the narrow
door. The house looked as if it could not possibly contain her. Laurie
gave a comical glance to the upper window, with a momentary idea that he
must see her head looking out there while still her train was on the
steps at the door. And when she shook hands with the painter’s little
wife, who got up from her work to receive them in a nervous flutter of
agitation, not knowing what to expect, it seemed to Laurie as if he had
brought a good-humoured ogress into this little fairy palace.
‘And a very pretty little woman she is,’ the patroness said in a
whisper, nodding to him aside. ‘I like your taste, Mr. Renton.’ Thus it
will be seen that Laurie’s hands were full.
‘We did not expect anybody till to-morrow; and I don’t know if Reginald
is ready. If you would but go up and tell him, Mr. Renton?’ Mrs. Suffolk
said, appealing to him also in an aside.
Suffolk was not the least ready to receive visitors. It was an east
wind, which had impaired his light and affected his temper. ‘I’ve no
time to go and change my coat,’ he said, like a savage. ‘What’s the
good? Laurie, you’re the best fellow in the world; but Thursday is the
last day, and you know what I’ve got to do. Look at that sky! By Jove!
stop a man in the middle of a sky like that, and ask him to be civil to
strangers! You might as well tell me to put this confounded east wind
out of my eyes!’
‘Only for ten minutes,’ said Laurie, ‘there’s a good fellow! You are
doing too much to that sky. Leave it for an hour, and you’ll see what’s
wanting twice as well as you do now. And I do believe there’s a chance
of selling the Angles! Think of Mrs. Suffolk and the children. Surely
they’re worth half-an-hour and the trouble of changing your coat.’
Suffolk paused in his painting, and grew pale, and stared at his friend.
‘Selling the Angles!’ he said; and then he put down his brush, and
turned away with an impatient exclamation. While Laurie stood looking
anxiously on, the painter went to the nearest window and began to open
the shutters, but stopped in the midst and turned back upon him. ‘It’s
all rubbish,’ he said; ‘I don’t believe in selling the Angles. Why do
you come here and mock a fellow even in the midst of his work? I say,
Laurie, tell me one thing,--who is it?--quick!’
‘It’s old Rich, the City man,--the padrona’s friend. It was she who sent
him,’ said Laurie, breathless with suspense.
Then the painter broke down; he gave a sudden sob all at once. ‘God
bless that woman!’ he said, and rushed at his shutters. As for Laurie,
he made himself housemaid, studio-boy, with his usual facility. It was
he who dragged out the spare easel to the best light, and took down the
picture from the wall where it hung somewhat in the shade. He took the
dust off it lovingly with his handkerchief, while Suffolk changed his
coat. His hands were rather black, and there was a cobweb on his breast
close to the lily in his button-hole when he went down-stairs; and it
would be hard to say which was the fairer ornament. Then he turned
himself into a groom of the chambers, and ushered the patron and
patroness up-stairs, Mrs. Suffolk following. The little woman trembled
all over, though she did her best to hide it; and Laurie’s heart went
jumping like a thing independent of him, in his breast. Suffolk was the
most self-possessed of the three, but he purchased his composure by
putting on a morose and forbidding aspect. Not that he meant to be
morose; on the contrary, his brain was in a greater whirl than that of
either of the others. If it might indeed come to pass,--if he too should
really possess a patron, giving commissions, making life secure
beforehand for his wife and the children! And then it occurred to him
that this was the padrona’s patron. The thought nearly overcame the
painter. If she had taken her children’s bread from her table and sent
it to his, he would not have felt it so much. ‘God bless that woman!’ he
said again in his heart. If the attempt failed or succeeded he was
equally bound to her for his life. But he did not think of Laurie’s good
offices with the same effusion, though Laurie by this time had come
forward equal to the emergency, and resumed the showman’s part.
‘When you are in Italy, Mrs. Rich,’ said Laurie, ‘I know what you will
say to yourself some spring morning. You will say, “Now I feel Mr.
Suffolk’s picture!” Look at that golden air; you can see the motes
dancing in it; and I can smell the orange-blossom out of the convent
gardens. I have seen English children look like that,--like little
roses,--with the dark Romans all round, admiring them.’
‘Have you now, Mr. Renton?’ cried Mrs. Rich; ‘I should like to see that.
Dear little angels! Though my own are all grown up, I adore little
children. And you never saw such a skin and such hair as my Nelly had
when she was a little thing. They are lovely, Mrs. Suffolk--I think they
are quite lovely. Mr. Rich, don’t you think that group is just like our
Charlie and Alf? I mean what they used to look. And that woman with the
white thing on her head,--that is a beauty! I am sure your husband must
have painted you scores of times,’ she went on, graciously laying her
hand upon little Mrs. Suffolk’s shoulders. ‘Now come and show me this
other one, and let the gentlemen talk. I hope Mr. Rich will buy that
picture. I think he will buy it. And they tell me there was something
very nice about it in the “Sword.”’
‘Yes,’ said the painter’s wife, all confused and breathless with
anxiety, straining her ears to hear what the gentlemen were saying; ‘and
the “Looker-on” had an article too. They were all very complimentary;
they said it was quite a work of genius----’
‘But it has not begun to pay just yet,’ said Mrs. Rich, with a little
wave of her hand. There was a melting, liberal grandeur about her
patroness. She looked like a conferrer of favours,--a rich, mellow,
embodied Fortune. ‘I think Mr. Rich will buy it,’ she repeated, looking
round upon her husband.
This was not a speech calculated to still Mrs. Suffolk’s agitation.
Could it be possible? Oh, if Reginald would only be civil! If he would
but condescend to talk and show it off to the best advantage! But it was
Laurie who was talking. It was he who was pointing out all its great
qualities. And then there was a pause, awful as the pause,--not before a
thunderstorm,--that is nothing,--a mere accident of nature,--awful
almost as the pause you make when you have opened the letter which is to
bring you news of life or death!
And then, once more, it was Laurie Renton’s voice that broke the
silence. If he had been pleading with a woman whom he loved, his tones
could scarcely have been more insinuating. ‘If I remember Beecham
rightly,’ he said, ‘there was a space left for a picture just opposite
the little organ in what used to be the music-room. Have you changed
that? or perhaps you have placed some picture there?’
‘That is just the thing,’ said Mr. Rich; ‘I knew there was a place. You
have got an eye, Mr. Renton, and a memory too. Fancy, my dear,’ he said,
calling to his wife, ‘he remembers the rooms at Richmont better than I
do myself,--calls it Beecham though; but of course that is quite
natural. Yes. And he is quite right too. I should not wonder if it was
the exact size. The music-room is Nelly’s particular room, Mr.
Renton;--my daughter Nelly, the only one I have at home. I think that is
just the sort of thing she would like. Girls are full of fancies. She
would not have my last Crowquill, though it is a lovely specimen, and
that one of Mrs. Severn’s that she fancied was not big enough. I should
think this was just about the size. Mr. Suffolk, a word with you, sir,’
said the patron, with all the confidence of a man whose cheque-book was
in his pocket. Laurie stood with his back to them, measuring the picture
with his handkerchief, and Mrs. Suffolk, before the new picture on the
easel, stood trembling, trying to show it to the patron’s wife. What a
moment it was! Mr. Rich was very audible; but Suffolk, in his agitation,
spoke low, and looked more nervous than ever. His wife thought, oh, if
Reginald should be disagreeable!--oh, if the rich man should be
affronted, driven away by his bad manners! And it was only manner all
the time. She stood in a fever of suspense, not knowing what Mrs. Rich
said, who chattered on, drowning even her husband’s voice. She gave
Laurie one look of appeal. Oh, if it were only ordained in Parliament,
or by nature, that artists’ wives and friends should do their business
for them;--at least when they were men like Suffolk! If it had lasted
long, Mrs. Suffolk must have fallen fainting at her patroness’s feet.
But just when the strain had reached its highest point, Mrs. Rich fell
silent by some chance, and took to examining one particular corner of
the picture, and the voice of the millionnaire became distinctly
audible. ‘If that’s all, I’ll give you a cheque at once,’ he said. ‘I’d
like to have the picture as soon as you can send it; for you see Nelly
is from home, and I’d like to give her a surprise. Perhaps Mr. Renton
and you would run down and see it hung? A day in the country would do
you good after all your hard work. Have you pen and ink? What, not pen
and ink in your place!--every man of business should be supplied with
that. I couldn’t put in my signature in paint, you know,’ the man of
wealth said, with his large laugh of ease and careless liberality. He
joked over it as if it were sixpence! as if it was a thing that happened
every day! while to two of the people who listened to him it was
something like coming back from the dead.
Suffolk, with his voice choked, made some feeble response. He tried to
laugh too; he tried to say it did not matter,--there was no hurry,--any
time would do. A poor little piece of hypocrisy, at which his wife
quailed, trembling lest he should be taken at his word.
‘No, no; I like to settle such matters off-hand,’ said the
patron;--‘there’s Renton, like a sensible fellow, off for the ink. I
like that young man; never saw him in my life till this morning; but he
feels like an old friend, and his people are our neighbours in the
country. You and he must make a run down by the one o’clock train,--I
don’t know a better train,--brings you down twenty-five miles in thirty
minutes,--not bad, that. And I’ll send over a trap for you. What day
will you come? Thank you, Renton; that’s practical; that’s the sort of
thing I like. I want you both to come down and have some luncheon, and
see the picture hung. Let it be a day in the end of the week; a day in
the country never harms any man. Settle it with my wife. My dear, come
here and look at the picture. It’s ours; or rather, it’s Nelly’s. Don’t
you think she’ll like it? And I want to have them down to see it hung.’
Thus was this extraordinary piece of business accomplished, in a
moment,--as it were in the twinkling of an eye. Neither Suffolk nor his
wife knew what their visitors said and did, or where they were, or what
had happened to them, till Mr. Rich suddenly recollected that there was
no time to lose, and so many other studios to visit in daylight. It was
all settled about that visit to Richmont, which Laurie, disagreeable
though it was to him, had not the heart to refuse. And I suppose Suffolk
talked and assented and behaved himself like any ordinary mortal, though
he knew no more of what had passed than a man in a dream. Laurie put
these blessed rich people into their carriage afterwards, and took as
much care of the vast woman as if she had been the queen. ‘I will ask
your brother over to meet you, Mr. Renton,’ she said, as she took leave
of him; and Mr. Rich followed her, rubbing his hands. ‘I have done a
good morning’s work,’ said that happy man. ‘Two hundred and fifty! I
don’t doubt I could sell it for six to-morrow,--that’s what it is to go
to the fountain-head.’ Laurie himself felt a little giddy as the
carriage drove away. And when he returned to the studio, he found that
Mrs. Suffolk was crying, and her husband not much more steady. The
painter had forgotten all about his sky. He had his cheque in his hand,
and was looking, first at that, and then at his Angles. ‘By Jove,
Laurie, you have done it at last!’ he said, bursting into a loud laugh,
and crushing Laurie’s hand as in a vice,--and then he went to the inner
room, and put on his old painting-coat, which was a good excuse.
But whether it was Laurie who was to be commended this time, or the
padrona, who,--let it be confessed,--with a moment’s hesitation and
reluctance, had sent the patron to her friend, was a doubtful matter.
They had both a hand in it. It was ‘our little business,’ as Laurie
said, pleasing himself, in his foolishness, with the thought of this
partnership. And he went, of course, to the Square, not by roundabout
ways, like the fine coachman, but as fast as his feet could carry him,
to report how everything had happened. Duty and courtesy both demanded
that not a moment should be lost till the report was made.