The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 41

Oliver raised his eyes--

"Oh, it's not nearly as good as yours, Madge, in one way and yet in another it's a heap better. What do you think? Old Peter Fish wants me to paint his daughter's portrait."

Margaret laid her hand on his.

"Oh, Oliver! Not Peter Fish! That's the best thing that has happened yet," and her face instantly a.s.sumed a more serious expression. "I know the girl--she will be an easy subject; she's exactly your type. How do you know?"

"Just saw John Snedecor in answer to a letter he wrote me. Fish has bought the 'Woman in Black.' He's delighted with it."

"Why, I thought it belonged to the Countess."

"So it did. She sold it."

"Sold it!"

"Yes. Does it surprise you?"

"No; I can't say that it does. I am glad, though, that it will stay in the country. It's by far the best thing you or anybody else has done this season. I was afraid she would take it back with her. Poor woman!

she has had a hard life, and it doesn't seem to get any better, from what I hear."

"You know the original, then, my dear?" asked Richard, holding out his second cup of tea for another lump of sugar, which Margaret in her excitement had forgotten. He and Nathan had listened with the keenest interest to the reading of John Grant's letter and to the discussion that had followed.

"I know OF her," answered Margaret as she dropped it in; "and she knows me, but I've never met her. She's a Pole, and something of a painter, too. She studied in the same atelier where I was, but that was before I went to Paris. Her husband became mixed up in some political conspiracy and was sent to Siberia, and she was put across the frontier that same night. She is very popular in Paris; they all like her, especially the painters. There is nothing against her except her poverty." There could be nothing against any woman in Margaret's eyes. "But for her jewels she would have had as hard a time to get on as the rest of us. Now and then she parts with one of her pearls, and between times she teaches music. You must see the picture Oliver painted of her--it will delight you."

"Oh, but I have!" exclaimed Richard, laying down his cup. "We looked at it as we came up. It is really a great picture. He tells me it is the work of two hours and under gas-light."

"No, not altogether, father. I had a few hours on it the next day,"

interrupted Oliver.

"Strong, isn't it?" continued Margaret, without noticing Oliver's explanation. "It is really better in many ways than the girl in the Tam-o'-Shanter cap--the one he painted of me. That had some of Lely's qualities about it, especially in the flesh tones. He always tells me the inspiration to paint it came from an old picture belonging to his uncle. You know that of course?" and she laid a thin sandwich on Nathan's plate.

"You mean Tilghman's Lely--the one in his house in Kennedy Square? Oh,"

said Richard, lifting his fingers in appreciation, "I know every line of it. It is one of the best Lely's I ever saw, and to me the gem of Tilghman's collection."

"Yes; so Ollie tells me," continued Margaret. "Now this picture of the Countess is to me very much more in Velasquez's method than in Lely's.

Broader and stronger and with a surer touch. I have always told Ollie he was right to give up landscapes. These two pictures show it. There is really, Mr. Horn, no one on this side of the water who is doing exactly what Oliver is." She spoke as if she was discussing Page, Huntington or Elliott or any other painter of the day, not as if it was her lover. "Did you notice how the lace was brushed in and all that work about the throat--especially the shadow tones?"

She treated Richard precisely as if he was one of the guild. His criticisms of her own work--for he had insisted on seeing her latest picture and had even been more enthusiastic over it than he had been over Oliver's--and his instant appreciation of the Lambinet, convinced her, even before he had finished the tour of the room, that the quaint old gentleman was as much at home in her atmosphere as he was in that of his shop at home discussing scientific problems with some savant.

"I did, my dear. It is quite as you say," answered Richard, with great earnestness. "This 'Woman in Black,' as he calls it, is painted not only with sureness and with an intimate knowledge of the textures, but it seems to me he has the faculty of expressing with each stroke of his brush, as an engraver does with his burin, the rounds and hollows of his surfaces. And to think, too, my dear," he continued, "that most of it was done at night. The color tones, you know"--and his manner changed, and a more thoughtful expression came into his face--the scientist was speaking now--"are most difficult to manage at night. The colors of the spectrum undergo some very curious changes under artificial light, especially from a gas consuming as much carbon as our common carburetted hydrogen. The greens, owing to the absorption of the yellow rays, become the brighter, and the orange and red tones, from the same reason, the more intense, while the paler violets and, in fact, all the tertiaries, of a bluish cast lose--"

He stopped, as he caught a puzzled expression on her face. "Oh, what a dreadful person I am," he exclaimed, rising from his seat. "It is quite inexcusable in me. Please forgive me, my dear--I was really thinking aloud. Such ponderous learned words should be kept out of this delightful abode of the Muses, and then, I a.s.sure you, I really know so little about it, and you know so much." And he laughed softly, and made a little bow as a further apology.

"No. I don't know one thing about it, nor does any other painter I know," she laughed, blowing out the alcohol lamp, "not quite in the same way. And if I did I should want you to come every day and bring Mr. Gill with you to tell me about it." Where-upon Nathan, replying that nothing would give him more pleasure (he had been silent most of the time--somehow no one expected him to talk much when Richard was present), struggled to his feet at an almost imperceptible sign from the inventor, who suddenly remembered that his capitalists were waiting for him, pulled his old cloak about his shoulders and, with Richard leading the way, they all four moved out into the hall and stood in the open doorway.

When they reached the top stair outside the studio dear Richard stopped, took both of Margaret's hands in his, and said, in his kindest voice and in his gravest and most thoughtful manner, as he looked down into her face:

"My dear Miss Grant, may I tell you that I have to-day found in you the realization of one of my day-dreams? And will you forgive an old man when he says how proud it makes him to know a woman who is brave enough to live the life you do? You are the forerunner of a great movement, my dear--the mother of a new guild. It is a grand and n.o.ble thing for a woman to sustain herself with work that she loves"--and the dear old gentleman, lifting his hat with the air of a courtier, betook himself down-stairs, followed by Nathan, bowing as he went.

No wonder he rejoiced! Most of the dreams of his younger days were coining true. And now this woman--the beginning of a new era--the opening out of a new civilization. And ahead of it a National Art that the world would one day recognize!

He tried to express his delight to Oliver, and turned to find him, but Oliver was not beside him nor did he join his father for five minutes at least. That young gentleman--just as Richard and Nathan had reached the BOTTOM of the second flight of stairs--had suddenly remembered something of the utmost importance which he had left in the INNER room, and which he could not possibly find until Madge, waiting by the banister, had gone back to help him look for it, and not then, until Mrs. Mulligan had left them both and shut the kitchen-door behind her.

Yes, it was quite five minutes, or more, before Oliver clattered down-stairs after his guests, stopping but once to look up through the banisters into Margaret's eyes--she was leaning over for the purpose--his open hand held up toward her as a sign that it was always at her command.

CHAPTER XXIII

MR. MUNSON'S LOST FOIL

For a quiet, orderly, well behaved and most dignified street, Tenth Street, at seven o'clock one April night was disgracing itself in a way that must have shocked its inhabitants. Cabs driving like mad were rattling over the cobbles, making their way toward the old Studio Building. Policemen were shouting to the drivers to keep in line. Small boys were darting in and out, peering into the cab windows and calling out to their fellows: "Ki Jimmy! see de Ingin wid de fedder-duster on his head"--or, "Look at de pill in de yaller shirt! My eye, ain't he a honey-cooler!"

At the entrance of the building, just inside the door where the crowd was thickest, stood two men in armor with visors down--stood so still, that the boys and bystanders thought they had been borrowed from some bric-a-brac shop until, in an unguarded moment, one plumed knight rested his tired leg with a rattling noise that sounded like a tin-peddler shifting his pack or the adjustment of a length of stovepipe. Behind the speechless sentinels, leading into the narrow corridor, stretched a red carpet bordered by rows of palms and evergreens and hung about with Chinese lanterns.

At the end of this carpet opened a door that looked into a banquet hall as rich in color and as sumptuous in its interior fittings as an audience-chamber of the Doges at a time when Venice ruled the world.

The walls were draped with Venetian silks and Spanish velvets, against which were placed Moorish plaques, Dutch bra.s.s sconces holding cl.u.s.ters of candles, barbaric spears, bits of armor, pairs of fencing foils, old cabinets, and low, luxurious divans. Thrust up into the skylight, its gaff festooned with trawl-nets, drooped a huge sloop's sail, its graceful folds breaking the square lines of the ceiling; and all about, suspended on long filigree chains, swung old church-lamps of bra.s.s or silver, burning ruby tapers.

In the centre of this glow of color stood a round table, its top covered with a white cloth, and laid with covers for fifty guests. On this were placed, in orderly confusion, great ma.s.ses of flowers heard up in rare porcelain vases; silver candelabra bearing lighted candles; old Antwerp bra.s.s holding bon-bons and sweets; Venetian flagons filled with rare wines; Chinese and j.a.panese curios doing service as ash-receivers and match-safes; Delft platters for choice dishes; besides Flemish mugs, Bavarian gla.s.ses, George III. silver, and the like.

At the head of this sumptuous board was placed a chair of state, upholstered in red velvet, studded with bra.s.s rosettes, the corners of its high back surmounted by two upright gilt ornaments. This was to hold the Master of the Feast, the presiding officer who was to govern the merry spirits during the hours of the revel. In front of this royal chair was a huge stone mug crowned with laurel. This was guarded by two ebony figures, armed with drawn scimitars, which stood at each side of the throne-seat. From these guards of honor radiated two half-circles of lesser chairs, one for each guest--of all patterns and periods: old Spanish altar-seats in velvet, Dutch chairs in leather, Italian chairs in mother-of-pearl and ivory--all armless and quite low, so low that the costumed slaves, who were to wait on the royal a.s.sembly, could serve the courses without having to reach over the backs of the guests.

Moving about the room, rearranging the curios on the cabinets, adding a bit of porcelain to the collection on the table, shifting the lights for better effect, lounging on the wide divans, or ma.s.sed about the doorway welcoming the new arrivals as they entered, were Italian n.o.bles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, costumed with every detail correct, even to the jewelled daggers that hung at their sides, all genuine and of the period; cardinals in red hats and wonderful church robes, the candle-grease of the altar still clinging to their skirts; Spanish grandees in velvet and brocade; Indian rajahs in baggy silk trousers and embroidered waistcoats, with Kohinoors flashing from their turbans--not genuine this time but brilliant all the same; Shakespeares, Dantes (one of each), besides courtiers, n.o.bles, gallants, and gentry of various climes and periods.

All this splendor of appointment, all these shaded candles, hanging-lamps, Venetian gla.s.s, antique furniture, rich costumes, j.a.panese curios, and a.s.sorted bric-a-brac, were gathered together and arranged thus sumptuously to add charm and l.u.s.tre to a banquet given by the Stone Mugs to those of their friends most distinguished in their several professions of art, literature, and music.

Indeed any banquet the Club gave was sure to be as unique as it was artistic.

Sometimes it would be held in the hold of an abandoned vessel left high and dry on a lonely beach, which, under the deft touches of the artists of the Club, would be transformed in a night to the cabin of a buccaneer filled with the loot of a treasure ship. Sometimes a ca.n.a.l boat, which the week before had been loaded with lime or potatoes, would be scoured out with a fire-hose, its deck roofed with awnings and hung with lanterns, its hatches lined with palms, and in the hold below a table spread of such surprising beauty, and in an interior so gorgeous in its appointments that each guest, as he descended the carpeted staircase leading from the deck above to the carpeted keelson below, would rub his eyes wondering whether he had not been asleep, and had suddenly awakened aboard Cleopatra's barge.

Again the club would hold a Roman feast in one of Solari's upstairs rooms--the successor to Riley's of the old days--each man speaking ancient Latin with Tenth Street terminals, the servants dressed in tunics and sandals, and the members in togas. Or they would make a descent at midnight on Fulton Market and have their tomcods scooped from the fish-boxes alive and broiled to their liking while they waited; or they would take possession of Brown's or Farrish's for mugs of ale and English chops. But it was always one so different from any other function of its cla.s.s that it formed the topic of the studios for weeks thereafter.

To-night it was the humor of the club to reproduce as closely as possible, with the limited means at their disposal--for none of the Stone Mugs were rolling in wealth, nor did these functions require it--some one of the great banquets of former times, not to be historically or chronologically correct, but to express the artistic atmosphere of such an occasion.

That there were certain unavoidable and easily detected shams under all this glamour of color and form did not lessen the charm of the present function.

Everybody, of course, knew before the evening was over, or could have found out had he tried, that the two knights in armor who guarded the side-walk entrance to this royal chamber, and who had been the target of the street-rats until they took their places at the inside door, were respectively Mr. Patrick McGinnis, who tended the furnace in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Tenth Street Studio Building, stripped for the occasion down to his red flannels, and Signore Luigi Bennelli, his Italian a.s.sistant.

A closer inspection of the two ebony blackamoors, with drawn scimitars, who guarded the royal chair at the head of the table, would have revealed the fact that they were not made of ebony at all, but of veritable flesh and blood--the blackamoor on the right being none other than Black Sam, the bootblack who shined shoes on the corner of the avenue, and his bloodthirsty pal on the left the kinky-haired porter who served the grocer next door; the only "HONEST" thing about either of them, to quote Waller, being the artistic clothes that they stood in.

Further investigation would have shown that every one of the wonderful things that made glad and glorious the big square room on the ground floor of the building, from the bra.s.s sconces on the walls to the hanging church lamps, with everything that their lights fell upon, had been gathered up that same morning from the several homes and studios of the members by old black Jerry, the official carman of the Academy, and had been dumped in an indiscriminate heap on the floor of the banquet hall, where they had been disentangled and arranged by half a dozen painters of the club; that the table and table cloth had been borrowed from Solari's; that the very rare and fragrant old Chianti, the club's private stock, was from Solari's own cellars via Duncan's, the grocer; and that the dinner itself was cooked and served by that distinguished boniface himself, a.s.sisted by half a dozen of his own waiters, each one wearing an original Malay costume selected from Stedman's collection and used by him in his great picture of the Sepoy mutiny.

Moreover there was not the slightest doubt that the "Ingin," who was now bowing so gravely to the master of ceremonies, was no other than the distinguished Mr. Thomas Brandon Waller, himself; "N.A., Knight of the Legion of Honor, Pupil of Piloty, etc., etc.;" that the high-cla.s.s mandarin in the sacred yellow robe and peac.o.c.k feather who accompanied him, was Crug the 'cellist; that the bald-headed gentleman with the pointed beard, who looked the exact presentment of the divine William, was Munson; and that the gay young gallant in the Spanish costume was none other than our Oliver. The other n.o.bles, cavaliers, and hidalgos were the less known members of the club, who, in their desire to make the occasion a success, had fitted themselves to their costumes instead of attempting to fit the costumes to themselves, with the difference that each man not only looked the character he a.s.sumed but a.s.sumed the character he looked.

But no one, even the most knowing; no student of costumes, no reader of faces, no discerner of character, no acute observer of manners and times--in glancing over the motley company would have thought for one instant that, in all this atmosphere of real unrealism, the two old gentlemen who had just entered leaning on Oliver's arm--one in a brown coat with high velvet collar and fluffy silk scarf, and the other in a long pen-wiper cloak which, at the moment was slipping from his shoulders--were genuine specimens of the period of to-day without a touch of makeup about them; that their old-time manners, even to the quaint bows they both gave the master of ceremonies, as they entered the royal chamber, were their very own, part of their daily equipment, and that nothing in the gorgeous banquet hall, from the jewelled rapier belted to Oliver's side, and which had once graced the collection of a prince, down to the priceless bit of satsuma set out on the table and now stuffed full of cigarettes (the bit could be traced back to the Ming dynasty), were any more veritable or genuine, or any more representative of the best their periods afforded than these two quaint old gentlemen from Kennedy Square.

Had there been any doubt in the minds of any such wiseacre, either regarding their authenticity or their quality, he had only to listen to Oliver's presentation of his father and friend and to hear Richard say, in his most courteous manner and in his most winning voice: