A Comedy of Masks Part 1

A Comedy of Masks.

by Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore.

CHAPTER I

In that intricate and obscure locality, which stretches between the Tower and Poplar, a tarry region, scarcely suspected by the majority of Londoners, to whom the "Port of London" is an expression purely geographical, there is, or was not many years ago, to be found a certain dry dock called Blackpool, but better known from time immemorial to skippers and longsh.o.r.emen, and all who go down to the sea in ships, as "Rainham's Dock."

Many years ago, in the days of the first Rainham and of wooden ships, it had been no doubt a flourishing ship-yard; and, indeed, models of wooden leviathans of the period, which had been turned out, not a few, in those palmy days, were still dusty ornaments of its somewhat antique office. But as time went on, and the age of iron intervened, and the advance on the Clyde and the Tyne had made Thames ship-building a thing of the past, Blackpool Dock had ceased to be of commercial importance. No more ships were built there, and fewer ships put in to be overhauled and painted; while even these were for the most part of a cla.s.s viewed at Lloyd's with scant favour, which seemed, like the yard itself, to have fallen somewhat behind the day. The original Rainham had not bequeathed his energy along with his h.o.a.rds to his descendants; and, indeed, the last of these, Philip Rainham, a man of weak health, original Rainham had not bequeathed his energy along with his h.o.a.rds to his descendants; and, indeed, the last of these, Philip Rainham, a man of weak health, whose tastes, although these were veiled in obscurity, were supposed to trench little upon shipping, let the business jog along so much after its own fashion, that the popular view hinted at its imminent dissolution. A dignified, scarcely prosperous quiet seemed the normal air of Blackpool Dock, so that even when it was busiest --and work still came in, almost by tradition, with a certain steadiness--when the hammers of the riveters and the shipwrights awoke the echoes from sunrise to sunset, with a ferocious regularity which the present proprietor could almost deplore, there was still a suggestion of mildewed antiquity about it all that was, at least to the nostrils of the outsider, not unpleasing. And when the ships were painted, and had departed, it resumed very easily its more regular aspect of picturesque dilapidation. For in spite of its sordid surroundings and its occasional lapses into bustle, Blackpool Dock, as Rainham would sometimes remind himself, when its commercial motive was pressed upon him too forcibly, was deeply permeated by the spirit of the picturesque.

Certainly Mr. Richard Lightmark, a young artist, in whose work some excellent judges were beginning already to discern, if not the hand of the master, at least a touch remarkably happy, was inclined to plume himself on having discovered, in his search after originality, the artistic points of a dockyard.

It was on his first visit to Rainham, whom he had met abroad some years before, and with whom he had contracted an alliance that promised to be permanent, that Lightmark had decided his study should certainly be the river. Rainham had a set of rooms in the house of his foreman, an eighteenth-century house, full of carved oak mantels and curious alcoves, a ramshackle structure within the dock-gates, with a quaint balcony staircase, like the approach to a Swiss chalet, leading down into the yard. In London these apartments were his sole domicile; though, to his friends, none of whom lived nearer to him than Bloomsbury, this seemed a piece of conduct too flagrantly eccentric--on a parity with his explanation of it, alleging necessity of living on the spot: an explanation somewhat droll, in the face of his constant lengthy absence, during the whole of the winter, when he handed the reins of government to his manager, and took care of a diseased lung in a warmer climate. To Lightmark, however, dining with his friend for the first time on chops burnt barbarously and an inferior pudding, residence even in a less salubrious quarter than Blackpool would have been amply justified, in view of the many charming effects--for the most part coldly sad and white--which the river offered, towards evening, from the window of his friend's dining-room.

After his first visit, he availed himself eagerly of Rainham's invitation to make his property the point of view from which he could most conveniently transfer to canvas his impressions; and he worked hard for months, with an industry that came upon his friend as a surprise, at the uneven outlines of the Thames warehouses, and the sharp-pointed masts that rose so trenchantly above them. He had generated an habit of coming and going, as he pleased, without consideration of his host's absences; and latterly, in the early spring--whose caprices in England Rainham was never in a hurry to encounter--the easel and painting tools of the a.s.siduous artist had become an almost constant feature of the landscape.

Now, towards the close of an exceptionally brilliant day in the finish of May, he was putting the last touches to a picture which had occupied him for some months, and which he hoped to have completed for Rainham's return. As he stood on the wharf, which ran down to the river-side, leaning back against a crane of ancient pattern, and viewing his easel from a few yards' distance critically, he could not contemplate the result without a certain complacency.

"It's deuced good, after all," he said to himself, with his head poised a little on one side. "Yes, old Rainham will like this. And, by Jove! what matters a good deal more, the hangers will like it, and if it's sold--and, confound it! it must be sold--it will be a case of three figures."

He had one hand in his pocket, and instinctively--it may have been the result of his meditation--he fell to jingling some coins in it.

They were not very many, but just then, though he was a young gentleman keenly alive to the advantages of a full purse, their paucity hardly troubled him. He felt, for the nonce, a.s.sured of his facility, and doubtless had a vista of unlimited commissions and the world at his feet, for he drew himself up to his full height of six feet and looked out beyond the easel with a smile that had no longer its origin in the fruition of the artist. Indeed, as he stood there, in his light, lax dress and the fulness of his youth, he had (his art apart) excuse for self-complacency. He was very pleasant to look upon, with an air of having always been popular with his fellows, and the favourite of women; this, too, was borne out by his history.

Not a beautiful man, by any means, but the best type of English comeliness: ruddy-coloured, straight, and healthy; muscular, but without a suggestion of brutality. His yellow moustache, a shade lighter than his hair--which, although he wore it cropped, showed a tendency to be curling--concealed a mouth that was his only questionable feature. It was not the sensitive mouth of the through and through artist, and the lines of it were vacillating. The lips, had they not been hidden, would have surprised by their fulness, contradicting, in some part, the curious coldness of his light blue eyes. All said, however, he remained a singularly handsome fellow; and the slight consciousness which he occasionally betrayed, that his personality was pleasing, hardly detracted from it; it was, after all, a harmless vanity that his friends could afford to overlook. Just then his thoughts, which had wandered many leagues from the warehouses of Blackpool, were brought up sharply by the noise of an approaching footstep. He started slightly, but a moment later greeted the new-comer with a pleasant smile of recognition. It was Rainham's foreman and general manager, with whom the artist, as with most persons with whom he was often in contact, was on excellent, and even familiar, terms.

"Look here, Bullen," he said, twisting the easel round a little, "the picture is practically finished. A few more strokes--I shall do them at home--and it is ready for the Academy. How do you like it?"

Mr. Bullen bent down his burly form and honoured the little canvas with a respectful scrutiny.

"That is Trinidad Wharf, sir, I suppose?" he suggested, pointing with a huge forefinger at the background a little uncertainly.

"That is Trinidad Wharf, Bullen, certainly! And those masts are from the ships in the Commercial Docks. But the river, the atmosphere--that's the point--how do they strike you?"

"Well, it's beautiful, sir," remarked Bullen cordially; "painted like the life, you may say. But isn't it just a little smudgy, sir?"

"That's the beauty of it, Bullen. It's impressionism, you Philistine!--a sort of modified impressionism, you know, to suit the hangers. 'Gad, Bullen, you ought to be a hanger yourself! Bullen, my dear man, if it wasn't that you _do_ know how to paint a ship's side, I would even go so far as to say that you have all the qualifications of an Academician."

"Ah, if it comes to that, Mr. Lightmark, I dare say I could put them up to some dodges. I am a judge of 'composition.'"

"Composition? The devil you are! Ah, you mean that infernal compound which they cover ships' bottoms with? What an atrocious pun!" The man looked puzzled. "Bullen, R.A., great at composition; it sounds well," continued Lightmark gaily, just touching in the brown sail of a barge.

"I've a nephew in the Royal Artillery, sir," said Mr. Bullen; "but I fear he is a bad lot."

"Oh, they all are!" said Lightmark, "an abandoned crew."

His eyes wandered off to the bridge over which the road ran, dividing the dry dock from the outer basin and wharf on which they stood. A bevy of factory girls in extensive hats stuck with brilliant Whitechapel feathers were pa.s.sing; one of them, who was pretty, caught Lightmark's eyes and flung him a saucy compliment, which he returned with light badinage in kind that made the foreman grin.

"They know a fine man when they see one, as well as my lady," he said. Then he added, as if by an afterthought, lowering his voice a little: "By the way, Mr. Lightmark, there was a young lady--a young person here yesterday--making inquiries."

Lightmark bent down, frowning a little at a fly which had entangled itself on his palette.

"Yes?" he remarked tentatively, when the offender had been removed.

"It was a young lady come after someone, who, she said, had been here lately: a Mr. Dighton or Crichton was the name, I think. It was the dockman she asked."

"n.o.body comes here of that name that I know of," said Lightmark.

"Not to my knowledge," said Bullen.

"Curious!" remarked Lightmark gravely.

"Very, sir!" said Bullen, with equal gravity.

Lightmark looked up abruptly: the two men's eyes met, and they both laughed, the artist a little nervously.

"What did you tell her, Bullen?"

"No such person known here, sir. I sent her away as wise as she came. I hold with minding my own business, and asking no questions."

"An excellent maxim, Bullen!" said Lightmark, preparing to pack up his easel. "I have long believed you to be a man of discretion.

Well, I must even be moving."

"You know the governor is back, sir?"

Lightmark dropped the paint-brush he was cleaning, with a movement of genuine surprise.

"I never knew it," he said; "I will run up and have a yarn with him.

I thought he wasn't expected till to-morrow at the earliest?"

"Nor he was, Mr. Lightmark. But he travelled right through from Italy, and got to London late last night. He slept at the Great Eastern, and I went up to him in the City this morning. He hasn't been here more than half an hour."

"n.o.body told me," said Lightmark. "Gad! I am glad. I will take him up the picture. Will you carry the other traps into the house, Bullen?"

He packed them up, and then stood a trifle irresolutely, his hand feeling over the coins in his pocket. Presently he produced two of them, a sovereign and a shilling.

"By the way, Bullen!" he said, "there is a little function common in your trade, the gift of a new hat. It costs a guinea, I am told; though judging from the general appearance of longsh.o.r.emen, the result seems a little inadequate. Bullen, we are pretty old friends now, and I expect I shall not be down here so often just at present.

Allow me--to give you a new hat."

The foreman's huge fist closed on the artist's slender one.

"Thank you, sir! You are such a facetious gentleman. You may depend upon me."

"I do," said Lightmark, with a sudden lapse into seriousness, and frowning a little.

If something had cast a shadow over the artist for the moment he must have had a faculty of quick recovery, for there was certainly no shade of constraint upon his handsome face when a minute later he made his way up the balcony steps and into the office labelled "Private," and, depositing his canvas upon the floor, treated his friend to a prolonged handshaking.

"My dear d.i.c.k!" said Rainham, "this is a pleasant surprise. I had not the remotest notion you were here."

"I thought you were at Bordighera, till Bullen told me of your arrival ten minutes ago," said Lightmark, with a frank laugh. "And how well----"