An Engagement of Convenience Part 7

Sadler dissented in his turn. He insisted that in woman money and good sense somehow went together. It was a fact. "Look how much happier French marriages are; look how the husband and wife are comrades and stick together. I tell you the French system is the best in the world.

Every girl brings her husband a dowry of some kind, and they both work together for the common good. When the time comes it is easier to pa.s.s on the money to their own daughter in their turn."

Wyndham contended that these things were all a matter of temperament.

"Even at the best you'd have to keep your mind very elastic as to the type of person, whereas, for my own part," he declared, with the Lady Betty type in his mind, "I not only hold on to my poetic standpoint, but there are certain personal ideals I couldn't possibly surrender."

"If you stick out too much for ideals, you'll never get anywhere at all," said Sadler.

"There are things one must stick out for," insisted Wyndham. "For instance, I could never marry a woman who wasn't intelligent, and certainly never one who wasn't beautiful."

"Intelligent--yes. But what is beauty?" asked Sadler, shrugging his shoulders. "And if you get a woman too obviously beautiful, you'll have every man a mile round making love to her, like flies round a honey-pot.

It's a sort of primitive law of the universe, and it'll hold good for all time, I suppose."

"Oh, I should chance all that," said Wyndham.

"But what is beauty?" insisted Sadler.

"I know when I see it," laughed Wyndham.

"Give me character," said Sadler. "Unselfishness and loyalty are the chief points, and a sort of sweet reasonableness, of course. If a woman's features aren't quite cla.s.sical, it's wonderful what a good dressmaker can do to set them off. Waiter! Cigarettes!"

When ultimately the waiter brought the bill, Sadler produced a silver sovereign purse, saw with unconcealed horror that it contained only half a sovereign, then felt in his pockets for loose silver. "It's rather awkward," he said, pulling the longest of faces. "I'm afraid I haven't enough left on me after paying for my colours and materials this morning. I shall have to ask you to lend me a little."

A flash of surprise, an imperceptible raising of the eyebrows; then swiftly Wyndham accepted the situation, and threw down one of Mary's banknotes. "Sorry I've nothing smaller," he said, smiling.

"All right, old fellow," said Sadler. "You pay this time, I'll pay next time."

By the time the waiter brought Wyndham his change, the conversation had pa.s.sed on to the last exhibition of the New English Art Club.

Wyndham arrived home, after completing all his business calls, late in the afternoon, and found that the charwoman had finished her work, and was replacing the furniture. A not unpleasant tinge of turpentine permeated the atmosphere. The oak presses, newly polished with beeswax, shone and glowed even in the shadow of the afternoon. For the first time for months the hearth was clear of ashes and cinders, and the stone scoured and whitened.

When the woman had gone he devoted a few minutes to wandering about his domain, enjoying this new sensation of spotlessness, appreciating the professional hand, the skill of which had never before seemed so legitimate a theme for admiration. Then he sat down and wrote to Mary as follows:--

"MY DEAR LITTLE MARY,--Your sweet little letter came this morning, and at a moment to be of the greatest service to me. Fortune has already smiled on me again. For the immediate present I have a portrait commission for a couple of hundred guineas! A great fortune--is it not?--after all these seasons of leanness! You will guess that I am now ambitious of getting to grips again with the big picture. I have taken a deep and engrossing look at it again, and I see how to resolve all its difficulties, I daresay, by the spring. I know this letter will make you happy, so, for Heaven's sake, don't give another thought to yesterday afternoon. I have been a great trial to you for so long, and I want to recognise your goodness and kindness in the only way I can, and that is by--succeeding. My heart is in the work, and your belief in me shall find justification.

"I am keeping your money; it will remove my last anxiety and enable me to work at ease. I want you to come here as soon as I have made some headway with the new work, as I should like you to carry away the impression on your next visit of something real that has been accomplished.

"Your loving brother,

"WALTER."

VIII

The first sitting was eminently satisfactory. Miss Robinson and her mother were punctual to the very stroke of the clock, the new canvas stood waiting on the smaller easel, and everything was ready for an immediate start. Wyndham had been able to obtain on hire a most lovely Empire chair, with swans' heads for armrests, and exquisitely mounted with chiselled garlands. It did not take him long to find his arrangement, and he saw now how shrewd had been his idea of the Empire chair. It was remarkable how Miss Robinson and the chair composed together: it gave her distinction, heightened her personality, and the profile at once seemed to take precisely the quality which he considered essential to his scheme. Her right arm rested lightly along the swan's neck, and the subtle cat's-eye, with its border of tiny pearls, showed deliciously against the long hand and fingers that emerged from the lace lying loosely about the wrist. Her left hand lay on her lap, and here the ancient green scarab and the aquamarine made important decorative spots amid so great a ma.s.s of lace-work. The nankin vase had been sent to the studio during the morning, so that Wyndham was practically able to build up his picture before him. Indeed, so interesting was the result that it promised to lessen by half the labour of creation.

And, now that he had taken the measure of the Robinsons, he was easily master of the situation. They were not merely in his hands as clients who were availing themselves of his skill; but surrendered as to one naturally high above them. In posing Miss Robinson, he had once or twice given utterance to his satisfaction in so spontaneous a way that the tremulous sitter had no easy task to maintain her immobility. And then the kind and condescending explanations with which he accompanied the many little changes and refinements in the arrangement from moment to moment were so clever and penetrating! It was really wonderful how points struck him, and what surprising improvements he accomplished with a wave of the hand and imperceptible subtle shiftings of Miss Robinson's position. At last, after many scrutinisings of his sitter from varying standpoints he suddenly expressed the conviction "Splendid!"

Then--"Wait; the left hand slightly forward, I think; so as to soften the bend of the elbow.... Ah, that's better. Now it couldn't possibly be improved upon. Don't you think so, Mrs. Robinson?"

And the mother was as fluttered as her daughter at this sudden appeal.

"Alice looks lovely," she broke out. "You know so well how to make the best of people. I've never seen her so beautiful."

"It's the beautiful accessories that produce the effect," stammered Alice.

"They certainly produce some effect," conceded Wyndham. "That is why they are there. But it's you I'm painting, Miss Robinson. You are the picture, and the picture will be you--and not the surroundings."

He had arranged his palette, and fell to with the brush in earnest, bidding her speak the moment she felt fatigued. And, indeed, he insisted on her resting frequently, though she struggled bravely to keep the spells of work as long as possible, and confessed to cherishing ambitions in that direction.

Altogether the ladies were enchanted with their experience. Like Mr.

Robinson, they had never before visited a studio, and it stirred them with a sense of play rather than of work, suggesting to them endless fun and merriment. Pleased with the promise of the picture itself, Wyndham chatted to them charmingly. Miss Robinson, rea.s.sured and encouraged by his gracious suavity, soon felt at her ease, and spoke more freely than was her wont at any time. A shade of animation came into her features, and she was ready to break into a laugh at a jest, or to listen to a more serious little disquisition with the intensest absorption. They were not infrequent these charming little disquisitions of Wyndham's, and his visitors thought it wonderful (and told him so with engaging frankness) that he should be able to go on speaking so beautifully, and yet never relax his attention from the painting.

He did not prolong the whole sitting beyond two hours, when he expressed himself delighted with this beginning, and offered them tea.

They accepted eagerly. "Will you be making it, Mr. Wyndham?" they asked, their eyes shining with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Oh, I'm an old hand at it," he a.s.sured them. He threw open a door which they had imagined to indicate a cupboard. "Kitchen, scullery, and every kind of domestic office rolled into one," he explained, and promptly disappeared inside it. They came peeping in gleefully, fascinated by the rough white-washed doll's interior with its miniature dresser, and they watched him fill his kettle and put together the tea-things. Then he emerged, set the kettle over the fire, spread the table with a fresh cloth, and emptied a large bag of cakes on to a fascinating plate of old-seeming majolica.

"How nice!" said Miss Robinson, her face shining with make-believe gluttony.

"There are some chocolate fingers among them--just the sort you like,"

said her mother.

"And tiny cream-cakes--just the sort you like, mamma," returned Alice.

"How much tea do you put in the pot?" inquired Mrs. Robinson.

"One spoonful for the pot, and one for each cup," quoted Wyndham promptly. "And I am always careful to warm the pot first with a little of the hot water, and, in scalding the leaves, I am equally careful to catch the water at the exact moment it boils."

"If only our cook were as careful!" sighed Mrs. Robinson.

Wyndham asked them if they would like their tea in the Russian style.

They didn't quite know what it was, but it sounded interesting, so they said they'd certainly like to try it. Whereupon he fished out a large lemon, and, cutting it up, put slices into their cups. They were in a happy mood. They kept him sternly to the role of host, refusing to spoil the fun by moving a finger to help him. And when he had completed all the processes, and poured the tea for them, they praised its fragrance and delicacy to the skies, and in a trice he was called upon to renew the supply. They likewise declared the cakes delicious, and ate them with affected greed. Meanwhile he let them see some of his pictures; showing off his tall, handsome figure, and occasionally balancing his cup to a nicety, as he talked and manipulated the canva.s.ses from his point of vantage. And when tea was over, he kept them some little time further, whilst he exhibited his overwhelming masterpiece, which he had kept to the end with its face turned away from them. As he wheeled the big easel round, and the picture came into view, a cry of admiration broke from their lips. They were indeed surprised to learn that it was "impossibly" unfinished; to them it seemed that, if justice were done, it should go straightway into the National Gallery. Their pleasure and gratification were extreme: they made not the least attempt to hide their sense of the privilege of sitting at his feet.

And, when they rose to depart, they were absurdly grateful for the lovely afternoon he had given them. Still staggering under the magnificent impression of his brilliancy as an artist, Mrs. Robinson summoned her courage, and suggested that, if he hadn't any other engagement that evening, he might as well dine with them as dine alone.

The argument struck him as forcible, and he accepted with an unhesitating simplicity that won her heart still further. He was thanking her for her kindness, but she raised her hands in horrified deprecation to check him.

"Kindness," she cried. "Not at all, Mr. Wyndham. We know we are not worthy of the honour you do us."

"Yes, it is very good indeed of you to come," chimed in Miss Robinson, as they shook hands. She smiled at him quite frankly now, and her soft fingers lingered a friendly moment in his.

He shut the door and turned back into the studio; then, as the thought struck him for the first time, his lips murmured almost involuntarily, "I do believe Miss Robinson's half in love with me." But he checked himself abruptly. "Good heavens! what a caddish thing to say." For, with his innate chivalry, he had certainly never been addicted to the habit of imagining that this or that woman was immediately enamoured of him.

He returned to the portrait, lingered over it a moment or two, putting in here a stroke, there a touch or a smear. And somehow the train of "caddish" thought persisted in his mind; mastered his will and desire to suppress it. Suppose Miss Robinson should fall in love with him! He recognised her worth as a human being, but instinctively he placed her beyond a certain pale. It was not with that kind of woman that one connected the idea of loving or falling in love; the true type had been fixed for him once for all. The person, too, perhaps! As he had all but felt in his discussion of the subject with Sadler, matrimony was really excluded from his mind. His business in life was work, achievement--his spirit was almost one of revenge for the past.

Yet, suppose she _should_ fall in love with him! The speculation persisted, and again he tried to brush it aside. Well, he hoped to goodness that she would not, and brusquely wielded his paintbrush. In any case, it was all in the day's work. Take his own case, for instance!

Had he not suffered atrociously during all the time he had known Lady Betty? In his bitter poverty he had hardly dared say even to himself that he had met the woman of his aspirations!