Garrick's Pupil Part 2

"Many times. He posed marvellously, and never tormented me as he did one of my fellow-artists to whom quite unwillingly he had accorded some sittings."

"What did he do?"

"Changed his mask every five minutes, until the poor artist, believing that he as often had a new model before him, or the devil, perhaps, flung away his brushes in despair."

"Garrick once told me," said Esther Woodville, "that the son of a friend, recently dead, had sought him to complain of some trickery by which he had been deprived of a portion of his inheritance. A certain old man, to whom the deceased had intrusted a considerable sum, denied the trust and refused to make rest.i.tution. Do you know what Garrick did?

Arrayed in the attire of the dead, he played the ghost, and played it so well that the wretch, terrified beyond measure, made confession and restored the property."

"I never heard the anecdote; it is curious," said Reynolds, taking a pinch of snuff.

He extended the open box to the actress, but she refused it with a slight grimace.

"You make a mistake," he said; "this is some 37, Hardham's; our _elegantes_ prefer it to any other." Then after a brief pause he added, "Your physiognomy is scarcely less changeable than Garrick's; you have laughed, you have wept; you have been gay, excited, mournful. Now, of all these expressions which have chased each other over your charming face--nay, do not blush; I am an old man--of all these varied expressions which is the veritable, the dominant one,--the one which expresses the character of your soul? As long as I fail to discover this expression in the model, so long is my brush paralyzed. I am obliged to seek until I find it. I have painted Garrick both in tragedy and comedy; Admiral Keppel, sword in hand, upon the point of giving the order to clear the decks for action; Kitty Fisher, at her toilet, since it was her profession to be beautiful and to please. I have represented Goldsmith writing the final pages of the 'Vicar' or the sweet verses of the 'Deserted Village'; Sterne, thinking of poor Maria's suffering or of the death of Lieut. Lefevre. His wig was all awry and the rascal wanted to straighten it. 'Let it be as it is!' I said to him; 'if it is straight, you are no longer the author of 'Tristram Shandy.' When I paint a child I give it some playthings; a young mother, I surround her with her children. Notice this one, for instance--"

"That is my comrade, Mrs. Hartley."

"Exactly. She carries her little daughter upon her back and laughs merrily. Fanciful maternity! There are mythological beauties and modern beauties. The one will be a nymph and gently rest her limbs upon the velvet sward in the genial atmosphere of a Grecian landscape; the other, m.u.f.fled up to her neck, her m.u.f.f pressed to her nose, in order to conceal a mouth that is a trifle expansive, elects to promenade the denuded paths of her park and leave the imprint of her tiny, fur-clad feet along the snow. It is the cold, you understand, which lends brilliancy to the eyes and a rosy tip to the ear; it is the cold that gives color and life. Thus I strive to place every human being in his or her favorite att.i.tude, amidst congenial surroundings, beneath the ray which is best calculated to illumine. And I lie in wait for the divine moment when the woman exhales all her seduction, the man all the power of his mind."

He paused for a moment.

"Well, and you!" he continued quickly. "I have not found you yet; I have no hold upon you. I must attempt some subterfuge."

Thereupon he raised his voice.

"Frank!--Frank!"

A masked door, which Esther had not remarked, opened almost immediately and a young man of perhaps two and twenty years of age appeared upon the threshold. Miss Woodville uttered a stifled cry and half rose from her chair.

"My lord!" she breathed almost inaudibly; "how comes it that--you--"

"I see how it is!" remarked Sir Joshua; "you are the dupe of a resemblance. Your gaze is not resting upon Lord Mowbray, but upon my apprentice, Francis Monday. My dear Frank, be good enough to fall upon your knees before this fair young woman and look at her as if you adored her."

Pallid, mute, with lips tightly compressed, Frank stood motionless.

"I, Sir Joshua?" he faltered. "You wish me to--"

"Certainly! Now, then!"

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With evident effort the young man slowly advanced as if he were going to execution. Beads of perspiration pearled upon his brow. Nevertheless, disturbed though he was, the beauty of his features and the innate n.o.bility of his person prevented any awkwardness of carriage. With drooping eyelids he fell upon his knees at the girl's feet, while at the moment, as if actuated by some invincible power, he raised his glance full of a desperate pa.s.sion. Truly, for a timid boy taken unawares, Frank played the comedy of love like a consummate master.

A rosy blush suffused Esther's features, entirely irradiating them, as a summer's sunrise illumines the delicious purity of the dawn.

Astonishment, shame, pleasure, malice, every shade of sentiment was in an instant born, in an instant expired, fading in a most ravishing _melange_. With head slightly inclined, bosom heaving, eyelids trembling, and lips quivering, her whole being vibrated in unison with the precipitate throbbing of her heart.

"Rosalind listening to Orlando's declaration!" exclaimed Sir Joshua. "I have it! The portrait is a.s.sured! I have no further need of you, Frank."

The young man rose, his eyes still fixed upon Esther; then without a word he directed his steps towards the masked door which had afforded him access to the studio and vanished.

By slow degrees the blush which had invaded the girl's cheeks and brow faded until not a vestige remained.

CHAPTER II.

A SUPPER AT SIR JOSHUA'S.

The company a.s.sembled in the Reynolds's drawing-room when the artist entered, leading Miss Woodville by the hand, made such a palaver over the young actress that it was quite enough to turn her head, had she not already become accustomed to clamorous triumphs. She found herself in the arms of three women at once, who emulously cajoled her, while the men vied with them in paying flattering court. Despite her _aplomb_, spoiled child that she was, she was becoming quite embarra.s.sed in responding to all the hand-pressures, the smiling eyes, the gracious questions, when, fortunately for her, a footman announced supper; and forthwith the company pa.s.sed into the dining-room.

It was just five o'clock, and, being well aware of the rules of the house, Sir Joshua's guests were all present, even in greater number than was expected, as was frequently the case. On this account some little confusion prevailed about the table, where each one seated himself according to his fancy. There were not enough plates; one person possessed a fork but no knife, while another was furnished with a knife minus a fork: but at these gay, free-and-easy reunions such trifles were pa.s.sed over with a laugh. The master of the house, whose special delight it was to chat with his guests, fluttered from one to the other, ear-trumpet in hand, giving the entertainment not the slightest heed.

Miss Reynolds alone was in despair.

In point of fact, Miss Reynolds never appeared in any other att.i.tude. A genuine martyr was Miss Reynolds. Martyr to whom or what? It would be difficult to explain. Following the example of her brother, she painted, but, although she was the sister of a great artist, to her profound surprise her pictures were detestable. Sir Joshua owned a great gilded coach, upon the panels of which Hayman had painted the Seasons, but he rarely availed himself of its comforts; instead, he obliged his sister to drive out in it, and used to send her to the park "for the good of her health." And the pa.s.sers-by were astonished to see, shrinking in a corner of the resplendent equipage, a woman who wept scalding tears. It was Miss Reynolds, the everlasting martyr. Upon this particular occasion she exerted herself to the last degree without producing the slightest effect either upon her guests or her domestics.

In the midst of the excitement a woman of perhaps thirty years, arrayed in a peach-bloom gown and a head-dress of lace, quickly approached Esther. She was beautiful, of slender elegance, with eyes full of fire, and cheeks of a violent tint; she spoke in a high-pitched key, and altogether exhibited the a.s.surance of a high-born lady. She promptly pounced upon the girl and dragged her away with her.

"Miss Woodville, dear Miss Woodville! I want to be your friend! Sit here, close to me."

And she murmured, with a singular mixture of affectation and pa.s.sion,--

"How lovely she is! Do you know, little one, that we shall positively be obliged to inst.i.tute a body-guard, like my friends, Lady Coventry and Lady Waldegrave, who go about everywhere escorted by two officers and a dozen halberdiers to keep the crowd of their admirers at a distance?"

Esther leaned towards her neighbor, a man of middle age, whose extraordinary plainness of feature rendered him in a way sympathetic and a.s.suring. Of him she inquired the name of the lady who so burned to be her intimate friend. She learned that it was Lady Vereker, one of the most p.r.o.nounced women of the world of the period. In her turn Lady Vereker hastened to inform Esther in a whisper that her neighbor was Mr.

Gibbon, quite an obscure member of Parliament and a commissioner of trade.

"It is said that he has written a great work upon the Romans," added Lady Vereker maliciously, "but to my thinking he does not look capable of it."

In fact, Mr. Gibbon was paying his fair neighbor too a.s.siduous court to please her ladyship.

As no introductions were offered at Reynolds's house, in order to avoid ceremonies of which fashionable persons were more weary than the rest of the world, Esther knew none of the guests, and would have continued in ignorance had not Mr. Gibbon named them; and he accompanied each name with some neat, incisive, mocking little phrase, the secret of which he had learned during his sojourn in France.

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"That great solemn figure is Mr. Burke," he explained. "He is vastly eloquent; a huge merit in Parliament, but a sad fault at supper. He shares his solicitude between Miss Burney and his son Richard. He idolizes the boy and never loses sight of him; notice that at this moment his arm is about his neck. He makes it his constant boast that this boy will be a genius. For my part I doubt it. The Phoenix never repeats himself!"

"But who is that strange personage seated on the other side of Miss Burney,--the man with the monstrous head that keeps rolling from shoulder to shoulder, with the twisted and seamed lips, and with eyes both of which are never open at the same moment? Why, his face is a positive grimace! He only succeeds in putting into his mouth half the contents of his plate; and he does not drink, he precipitates the liquid into his throat, and the descending nourishment is in a constant struggle with the ascending words. He disgusts and frightens me, while at the same time he attracts and interests. I am almost tempted to fall in love with him!"

"Brava! There is a portrait which would do credit to our amphitryon. The man is the one whom Chesterfield dubbed the respectable Hottentot; he is the dictator of the republic of letters; in a word, it is Dr. Johnson.

That poor man whom you see, with straining eyes and ear bent towards the Doctor, gathering the lightest word which falls from his lips, and who will hand him down to posterity some day, is Boswell, his friend, his f.a.g, and his disciple. The man who is a disciple--a genuine one, I mean--alone has sounded the depths of human folly. Perhaps it is Boswell who has taught Johnson to despise men, and it is Boswell who will teach men to admire Johnson. Now, just beyond Lady Vereker sits Mr. Hanway, whose profile only is visible."

"And who is Mr. Hanway?"

"Very much of a fool in a good sense,--no rare virtue in this isle of ours. He has written upon finance, peace, war, music, ventilation, the poor, Canada; upon military diet, the police, prisons, chimney-sweeps, and G.o.d Almighty."

"Is that all?" asked Esther with a laugh.

"I believe so, though he is capable of discovering no end of topics, since his device is, Never despair. He has imported from Persia, where he encountered infinite dangers, a certain very curious machine,--a little roof of colored silk extended upon ribs of whalebone, secured in turn to a rod of iron, and which is carried about at the end of a long handle as a protection against the rain. It is called an umbrella."