WHEN Laurie Renton drove from the padrona’s door in Mr. Rich’s carriage, opposite to that patron of art, it was his sense of the comicality of the situation which came uppermost. Art student, art critic, artist, he had been with a certain satisfaction in each office. But to be showman and salesman too was a new branch. These are the vicissitudes to which a man is subject who puts himself under the dominion of a woman, in the absolute and unconditional way which Laurie had done. But that was not how he regarded the matter. He was pleased to do it even for Suffolk’s sake; though he could not but laugh within himself when he took his seat on the luxurious cushions, with the couple opposite to him who breathed wealth, and filled the very atmosphere with its exhalations. One of the exhalations was not so pleasant as could be wished; for Mrs. Rich’s favourite perfume was of a character too distinct and decided for the narrow enclosure of a carriage; but the rustle of her silk, and the soft warmth of her velvet and her furs, and the wealthy look about her altogether,—wealthy and liberal and self-important and kindly,—was not without a certain human interest. She had been a pretty woman. Laurie, whose eyes were open to such particulars, was at once aware of that; and she was a good-looking woman of her age still. Her husband had less apparent character about him; but there was in both a consciousness of being able to give pleasure and scatter benefit around them, which was not unprepossessing. No doubt they were vulgar, perhaps purse-proud,—horribly ostentatiously rich. But they meant to benefit other people with their wealth, which was always something in their favour. Laurie glided with natural skill into the part allotted to him. He talked of Renton; of his mother’s invalid condition, which made it impossible for her to call; and of his young brother Frank the Guardsman,—for he had not yet negotiated his exchange,—whose battalion was stationed at Royalborough, and who, he was sure, would be glad to make their acquaintance. And then he went on to Suffolk’s story with the most natural sequence;—a man so full of talent, so laborious, so devoted to art, with such a pretty little wife!
‘Ah, there we have you, Mr. Renton!’ said jolly Mrs. Rich; ‘but it is naughty to talk so of a married lady. You ought to have eyes only for the pretty girls.’
‘A pretty young woman is a pretty young woman, whether she’s married or single,’ said her husband; ‘but I don’t like a man who goes on painting pictures that don’t sell. What is the good of it? No man in business would think of such a thing. It’s a sinful waste of capital as well as a waste of time. He ought to have changed his style. I’ll tell him so. You do a many foolish things, Mr. Renton, you artists, for want of a plain common-sense man of business to give you a little advice.’
‘That is very possible,’ said Laurie, with candour; ‘but even in business a man may go on with a speculation for a long time, though it is not immediately successful, if he is sure it will succeed in the end;—so long as he can afford to wait.’
‘Ah, yes, that is the whole question,’ said Mr. Rich,—‘as long as he can afford to wait; but a man should think of his wife and children. If I had a little family dependent on me, and had to paint for a living, I’d make them comfortable, Mr. Renton, if I had to change my style every other day.’
‘But that is not so easy as you think,’ said Laurie; ‘and the wife and children do not complain. Mrs. Suffolk is as proud of those boys in the Forum as she is of her own babies.’
‘Are there boys in the picture?’ said Mrs. Rich. ‘Then I shall like it for one. And she must be a nice little woman; but you young men, you should not go paying attention to a married lady. It is not because it is wrong,—for I never was so strait-laced as some, and never objected to a bit of fun,—but it keeps you from marrying and settling, which is dreadful. You are all so selfish, you gentlemen. As long as you have a woman to go and tell your little tales to, and get her sympathy and so forth, and no danger of going any further, you are quite satisfied;—and the girls are left, and nobody pays any attention to them. That is what I don’t approve of. We matrons have had our day, Mr. Renton, and we should be content with it. When I see married women dancing and going on, and young girls sitting without partners, I could beat them, though, perhaps, it is vulgar of me to say so. I like a young man when he falls in love honestly, as people did in my days, with a nice young girl.’
‘We can’t all afford to fall in love,’ said Laurie, laughing, yet with a faint, distant recollection of the possibility he had himself given up. Curious it was how far off that looked now! But, like most sinners, he was utterly unconscious that there was any moral which he could apply to his own case in this little sermon. His mind glanced off to somebody else whom, perhaps, it might have touched. ‘And as for Mrs. Suffolk,’ he added, ‘she does not think there is a man in the world who comes within a hundred miles of her Reginald; and, as I said, she is as proud of those boys in the Forum——’
‘What’s the Forum? Tell me the story; I like to know the story of every picture,’ said Mr. Rich. And Laurie told, to ears which received it with all the interest of ignorance, that well-known tale. Mr. Rich thought he had read something about it in a book; and shook his head over an incident so remote in antiquity. ‘I like English subjects,’ said the patron. ‘I don’t care for your Italian things. I never was in Italy myself, and how should I know if they are true or not? English pictures are the things for me.’
Then Mrs. Rich reminded the millionnaire that he had promised to take her to Italy next winter, and that it would be well in the meantime to make a little acquaintance with that country. And Laurie fell back on the ‘Sword,’ giving his companions the benefit of his own article, which, being a solitary effort, he had kept in his memory. It was a scene of genteel comedy, in which he was at once actor and audience,—and perhaps no other description of audience had such an exquisite sense of the points of the drama. He went through his part with a fluency which amazed himself, and chuckled and clapped his hands in secret with an infinite sense of his own humour. Mr. Rich’s grand coachman was too fine to know the locality, and made a great many turns and rounds before he reached Suffolk’s door, which left time for the little play to play itself out. It was curious to see the vast woman of wealth in her vast seal-skin cloak, in her rustling silken train, with plumes nodding on her bonnet, and lace streaming, get in at the narrow door. The house looked as if it could not possibly contain her. Laurie gave a comical glance to the upper window, with a momentary idea that he must see her head looking out there while still her train was on the steps at the door. And when she shook hands with the painter’s little wife, who got up from her work to receive them in a nervous flutter of agitation, not knowing what to expect, it seemed to Laurie as if he had brought a good-humoured ogress into this little fairy palace.
‘And a very pretty little woman she is,’ the patroness said in a whisper, nodding to him aside. ‘I like your taste, Mr. Renton.’ Thus it will be seen that Laurie’s hands were full.
‘We did not expect anybody till to-morrow; and I don’t know if Reginald is ready. If you would but go up and tell him, Mr. Renton?’ Mrs. Suffolk said, appealing to him also in an aside.
Suffolk was not the least ready to receive visitors. It was an east wind, which had impaired his light and affected his temper. ‘I’ve no time to go and change my coat,’ he said, like a savage. ‘What’s the good? Laurie, you’re the best fellow in the world; but Thursday is the last day, and you know what I’ve got to do. Look at that sky! By Jove! stop a man in the middle of a sky like that, and ask him to be civil to strangers! You might as well tell me to put this confounded east wind out of my eyes!’
‘Only for ten minutes,’ said Laurie, ‘there’s a good fellow! You are doing too much to that sky. Leave it for an hour, and you’ll see what’s wanting twice as well as you do now. And I do believe there’s a chance of selling the Angles! Think of Mrs. Suffolk and the children. Surely they’re worth half-an-hour and the trouble of changing your coat.’
Suffolk paused in his painting, and grew pale, and stared at his friend. ‘Selling the Angles!’ he said; and then he put down his brush, and turned away with an impatient exclamation. While Laurie stood looking anxiously on, the painter went to the nearest window and began to open the shutters, but stopped in the midst and turned back upon him. ‘It’s all rubbish,’ he said; ‘I don’t believe in selling the Angles. Why do you come here and mock a fellow even in the midst of his work? I say, Laurie, tell me one thing,—who is it?—quick!’
‘It’s old Rich, the City man,—the padrona’s friend. It was she who sent him,’ said Laurie, breathless with suspense.
Then the painter broke down; he gave a sudden sob all at once. ‘God bless that woman!’ he said, and rushed at his shutters. As for Laurie, he made himself housemaid, studio-boy, with his usual facility. It was he who dragged out the spare easel to the best light, and took down the picture from the wall where it hung somewhat in the shade. He took the dust off it lovingly with his handkerchief, while Suffolk changed his coat. His hands were rather black, and there was a cobweb on his breast close to the lily in his button-hole when he went down-stairs; and it would be hard to say which was the fairer ornament. Then he turned himself into a groom of the chambers, and ushered the patron and patroness up-stairs, Mrs. Suffolk following. The little woman trembled all over, though she did her best to hide it; and Laurie’s heart went jumping like a thing independent of him, in his breast. Suffolk was the most self-possessed of the three, but he purchased his composure by putting on a morose and forbidding aspect. Not that he meant to be morose; on the contrary, his brain was in a greater whirl than that of either of the others. If it might indeed come to pass,—if he too should really possess a patron, giving commissions, making life secure beforehand for his wife and the children! And then it occurred to him that this was the padrona’s patron. The thought nearly overcame the painter. If she had taken her children’s bread from her table and sent it to his, he would not have felt it so much. ‘God bless that woman!’ he said again in his heart. If the attempt failed or succeeded he was equally bound to her for his life. But he did not think of Laurie’s good offices with the same effusion, though Laurie by this time had come forward equal to the emergency, and resumed the showman’s part.
‘When you are in Italy, Mrs. Rich,’ said Laurie, ‘I know what you will say to yourself some spring morning. You will say, “Now I feel Mr. Suffolk’s picture!” Look at that golden air; you can see the motes dancing in it; and I can smell the orange-blossom out of the convent gardens. I have seen English children look like that,—like little roses,—with the dark Romans all round, admiring them.’
‘Have you now, Mr. Renton?’ cried Mrs. Rich; ‘I should like to see that. Dear little angels! Though my own are all grown up, I adore little children. And you never saw such a skin and such hair as my Nelly had when she was a little thing. They are lovely, Mrs. Suffolk—I think they are quite lovely. Mr. Rich, don’t you think that group is just like our Charlie and Alf? I mean what they used to look. And that woman with the white thing on her head,—that is a beauty! I am sure your husband must have painted you scores of times,’ she went on, graciously laying her hand upon little Mrs. Suffolk’s shoulders. ‘Now come and show me this other one, and let the gentlemen talk. I hope Mr. Rich will buy that picture. I think he will buy it. And they tell me there was something very nice about it in the “Sword.”’
‘Yes,’ said the painter’s wife, all confused and breathless with anxiety, straining her ears to hear what the gentlemen were saying; ‘and the “Looker-on” had an article too. They were all very complimentary; they said it was quite a work of genius——’
‘But it has not begun to pay just yet,’ said Mrs. Rich, with a little wave of her hand. There was a melting, liberal grandeur about her patroness. She looked like a conferrer of favours,—a rich, mellow, embodied Fortune. ‘I think Mr. Rich will buy it,’ she repeated, looking round upon her husband.
This was not a speech calculated to still Mrs. Suffolk’s agitation. Could it be possible? Oh, if Reginald would only be civil! If he would but condescend to talk and show it off to the best advantage! But it was Laurie who was talking. It was he who was pointing out all its great qualities. And then there was a pause, awful as the pause,—not before a thunderstorm,—that is nothing,—a mere accident of nature,—awful almost as the pause you make when you have opened the letter which is to bring you news of life or death!
And then, once more, it was Laurie Renton’s voice that broke the silence. If he had been pleading with a woman whom he loved, his tones could scarcely have been more insinuating. ‘If I remember Beecham rightly,’ he said, ‘there was a space left for a picture just opposite the little organ in what used to be the music-room. Have you changed that? or perhaps you have placed some picture there?’
‘That is just the thing,’ said Mr. Rich; ‘I knew there was a place. You have got an eye, Mr. Renton, and a memory too. Fancy, my dear,’ he said, calling to his wife, ‘he remembers the rooms at Richmont better than I do myself,—calls it Beecham though; but of course that is quite natural. Yes. And he is quite right too. I should not wonder if it was the exact size. The music-room is Nelly’s particular room, Mr. Renton;—my daughter Nelly, the only one I have at home. I think that is just the sort of thing she would like. Girls are full of fancies. She would not have my last Crowquill, though it is a lovely specimen, and that one of Mrs. Severn’s that she fancied was not big enough. I should think this was just about the size. Mr. Suffolk, a word with you, sir,’ said the patron, with all the confidence of a man whose cheque-book was in his pocket. Laurie stood with his back to them, measuring the picture with his handkerchief, and Mrs. Suffolk, before the new picture on the easel, stood trembling, trying to show it to the patron’s wife. What a moment it was! Mr. Rich was very audible; but Suffolk, in his agitation, spoke low, and looked more nervous than ever. His wife thought, oh, if Reginald should be disagreeable!—oh, if the rich man should be affronted, driven away by his bad manners! And it was only manner all the time. She stood in a fever of suspense, not knowing what Mrs. Rich said, who chattered on, drowning even her husband’s voice. She gave Laurie one look of appeal. Oh, if it were only ordained in Parliament, or by nature, that artists’ wives and friends should do their business for them;—at least when they were men like Suffolk! If it had lasted long, Mrs. Suffolk must have fallen fainting at her patroness’s feet.
But just when the strain had reached its highest point, Mrs. Rich fell silent by some chance, and took to examining one particular corner of the picture, and the voice of the millionnaire became distinctly audible. ‘If that’s all, I’ll give you a cheque at once,’ he said. ‘I’d like to have the picture as soon as you can send it; for you see Nelly is from home, and I’d like to give her a surprise. Perhaps Mr. Renton and you would run down and see it hung? A day in the country would do you good after all your hard work. Have you pen and ink? What, not pen and ink in your place!—every man of business should be supplied with that. I couldn’t put in my signature in paint, you know,’ the man of wealth said, with his large laugh of ease and careless liberality. He joked over it as if it were sixpence! as if it was a thing that happened every day! while to two of the people who listened to him it was something like coming back from the dead.
Suffolk, with his voice choked, made some feeble response. He tried to laugh too; he tried to say it did not matter,—there was no hurry,—any time would do. A poor little piece of hypocrisy, at which his wife quailed, trembling lest he should be taken at his word.
‘No, no; I like to settle such matters off-hand,’ said the patron;—‘there’s Renton, like a sensible fellow, off for the ink. I like that young man; never saw him in my life till this morning; but he feels like an old friend, and his people are our neighbours in the country. You and he must make a run down by the one o’clock train,—I don’t know a better train,—brings you down twenty-five miles in thirty minutes,—not bad, that. And I’ll send over a trap for you. What day will you come? Thank you, Renton; that’s practical; that’s the sort of thing I like. I want you both to come down and have some luncheon, and see the picture hung. Let it be a day in the end of the week; a day in the country never harms any man. Settle it with my wife. My dear, come here and look at the picture. It’s ours; or rather, it’s Nelly’s. Don’t you think she’ll like it? And I want to have them down to see it hung.’
Thus was this extraordinary piece of business accomplished, in a moment,—as it were in the twinkling of an eye. Neither Suffolk nor his wife knew what their visitors said and did, or where they were, or what had happened to them, till Mr. Rich suddenly recollected that there was no time to lose, and so many other studios to visit in daylight. It was all settled about that visit to Richmont, which Laurie, disagreeable though it was to him, had not the heart to refuse. And I suppose Suffolk talked and assented and behaved himself like any ordinary mortal, though he knew no more of what had passed than a man in a dream. Laurie put these blessed rich people into their carriage afterwards, and took as much care of the vast woman as if she had been the queen. ‘I will ask your brother over to meet you, Mr. Renton,’ she said, as she took leave of him; and Mr. Rich followed her, rubbing his hands. ‘I have done a good morning’s work,’ said that happy man. ‘Two hundred and fifty! I don’t doubt I could sell it for six to-morrow,—that’s what it is to go to the fountain-head.’ Laurie himself felt a little giddy as the carriage drove away. And when he returned to the studio, he found that Mrs. Suffolk was crying, and her husband not much more steady. The painter had forgotten all about his sky. He had his cheque in his hand, and was looking, first at that, and then at his Angles. ‘By Jove, Laurie, you have done it at last!’ he said, bursting into a loud laugh, and crushing Laurie’s hand as in a vice,—and then he went to the inner room, and put on his old painting-coat, which was a good excuse.
But whether it was Laurie who was to be commended this time, or the padrona, who,—let it be confessed,—with a moment’s hesitation and reluctance, had sent the patron to her friend, was a doubtful matter. They had both a hand in it. It was ‘our little business,’ as Laurie said, pleasing himself, in his foolishness, with the thought of this partnership. And he went, of course, to the Square, not by roundabout ways, like the fine coachman, but as fast as his feet could carry him, to report how everything had happened. Duty and courtesy both demanded that not a moment should be lost till the report was made.