Fragments Of An Autobiography Part 10

It took a good deal of persuasion to get him away from the studio and the models, but luckily an opportunity for a rest came, when his father had to make an official inspection of some works in the neighbourhood of Lyons and wished Claude to accompany him.

The short holiday that he thus had to submit to would have proved rather dull and uneventful, had it not been for an incident that made a great impression on him. In his rambles through the city of Lyons he had come across a fine old building, the gates of which stood hospitably open; the door too, for, having crossed the picturesque courtyard, at one time probably a cloister, there was nothing to prevent his entering the main building, and he soon found himself wandering along the corridors of the City Hospital. He seems at first to have chatted cheerfully with some of the patients, amusing and encouraging them in his pleasant way; but presently, as he pa.s.sed from ward to ward, and witnessed the acute sufferings of some of the sick, and the dull hopelessness of the incurables, he gradually felt his strength failing him. The long rows of beds began to revolve around him; he mechanically clutched hold of something and--fainted.

So much of the incident he mentioned in a letter to me; as also that he was going daily to the hospital to make some drawings, but the more interesting features of his adventure I did not gather till a week or two later, when we met in Orleans, which place was to be the starting-point for a pedestrian tour we had planned. There he gave me full particulars.

"I felt it coming," he said; "the rail of the bedstead nearest at hand seemed to be going round like a wheel, and I had to wait till it was within reach to catch it. What happened then I don't know. I suppose the good sisters helped me to a seat and watered me till I came round. All I can say is, that there must have been a long interval between getting out of the faint and back to life. It was a curious experience, and one I shall not easily forget. The first thing I became conscious of, was that my eyes were riveted on the lifeless body of a girl laid out on a bed, and covered with a spotless shroud; I thought it was of marble. I saw no one else, and wondered that there was no relative or friend to watch by the corpse; then it occurred to me that they must all have gone to break the news to Jairus. I sat gazing at the girl's large eyelids that lay heavily on the eyes but were not quite closed; at the wax-like features, so beautifully chiselled; and the lock of brown hair, the only living texture, in striking contrast with the cold sculptured pillow and with the stiff rigid fingers that rested on the border of the shroud.

"I felt very tired and leant back, wondering what the colour of her eyes might be. Then--was I dreaming?--I suddenly became aware that they were violet, like the colour of a transparent amethyst. She had opened them, and was looking quietly and unconcernedly at me.

"'J'ai bien dormi,' she said, and I, at one bound, leaped back to life and its realities.

"'Tiens, oui,' I said, 'you look all the better for it. Now what have you been dreaming about, if I may ask?'

"'Oh, about the bon Jesus: I love to dream of Him, it makes me so strong.'

"'And what is your name, mon enfant?'

"'Madeleine, monsieur.'

"I was truly glad to know, for I always regretted the apostle had not told us the name of the daughter of Jairus. Well, I got Madeleine to tell me a little of her history, and the good sisters gave me the rest.

Her father was a poor labourer, and she had been in the hospital for the last nine months under treatment for hip disease. She was the sweetest and most lovable of patients, they told me.

"When I went away I said:--

"'Is there anything you want? Shall I bring you a book when I come to-morrow?'

"'No, not a book; bring me a rose, please, a red rose.'

"Well, you can fancy I thought of nothing else but the Jairus's daughter I had found. The next morning I brought her three of the reddest roses I could find, and she beamed with happiness as she fondled them.

"'Oh, _ma sur_,' she said to the nurse, 'you will let me keep them just here by my side; they smell so sweet, and they can't hurt me now the windows are all open. I want to nurse them myself, and when they are tired of living in a gla.s.s, I will keep them between the leaves of my prayer-book,' and presently she added: 'I am going to read them all day.

You know, monsieur, I can't read really; that's why I didn't want you to bring me a book.'"

Here I interrupted Claude with the question--

"How old is she?"

"How old? Well, really it never occurred to me to ask her age. I suppose it's a sort of grown-up age, but then, to be sure, she is quite a child, poor little thing."

And so on, and so on. Every morning he brought a fresh red rose for the pale girl. _Sub rosa_, to be sure, was the sketch-book. Now that he had found his long-sought model, he was glowing with the desire to make studies from her, and so he spent the better part of a week by her bedside, pencil in hand. The drawings I thought by far the best things I had ever seen of his; especially one in which he had used a few coloured chalks, and where the amethyst eyes gazed at you wonderingly. I have since sometimes been reminded of those eyes in the work of Gabriel Max.

We had met in Orleans as I have said, and started on our walking tour in a southerly direction along the banks of the Loire. We were most unconventionally equipped, wearing caps and blouses, and carrying only the artist's knapsacks with a change of clothes and sketch-books.

What can be more glorious than walking, if you have the right boots to tread along in, and the right friend by your side? It was perfect. The river flowed with a will, the birds sang with a soul, and we could not but catch the note and go forward in unison with stream and song. We were in such high spirits that we found it hard to pa.s.s a man without hurling a cordial _bon jour_ or a thundering bad joke at him. We helped old women with their bundles, and pauperised small children by giving them sous when they never dreamt of asking for such a thing.

Thus we pushed on, till we reached a town, not the first day, but another. What town I have forgotten; nor do I remember what art treasures may have been acc.u.mulated within its walls. I only know that our sketch-books were out, and that we had found a corner of the market-place, from which we could, without being too much noticed, catch the characteristic figures that were buying and selling, sitting, standing, or hanging about.

We had been working some time, when a friendly native of the fair s.e.x, who had evidently taken a discreet interest in our work, requested us, with profuse apologies for the interruption, to give her a few minutes'

interview at her shop, as soon as we should have finished.

"It is just over the way," she said; "'Leroux, Smith and Carriage Varnisher,' is written over the door."

In due time we went, and Madame Leroux asked us with some trepidation what might be our charge for a portrait of her little girl. Dupont was at once fully up to the situation, and said--

"Ah, madame, it is not quite easy to give you a direct answer. Charges, you see, vary a good deal according to the style. There is the guaranteed likeness at one price, and there is the family likeness at another, considerably lower to be sure; that again fluctuating according to the amount of chiaroscuro the client desires introduced. What shall we say, my friend?" he asked, turning to me. I started a consultation on the subject in gibberish, to which he readily responded in the same tongue. She was much impressed by our mastery over the strange idiom, and exclaimed admiringly--

"Ah, messieurs, anybody could see you were English."

Returning to business, Dupont further explained--

"It is, above all, the colouring, madame, that makes the difference in price. We can do you a drawing--of the first-cla.s.s quality to be sure--for two francs twenty-five centimes; coloured, madame, it cannot be produced for less than three francs seventy-five centimes."

It was her turn to consider and mentally to review the means at her disposal for art purposes.

"Well, messieurs," she finally decided, "will you please do the drawing part, and"--pointing to the pots and pans on the shelf--"my husband will lay on the colours."

The little girl was pretty, and we had got our full enjoyment out of the joke, so we set to, Dupont drawing her, and I doing the painting, and finally we presented our joint work as a free gift to Madame Leroux. She was deeply grateful, but looked just a trifle alarmed. Were we princes in disguise, she was wondering, or had she been harbouring peripatetic angels unawares? But she only pressed our hands and said--

"Believe me, Messieurs, I felt it, I knew it from the first, that you were English."

I only hope that Monsieur Leroux, when he came home, was pleased with our performance, and satisfied in his mind that I had given the full amount of colour necessary to const.i.tute a complete work of art.

Leaving the city, we shortly had an opportunity of testing our abilities by the attractions they might possess for the rustic population of France. It was in a charming little place, somewhere not far from Blois, an idyllic spot and a very haven of rest, I should think, in times of peace; but just now it was invaded by a large contingent of visitors, attracted by the holding of the annual fair and of a cattle-market. In ordinary times, I daresay the approaching traveller would have been greeted by the silvery voice of the village church-bell, and the peasants working in the fields would have doffed their caps _a la_ Jean Francois Millet as the Angelus called them to prayer. But we only heard the discordant voices of man and beast, as they rose from the market and the fair, and the devout peasants had left the fields to bow their heads reverently somewhere nearer the centre of festivities.

We found but poor accommodation at the crowded inn, but had learnt by this time not to be particular, and to put up with a bundle of straw for a mattress, and the back of a chair turned upside down for a pillow.

I had left Claude making some studies of oxen that might perhaps some day, under his brush, figure as a background to a sacred subject, and I had sauntered on to the fair. There, having pulled out my sketch-book, I soon became a centre of attraction. An artist was evidently a strange figure in this primitive place, and so a little crowd collected to watch one of the species use his tools. It was on this occasion that I had an opportunity of realising a truth which I have subsequently so often found confirmed--viz., that there are occasions when I am wanted, and others when I am not wanted. In that particular place I was not wanted.

So the boss of a theatrical show, close to whose booth I had taken my stand, told me. He put it in the most courteous language. With me it did not mean business, he could see that. With him it did, and his business was suffering from the unwonted attraction I offered. I at once closed my sketch-book, and he improved the occasion by announcing his performance in stentorian voice to my crowd. It was something about the a.s.sa.s.sin's Coffin and the Haunted Wreck--grand drama in so many acts and so many more tableaux, performed by his troupe in all the capitals of Europe.

"Entrez, messieurs! on va commencer. Deux sous l'entree!" and he was up on his platform, prodding a monkey with a long thin stick, and banging on a drum with a short thick one.

I was moving on, when a lady, also gifted with an eye to business, addressed me, this time to tell me that I _was_ wanted.

"You will be here this evening, will you not?" she said. "Would you mind coming and doing some of your drawing in front of my booth; you would attract the people, and once they are there, leave me alone for the rest." I agreed, and in the evening Claude and I started operations. She had placed a bench in front of her booth, which was well lit by a couple of large lamps. Claude was in his element. He harangued the open-mouthed villagers in his best manner. Our connection with the court, he explained, generally made it impossible for us to accept any engagements outside Paris, but, hearing that the good lady who presided over the cla.s.sical game of Loto had the misfortune to be a widow and an orphan, we had felt it our duty to give her the advantage of our presence on this occasion.

"Yes, gentlemen," he added, "not only has she put before you a most remarkable collection of valuable articles, specimens of which the lucky card-holder may carry home to the wife of his bosom or the child of his headache, but the purchaser of the series of five cards is ent.i.tled to have his portrait executed in the latest and most approved style, by your humble servant, and his friend and colleague. Deux sous la carte, messieurs; deux sous la carte!"

We did a good stroke of business for the enterprising widow, and at the same time carried off some first-rate types in our sketch-books. For we placed our models in the centre of the bench, and each of us drew a profile from his side. Of the two sketches, we gave one away and kept the other. The people were refreshingly ignorant; a sc.r.a.p of conversation between two old women was specially edifying. They were comparing notes after having watched our work from both ends of the bench.

"Well, you see," said one, "there are two of them--they each make half; then they put it together, and that makes one."

"Sure enough, that's just the way it's done," answered the other.

It was on leaving this place that we unexpectedly found ourselves "wanted" by the rural police.

We were trudging along, when we met two gensdarmes on horseback. They pulled up and asked us rather gruffly for our pa.s.sports. Dupont handed them his, which was of the regulation pattern and therefore easily pa.s.sed muster; but mine was a British Foreign Office pa.s.sport, neatly bound in a leather case and signed by Lord Clarendon, and as I produced it from beneath a time-worn French workman's blouse, it seemed, to say the least of it, out of keeping with my appearance. It was very explicit, setting forth that: "We, George William Frederick, Earl of Clarendon, Baron Hyde of Hindon, Peer of &c. &c., request and require in the name of Her Majesty, &c. &c. &c." But the gensdarmes looked in vain for the signalement, the personal description of the bearer, which they considered the very essence of a respectable pa.s.sport; and so they refused to "allow me to pa.s.s freely without let or hindrance." (You see I have the old friend of a doc.u.ment still, and am quoting from it.) In fact they invited us to follow them to the town we had started from in the morning. To this we demurred, and it was not without some difficulty that we persuaded them to run us in in the other direction, only succeeding when Dupont said he had an uncle in the gensdarmerie, who had often told him that the men were so badly paid, that they could not make both ends meet, were it not for an occasional tip from those interested in securing their good offices.