An Engagement of Convenience Part 4

"Happily you were not really hurt. So all's well that ends well."

The old man took hold of his rush-bag. "I mustn't forget my middle of salmon," he smiled. "I generally fetch something home for my wife--some game or fish fresh from the market."

"You make me wish _I_ had a husband in the City," sighed Wyndham.

Mr. Robinson laughed. "Well, I suppose I must make up my mind to be off, else my wife and daughter will be wondering what has become of me."

Wyndham came forward hurriedly. "I hope I have not been keeping you," he murmured. Somehow he did not like being left alone now. The old man's coming had saved him for the time being from the clutch of a terrible despair, and he saw it waiting to descend swiftly on him. The half-hour of self-respect would vanish like an illusion.

But Mr. Robinson's voice was breaking in on his mood again.

"Would it be presuming too much on our slight acquaintance if I suggested----" The old man hesitated with an evident shyness that was very winning.

"Pray suggest anything you like," said Wyndham.

Thus encouraged, Mr. Robinson launched out boldly. "Would you come home and dine with us--quite without ceremony. We're the simplest of people, but we shall offer you the heartiest of welcomes."

"That is very kind of you," said Wyndham. "I should not be deranging your household?"

"I am sure my wife and daughter will be as delighted to see you as I am.

Will you not come home with me now--in a simple, friendly way?"

"Since I am to meet ladies," smiled Wyndham, "I should like to make myself presentable. I have just been across town, and in this filthy, murky atmosphere one gets to feel so utterly unclean."

"Oh, yes; am I not in the same plight myself?" smiled Mr. Robinson.

Wyndham escorted him to the door, and the old man again thanked him for the pleasure the visit had afforded him.

"We dine at half-past seven," was his parting reminder, and Wyndham, promising faithfully to be punctual, closed the door after him.

V

But his visitor had no sooner departed than Wyndham experienced a sharp revulsion of feeling. How stupid to have accepted this invitation! His isolation in this suburban wilderness had always afforded him a certain satisfaction--he had consistently maintained his magnificent want of interest in all this Philistine population. His studio was his castle, and if he chose to starve therein it was at least a mitigation of his misery to be able to do so without the sense of others' eyes prying at him. And now he had surrendered his privacy. The indiscretion was really inexplicable! And he had let his tongue run on so recklessly and confidentially! He might even have drawn back at the very last--alleged an engagement, and cut short the acquaintanceship there and then.

Perhaps it was not yet too late!

In his annoyance he started pacing the length of the studio. But the great canvas, still glistening there on the easel, suddenly claimed his attention again, and brought him to a standstill. Impulsively he caught up the lamp, and once more directed its light on to the surface. The picture took deep hold of him, and he stood absorbed in it. And somehow Mr. Robinson's wondering voice began to sound its praises. "Marvellous!"

the old man seemed to be saying. "It doesn't need an art education to see that's a work of genius." And as he recalled each stroke of admiration, he nodded his head in agreement.

Was not the old man's appreciation of good augury? Surely it foreshadowed a popular Academy success. Whatever one's personal art ideals, it did not detract from their worth if one could carry them out and please the crowd at the same time--incidentally, of course--without deliberate intention. Did not Moliere first try his comedies on his housekeeper? Mr. Robinson's tastes were the tastes of the great public--nay, of even the better cla.s.ses that went to the galleries. Like him, they dwelt entirely on the ill.u.s.trative aspect of painting, and were altogether swayed by the humanity of a picture, by its dramatic or anecdotal interest. No wonder some of his fellow-craftsmen had been driven to the opposite extreme, and tried to rule out humanity altogether. But the human side of art need not be necessarily on a low plane, or descend to mere anecdote. In his hands art should be the vehicle of real intellect and emotion.

If only he were not forced to do those idiotic trifles! After holding out so long, to capitulate absolutely for want of bread! No, he would not dine with Mr. Robinson--he would starve rather!

"Better to starve than stoop to inferiors!" he exclaimed, as he set down the lamp again. How little, indeed, he had eaten all that day! And with the thought a distressing weakness came over him. There was a humming at his temples: the studio disappeared in a mist, then reappeared oscillating. He was constrained to steady himself by clutching at the table.

In a minute or two the vertigo pa.s.sed off, leaving him with a dull craving for food and drink. He might make some sort of a meal from such poor provender as his larder afforded--a portion of a loaf, the remainder of a tin of sardines, a hunk of cheese; but somehow the prospect was singularly uninviting. He might, indeed, add variety to the store by laying out his last shilling in the streets adjoining, but the shilling was too precious, and anyway he had not the energy to go shopping. There swam up before him the picture of a well-lighted, comfortable dining-room with a heavily laden table, and of a middle of salmon, piping hot, that was being served with a dainty white sauce. And then there were hosts of bottles on a mahogany sideboard: fat, gold-tipped bottles; tall, long-necked bottles; fantastic twisted bottles. Good well-cooked food was nourishing him, a delicate wine was moistening his feverish palate, touching his whole dull self to a lighter mood.

He had accepted the invitation. The Robinsons were expecting him, would be troubled and put out if he did not arrive. He carried the lamp up to the gallery, and began his preparations. And then the whim took him to change his clothes again. Not that he supposed the Robinsons affected to be fashionable of an evening, but the pride of the half-starved man rose in irrational self-a.s.sertion.

So he dressed carefully, tying his bow to perfection, and arranging the set of his waistcoat fastidiously. It was so long since he had put on evening clothes, and as he saw himself in the gla.s.s, well set up, and bearing himself exquisitely, the fact of his poverty seemed absurd and incredible. His face, too, seemed to have recovered some of its olden confidence as he scanned it critically. True the cheeks were a trifle thin and shrunken, but the lines of dejection and sadness had lightened at the new stirring within him.

Then for the first time in all these years he made his way up the road to the ugly house at the corner that had stamped itself upon him as the symbol of all Suburbia, as the stronghold of a type of life that Bohemia mocked at and Belgravia waved aside as impossible.

If he had not yet entirely overcome his distaste, it was at least mitigated by a splendid sense of condescension.

VI

A handsome Phyllis, in cap and ap.r.o.n, opened the door, and Wyndham stepped into a broad corridor, carpeted in red, and hung with popular engravings that he had seen in the windows of all the carvers and gilders in London. Next, he was ushered under a crimson door-hanging into a resplendent drawing-room, lighted by a dazzling crystal chandelier, and sensuously warmed by a great red-hot fire. There was n.o.body to receive him yet, and he was left to amuse himself with the show-books on the tables--padded photograph alb.u.ms full of old-fashioned nave people posing against rococo backgrounds, collections of views of the Valley of the Thames and of the Lake District, and richly bound volumes of Tennyson and Sir Walter Scott.

The interest of these treasures was soon exhausted, and Wyndham, sinking into a remarkably soft arm-chair, impatiently beat with his foot at a cl.u.s.ter of roses on the brand-new "Aubusson" carpet. The room was almost triangular, a large bow window commanding the vista of the main road, and pairs of other windows, straight and tall, overlooking the streets that branched on either hand. And all these windows were elaborately draped in a would-be Renaissance style, with many loops and festoons, and with big gilt cornices above. And between each pair of them stood a gilded consol table surmounted by a mirror that reached to the ceiling.

Oval mirrors with lighted candles in sconces glittered from several points of vantage, and crimson couches and the immense piano completed the tale of splendours.

At length the door opened softly, and Mr. Robinson entered. Wyndham rose, not displeased to observe that his host was likewise in evening clothes; as he had been already regretting the self-a.s.sertion to which he had yielded.

"Ah, you are in good time," said the old man, coming forward in his quiet, gentle way, and shaking hands again. "I am sorry to say that my wife and daughter are not down yet."

His tone was apologetic, and Wyndham smiled, readily understanding that the announcement of a guest to arrive had scared the ladies to a more elaborate toilette than usual.

"They were enchanted when I told them you were coming," Mr. Robinson continued. "As for commiseration over my fall--not a word!"

The two men had conversed for some few minutes before the hostess and her daughter came sweeping into the room; and, as he had half expected, Wyndham found he knew them more or less vaguely by sight. Mrs. Robinson was a tall dame, fully sixty, with gray hair, and a most amiable expression; stately, even handsome, in her black silk dress with its tasteful lace at the throat and wrists. The daughter who followed rather shyly behind her gave Wyndham the impression that he was beholding the most simple, homely person he had ever met; and this despite the complexity of her costume, which seemed to be built up almost entirely of old lace that lay over itself in thick folds and rich creamy ma.s.ses.

Timidity of temperament and modesty to the verge of self-distrust were at once suggested by the almost awkward constraint of her bearing and the quiet, half-averted glance of her dark eyes. He could see that she hardly dared look at him. He gallantly supposed that she was a year or two younger than himself, and as he met her desperately friendly smile (intended for him but hardly bestowed in his direction) with his choicest bow, he received a further impression that was distinctly more favourable than the first of unrelieved plainness. For, once his eye had taken in her features, the artist in him was ready to do justice to her throat and arms, which were really good: and her dark hair, her greatest glory, lay in a superb coil, which, with a surprising touch of coquetry, was set off by a velvet band and some lilies of the valley. It was curious that the figure of Lady Betty should swim up before him just then, as if to emphasise his real ideal of woman's beauty, and to make him feel once for all how impossible it was ever to step down from that standard. But he could not help smiling covertly at the thought that the family were making such a serious business of so casual an invitation--these toilettes were really so very much more elaborate than anything he might conceivably have looked for; though at any rate it rea.s.sured his pride in the fullest degree--evidently, his frank admissions to Mr. Robinson notwithstanding, they were not taking him as a poor devil of an artist, but were looking up to him with a perfect appreciation of the respect that was his due.

Wyndham's presentation to the ladies over, there followed an instant of general embarra.s.sment. Mrs. Robinson smiled again, and quickly tried to make conversation.

"How pleasant to become acquainted at last, after being neighbours so many years!" she murmured. "And so unexpectedly, too."

"When the unexpected does happen," said Wyndham, "it generally is delightful. I suppose that's because most of us in this hard life get into the habit of expecting only the opposite sort of thing."

Miss Robinson laughed shyly, whilst her mother seemed somewhat puzzled.

"They say that the unexpected always happens," ventured the younger woman tremulously. "I'm sure the proverb must be wrong, because nice things happen so seldom." Her voice was soft, vibrating with gracious amiability.

"I disagree with Mr. Wyndham," said her father. "I was not at all expecting to slip down. When the unexpected happened, I am bound to say I did not find it delightful."

They all laughed; and then Mrs. Robinson resumed the interrupted tenour of her discreet, agreeable way. She herself had often thought how pleasant it would be to know him; but in London one could live for ever so many years and yet know absolutely nothing of one's next-door neighbour. In the country, of course, things were different: there etiquette was more human, and people called of their own accord. Was Mr.

Wyndham exhibiting anything just now? They had seen pictures of his in the Academy in past years, and were great admirers of his. Wyndham was by now too faint and exhausted to do more than hold his own in a smiling, conventional way: the splendours of the room, too, dazzled him to the verge of confusion. He was thankful when Phyllis appeared with the announcement that dinner was served; and Mr. Robinson, giving his arm to his daughter, led the way across the hall, under another crimson door-hanging, and into a long dining-room, wherein was set out a great table with flowers and fruit and silver. The covers were laid at one end, which gave the dinner an air of informality and family intimacy.

A gla.s.s of sherry at the start revived Wyndham considerably, and soon he fell to conversing at his ease. Presently he found he was somehow taking the lead, and their evident respect and admiration for his lightest word made him clearly perceive that he was an important and brilliant figure for them. Such grains of resentment as he still cherished at having entered on the acquaintanceship were dying away. Meanwhile the seductive prevision of material joys that had risen before him at the studio at that moment of physical weakness was being literally realised, almost comically so. There on the immense mahogany sideboard stood bottles and decanters galore, and now up came the middle of salmon with a piquant sauce accompanying it! G.o.d! how delicious it tasted, after all these months of bread and cheese! Wine gave him inspiration, and food the strength to live up to the role they were allotting to him. He was good-looking and knew it; his voice, his bearing, his choice of words, were alike distinguished; his experiences were of worlds that were to them far-seeming and romantic. He was the sort of hero they had read about in novels--a handsome guardsman nonchalantly looking in at a Park Lane dance at midnight, or a brilliant attache to an emba.s.sy in touch with wonderful horizons.

Meanwhile the supply of dainty food continued; a leg of lamb, spinach, fat, luscious asparagus, a melon from a Southern clime, a chicken, and the juiciest of French lettuces. The hock was of the most delicate, the champagne subtle and sparkling. Even so he felt himself sparkling in the eyes of the others. He was the lion to whom all this homage was his rightful due, holding them fascinated with his wide knowledge of men and cities, of social life in European capitals. He drew upon his wanderings in by-ways known only of artists; fascinated them with sketches of the art life of Rome and Paris. Reminiscences bubbled up of his student days, and with them were mingled deft touches of Eton and Oxford, and charming cameos of county life; this last developing insensibly into discussions of Anglo-Saxon character, its comparison with the Latin, relative estimations of intelligence, industry, ambition. Mr. Robinson here had many shrewd observations to offer, for they had now wandered into the domain of affairs. Wyndham was genuinely interested in his host's experiences, in his accounts of unusual men of business from strange, even barbarous parts of the world, with whom he had had personal relations. They even touched upon financial operations; and Wyndham felt perfectly at ease amid complications in which millions were bandied about like tennis-b.a.l.l.s, and the credit of banks and States was p.a.w.ned as simply and swiftly as he might p.a.w.n his own watch. At last, over the dessert, there was a perceptible slackening. Wyndham, who so far had taken care not to let his eye rest on the many heavy-framed "oil paintings" that hung on the walls, for fear some discussion of them might thence arise, was now incautious enough to fix his gaze markedly on some sheep pasturing just opposite him. But Mr. Robinson seemed to welcome the opportunity thus afforded.