THE house was very quiet when they were all away. Merely to look into the drawing-room was enough to give any one a chill. The sense of emptiness where generally every corner was full, and silence where there were always so many voices, was very depressing. Mr. Sandford consoled himself by a very hard day’s work the first day of the absence of his family, getting on very well indeed, and making a great advance in the picture he was painting—a small picture intended for one of his oldest friends. In the evening, as he had nothing else to occupy him, he moved about the studio, not going into the other parts of the house at all, and amused himself by making a little study of the moonlight as it came in upon the plants in the conservatory. His house was in a quarter not fashionable, somewhere between St. John’s Wood and Regent’s Park, and consequently there was more room than is usual in London, a pretty garden and plenty of air. The effect of the moonlight and the black exaggerated shadows amused him. The thought passed through his mind that if perhaps he were one of the newfangled school which Jack’s friends believed in, he might turn that unreal scene which was so indubitable a fact into a picture and probably make a great success as an impressionist—an idea at which he smiled with a milder but not less genuine contempt than the young impressionist might have felt for Mr. Sandford’s school. He had half a mind to do it—to conceal his name and send it to one of the lesser exhibitions, so as afterwards to have a laugh at the young men, and prove to them how easy the trick was, and that any old fogey who took the trouble could beat them in their own way. Next morning, however, he threw the sketch into a portfolio, with a horror of the black and white extravagance which in the daylight offended his artist-eye, and which he had a suspicion was not so good after all, or so easy a proof of the facility of doing that sort of thing as he had supposed. And that day his work did not advance so quickly or so satisfactorily. He listened for the swing of the door at the other end of the passage which connected the studio with the house, though he knew well enough there was no one who could come to disturb him. There are days when it is so agreeable to be disturbed! And it was when he was painting in this languid way, and, as was natural, not at all pleasing himself with his work, that there suddenly and most distinctly came before him, as if some one had come in and said it, a thing—a fact—which strangely enough he had not even thought of before. When it first occurred to him his hand suddenly stopped work with an action of its own before the mind had time to influence it, and there was a sudden rush of heat to his head. He felt drops of moisture come out on his forehead; his heart for a second paused too. His whole being received a shock—a start. For the first moment he could scarcely make out what this extraordinary sudden commotion, for which his mind seemed only partially responsible, could be.
This was what had in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, occurred to the painter. He had, of course, been aware of it before without giving any particular importance to the fact. The fact, indeed, in a precarious, uncertain profession like his, in which a piece of good fortune might occur at any moment, was really not of the first importance; but it flashed upon him now in a significance and with a force which no such thing had ever held before. It was this—that when he had completed the little picture upon which he was working he had no other commission of any kind on hand. It sounds very prosaic to be a thing capable of giving such a tragic shot—but it was not prosaic. One can even conceive circumstances in which despair and death might be in such words; and to no one in Mr. Sandford’s position could they be pleasant. Even if the fact represented no material loss, it would represent loss—which at his age could never be made up—loss of acceptance, loss of position, that kind of failure which is popularly represented as being “shelved,” put aside as a thing that is done with; always a keen and grievous pang. But to our painter the words meant more than that. They meant a cutting off of the ground from under his feet, a sudden arrest of everything, a full stop, which in his fully flowing liberal life was a tragic horror and impossibility, a something far more terrible than death. It had upon him something of the character of a paralytic stroke. His hand, as we have said, stopped work sharply, suddenly; it trembled, and the brush with which he was painting fell from it; his limbs tottered under him, his under lip dropped, his heart gave a leap and then a dead pause. He stumbled backwards for a few steps and sank into a chair.
Well! it was only for a few moments that he remained under the influence of this shock. He picked himself up again, and then picked up his brush and dried the perspiration from his forehead, and his heart with a louder beat went on again as if also crying out “Well!” When he had recovered the power of thought—which was not for a moment or two—he smiled to himself and said, “What then?” Such a thing had happened before. In an artist’s life there are often hair-breadth ’scapes, and now and then the most prosperous comes, as it were, to a dead wall—which is always battered through by a little perseverance or else opens by itself, melting asunder at the touch of some heaven-sent patron or happy accident, and so all goes on more prosperously than before. Mr. Sandford had passed through many such crises at the beginning of his career, and even when fully established had never been entirely certain from whence his next year’s income was to come. But it had always come; there had never been any real break in it—no failure of the continuity. He had seemed to himself to be as thoroughly justified in reckoning upon this continuity as any man in an office with so much a year. It might be a little more or a little less, and there was always that not unpleasant character of vagueness about it. It might even by a lucky chance for one fortunate year be almost doubled, and this had happened on rare occasions; but very seldom had there been any marked diminution in the yearly incomings. He said, “Pooh, pooh,” to himself as he went up to his picture again smiling, with his brush in his hand; not for such a matter as that was he going to be discouraged. It was a thing that had happened before, and would no doubt happen again. He began to work at his picture, and went on with great spirit for perhaps a quarter of an hour, painting in (for he had no model that morning) a piece of drapery from a lay figure, and catching just the tone he wanted on the beautiful bit of brocade which figured in the picture as part of a Venetian lady’s majestic dress. He was unusually successful in his work, and also succeeded for ten perhaps of these fifteen minutes in amusing himself and distracting his thoughts from that discovery. A bit of success is very exhilarating; it made him more confident than anything else could have done. But when he had got his effect his smile began to fade away, and his face grew grave again, and his hand trembled once more. After a while he was obliged to give up and take a rest, putting down his palette and brush with a sort of impatience and relief in getting rid of them. Could he have gone straight to his wife and made her take a turn with him in the garden, or even talked it over with her in the studio, no doubt the impression would have died off; but she was absent, and he could not do that; most likely, indeed, if she had been at home she would have been absorbed in some calculation about Lizzie’s wedding, and would not have noticed his preoccupation at all.
He sat down again in that chair, and said once more to himself, “What then?” and thought over the times in which this accident had happened before. But there now suddenly occurred to him another thought which was like the chill of an icy hand touching his heart. The same thing had happened before—but he had never been sixty before. He felt himself struck by this as if some one had given him a blow. It was quite true; he had called himself laughingly an old fogey, and when he and his old friends were together they talked a great deal about their age and about the young fellows pushing them from their seats. How much the old fellows mean when they say this, heaven knows. So long as they are strong and well they mean very little. It is an amusing kind of adoption of the folly of the young which seems to show what folly it is—a sort of brag in its way of their own superiority to all such decrepitudes, and easy power of laughing at what does not really touch them. But alone in their own private retirements, when a thought like this suddenly comes, a sharp and sudden realisation of age and what it means, no doubt the effect is different. For the moment Mr. Sandford was appalled by the discovery he had made, which had never entered his mind before. Ah! a pause in one’s means of making one’s living, a sudden stop in the wheels of one’s life, is a little alarming, a little exciting, perhaps a discouragement, perhaps a sharp and keen stimulant at other times: at forty, even at fifty, it may be the latter; but at sixty!—this gives at once a new character to the experience—a character never apprehended before. His heart, which had begun to spring up with an elasticity natural to him, stopped again—nay, did not stop, but fell into a sudden dulness of beating, a subdued silence as if ice-bound. Sensation was too much for thought; his mind could not go into it; he only felt it, with a dumb pang which was deeper than either words or thought.
He could not do any more work that day. He tried again two or three times, but ended by putting down his palette with a sense of incapacity such as he thought he had never felt before. As a matter of fact, he might have felt it a hundred times and attached no importance to it; he would have gone into the house, leaving his studio, and talked or read, or gone out for a walk, or to his club, or to see a friend, saying he did not feel up to work to-day, and there would have been an end of it. But he was alone, and none of these distractions were possible to him. Luncheon came, however, which he could not eat, but sat over drearily, not able to get away from the impression of that thought. Afterwards it occurred to him that he would go and see Daniells and ask him—he was not quite clear what. He could not go to one of his friends and ask, “Am I falling off—do you see it? Has my hand lost its cunning—am I getting old and is my mind going?” He could not ask any one such questions as these. He smiled at it dolefully, feeling all the ridicule of the suggestion. He knew his mind was not going—but—— At last he made up his mind what he would do. It was a long walk to Bond Street, but it was now afternoon and getting cooler, and the walk did him good. He reached Daniells’ just before the picture dealer left off business for the day. He was showing some one out very obsequiously through the outer room all hung with pictures when he saw Sandford coming in. The stranger looked much interested and pleased when he heard Sandford’s name.
“Introduce me, please,” he said, “if this is the great Mr. Sandford, Daniells.”
“It is, Sir William,” said Daniells; and Sir William offered his hand with the greatest effusion. “This is a pleasure that I have long desired,” he said.
Mr. Sandford was surprised—he was taken unawares, and the greeting touched his heart. “After all, perhaps it isn’t that,” he said to himself.
“What a piece of luck that you should have come in just then! Why, that’s Sir William Bloomfield—just the very man for you to know.”
“Why for me more than another? I know his name, of course,” said Mr. Sandford, “and he seems pleasant; but I’m too old for new friends.”
“Too old; stuff and nonsense! You’re always a-harping on that string. He’s just the man for you, just the man,” said Daniells, rubbing his hands.
Mr. Sandford was amused—perhaps a little pleased by this encounter; and the pressure of his heavy thoughts was stilled. He began to look at the new pictures which had come into the gallery, to admire some and criticise others. Daniells had the good sense always to listen to Mr. Sandford’s criticisms with attention. They had furnished him with a great many telling phrases, and given to his own rough and practical knowledge of art a little occasional polish which surprised and overawed many of his customers. He listened admiringly now as usual.
“What a deal you do know, to be sure!” he said after a while. “I don’t know one of them that can make a thing clear like you, old man. It’s a shame——” and here he coughed and broke off, as if endeavouring to swallow his last words.
“What is a shame?” The broken sentence changed Mr. Sandford’s mood again—the momentary cheer died away. “Daniells,” he said, “I want you to tell me what you meant the other day by forcing me to accept that man’s offer. Yes, you did. I should not have let him have the picture but for you.”
“Forcing him! Oh, that’s a nice thing to say—the most obstinate fellow in all London!”
“Never mind that; I can see you are fencing. Come, why did you do it?”
Daniells paused for some time. He said a great many things to stave off his confusion, many half-things which involved others, and made his answer perhaps more clear than if he had put it directly into words.
“I see,” Mr. Sandford said at last, “you thought it very unlikely that I should sell it at all to any one who knew better.”
“It ain’t that. They don’t know half enough, hang ’em! or they wouldn’t run after a booby like Blank and neglect you.”
Mr. Sandford smiled what he felt to be a very sickly smile. “We must let Blank have his day,” he said, “I don’t grudge it him; but I’d like to know why my chances are so bad. I have always sold my pictures.”
Daniells gave him a sudden look, as if he would have spoken; then thought better of it, and said nothing.
“I have had no reason to complain,” Mr. Sandford continued; “I have done very well on the whole. I have never had extravagant prices like Em or En.”
“No,” said Daniells; “you see, you’ve never made an ’it. You’ve gone on doing good work, and you’ve always done good work. I’d say that if I were to die for it; but you’ve never made an ’it.”
“I suppose that’s true; but you need not put it so very frankly,” said the painter, with a laugh.
“Frankly! I’ve got occasion to put it frankly; and I say it’s a d——d shame—that’s what it is,” cried Daniells, raising his voice.
“You’ve had occasion? Now that we’re on this subject, I should like to get to the bottom of it. You’ve had occasion?”
“Well, of course,” said the picture dealer, “if you drive me into a corner. I’m in the middle of everything, and I hear what people say——”
“What do they say? That I’ve lost my sense of colour like old Millrain, or fallen into my dotage like——”
“Nonsense, Sandford! You know it’s nothing of the kind. Don’t talk such confounded nonsense. You are painting quite as well as ever, you know you are. They—people don’t care for that sort of thing. It’s too good for them, or you’re too good for them, or I don’t know what.”
Mr. Sandford kept smiling—not for pleasure; he was conscious of that sort of fixed smile that might be thought a sneer, at those people for whom he was too good. “And you’ve had occasion,” he said, “to prove this?”
“Don’t smile at me like that—don’t look like that. If you knew how I’ve argued and put it all before ’em—— I’ve said a hundred times if I’ve said once, ‘Sandford! why, Sandford’s one of the best. There isn’t a better educated painter not in England. You can’t pick a hole in his pictures, try as you like.’”
“Am I indeed so much discussed?” said the victim. “I did not know I was of such importance. And on what ground have you held this discussion, Daniells? There must have been some occasion for it. I don’t see anything here of mine.”
“Look here,” cried the picture dealer, roused, “if you won’t believe me.” He opened the door of an inner room, into which Mr. Sandford followed him. And there, with their faces turned to the wall, were three pictures in a row. The shape of them gave him a faint, uneasy feeling. By this time Daniells had been wound up to self-defence, and thought of the painter’s feelings no more.
“Look ’ere,” he said, “I shouldn’t have said a word if you had let well alone—but look ’ere.” Before one of the pictures was visible Mr. Sandford knew what he was going to see. Three pictures of his own, of a kind for which he had been famous—cabinet pictures, for which there had always been the readiest market. He recognised them all with a faintness that made his brain swim and the light go from his eyes. They seemed so familiar, like children. At the first glance, without looking at them, he knew what they were and all about them, and had a sick longing that the earth would open and swallow them, and hide his shame, for so it seemed.
“If that don’t show how I’ve trusted you, nothing can,” said the dealer. “I thought they were as safe as the bank. I bought them all on spec, thinking I’d get a customer as soon as they were in the shop—and, if you’ll believe me, nobody’ll have them. I can’t tell what people are thinking of, but that’s the truth.”
Mr. Sandford stood with the light going out of his eyes, gazing straight before him. “In that case—in that case,” he began, “you should—I must——”
“I say, don’t take it like that, old man. It’s the fortune of war. One up and another down. It can’t be helped, don’t you know. Sandford, I say, why, it’ll come all right again in half-a-dozen years or so. It’ll come all right after a time.”
“What did you say?” said Mr. Sandford, dazed. Then he answered vaguely, “Oh yes; all right—all right.”
“What’s the matter? I’ve been a wretched fool. Sandford, here, I say, have a glass of wine.”
“There’s nothing the matter. It seems to me a little—cold. I know—I know it’s not a cold day; but there’s a chill wind about, penetrating—thanks, Daniells, you’ve cleared up my problem very well. Now, I think—I think I understand.”
“Don’t go now, Sandford; don’t go like this.”
“I want,” he said, smiling again, “to think it over. Much obliged to you, Daniells, for helping me to understand.”
“Sandford, don’t go like this. You make me awfully anxious—I’m sure you’re ill. I can’t let you go out of my place, looking so dreadfully ill, without some one with you.”
“Some one with me! I hope you don’t mean to insult me, Daniells. I am perfectly well—a little startled, but that’s all. I shall go and take a walk, and blow away the cobwebs, and—think it over. That’s the best thing. I’m much obliged to you, Daniells. Good-bye.”
“Have a hansom, at least,” Daniells said.
“No hansom,” Mr. Sandford answered, turning upon the dealer with a curious smile. He even laughed a little—low, but quite distinct. “No, I’ll have no hansom. Good-bye, Daniells, good-bye.”
And in a minute he was gone. The picture dealer went out to the door after him, and followed him with his eyes until his figure was lost in the crowd. Daniells was alarmed. He blamed himself for his frankness. “I never thought he’d have taken it to heart like that,” he said to himself. “Yes, I did; or I might have done—he’s awful proud. But I’m ’asty. I can’t help it; I’m always doing things I’m sorry for. Anyhow, he must have found it out some time, sooner or later,” the dealer said to himself; and this philosophy silenced his fears.