Read Ebook: The Three Brothers; vol. 2/3 by Oliphant Mrs Margaret

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 516 lines and 82452 words, and 11 pages

OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

PAGE

THE THREE BROTHERS.

PLAY.

It must be admitted that the counsel thus bestowed upon Laurie in respect to his work had rather a discouraging than a stimulating effect upon him. It disgusted him, no doubt, with Edith and his big canvas, but it did not fill him, as it was intended to do, with enthusiasm for Clipstone Street, and his other opportunities of legitimate work. He made it an excuse for doing nothing, which was unfortunate, after so much trouble had been taken about him. Perhaps, on the whole, it would have been better to have let him have his way. The padrona herself thought so, though she had not been able to refrain from interfering when she had the opportunity. The Square, and the adjacent regions, had pronounced almost unanimously that the sketch was a very clever sketch; but, notwithstanding, deprecated with one voice the big canvas, and the ambitious work. 'I did it, and you see I have not made much of it,' said Suffolk. 'If I thought I could make as much of it as you have done, I should go in for it to-morrow,' cried Laurie, with an enthusiasm for which the painter's wife could have hugged him. 'But, dear Mr. Renton, if you would but advise him to take simpler subjects!' Mrs. Suffolk said, with her pathetic voice. Suffolk was a man of genius, as even old Welby admitted, and slowly, by degrees, the profession itself was beginning to be awake to his merits; but as for the British public, it knew nothing of the painter, except that up to this moment he had been hung down on the floor, or up at the roof, in the Academy's exhibition, and sneered at in the 'Sword.' This was what came of high art.

'Is nothing but a beginner's attempt, I know,' said poor Laurie. 'That is all settled and understood. Let us talk of something else.'

Mr. Welby, without heeding the young man, got up, and gazed upon the white canvas, which still stood on the easel like a ghost, with the white outlines growing fainter. Laurie had not had the heart to touch it since that evening in the Square. 'I don't understand how you young men can be so rash,' he said; 'for my part, I think there is no picture that ever was painted equal to the sublimity of that blank canvas. Why, sir, it might be anything! Buonarotti or Leonardo never equalled what it might be. It is a thing that strikes me with awe; I feel like a wretch when I put the first daub of vulgar colour on it. Colour brings it down to reality,--to our feeble efforts after expression,--but in itself it is the inexpressible. I don't mind your chalk so much. It's a desecration, but not sacrilege,--a white shadow on the white blank,--and it might turn out anything, sir! Whereas, if you put another touch on it, you would bring it down to your own level. The wonder to me always is how a man who is a true painter ever paints a line!'

'It is well for the world that you have not always been of that opinion,' said Laurie, forcing out a little compliment in spite of himself.

'But I have always been of that opinion,' said Mr. Welby. 'Unfortunately, man is a complex being, my dear fellow, and whatever your convictions and higher sentiments may be, the other part of you will force itself into expression. But the thing is to keep it down as long as possible, and subdue and train it like any other slave. That is always my advice to you young men. Never draw two lines when you can do with one. Don't spoil an inch more of that lovely white canvas than your idea will fill. Keep within your idea, my dear Laurie. You should no more tell it all out than a woman should tell out how fond she is of you. Art is coy, and loves a secret,' said the old man, warming into a kind of enthusiasm.

These were the kind of addresses which were made to Laurie in this his first attempt to stumble out of his pleasant amateur ways into professional work and its habits. He could not but ask himself, with a tragi-comic wonder, whether it was anxiety for his good alone which wound up his friends into eloquence, or whether there had ever been a novice so overwhelmed by good advice before. He had done what he liked in the old days, when what he liked was of little consequence; but it was clear that he was not to be permitted to do what he liked now. He was affronted, disgusted, amused, and discouraged, all in a breath. Work in cold blood for work's sake, to lead to no immediate end, was something of which Laurie was incapable. It seemed to him that the way to become a painter was by painting pictures, and he did not give the weight they deserved to his friends' counsels when they adjured him to work at smaller matters, and to postpone the great. 'I shall never satisfy them,' he said to himself; and accordingly the spur being thus removed, his natural habit of mind returned upon him. He had no tendency to extravagance, being simple in all his tastes, and it seemed to him that he could get on very well on his two hundred a-year. 'I shall never marry,' Laurie said to himself, with a sigh, 'nor think of marrying. That sort of thing is all over; and there is enough to keep me alive, I suppose. And why should I go worrying everybody about pictures which I don't suppose I am fit to paint? But I may be of use to my friends,' he added in his self-communion. So he took to play instead of work, which he found to be more congenial to his ancient habits, and he fell back into it as naturally as possible. It would have been better for him, so far as his profession was concerned, had they let him have his own way.

But if he could not be a great painter himself, it was possible enough that he might be of use to those who were so. Though he had been momentarily absorbed by his abortive project, and momentarily thrown off his balance by all the opposition it met, yet he had not forgotten his promise to Mrs. Suffolk. If there was anything he could do to open the eyes of the British public, and show it what a blunder it was making, that would always be so much rescued from the blank of existence. Laurie's Edith, even had she come to the first development which he once hoped for her, could never be,--or at least it was not probable that she would ever be,--equal to that scene in the Forum, which hung neglected on the wall of Suffolk's studio. To bring the one into the light of day was perhaps a better work than to paint the other. It was the first thought that roused Laurie out of his own mortification. He bore no malice. He was too sweet-hearted, too easy and forgiving, for that. Indeed, on the contrary, he was very grateful to one at least of his hardest critics. The padrona had uncovered her heart to him by way of pointing her objection. He had seen into her mind and spirit as perhaps no one else had ever done. He was sorry for the pain it must have given her to speak to him,--even more sorry than for himself; but Laurie could not, though Mrs. Severn would have wondered, speak what people call 'a good word' on her behalf when he got Slasher in his power. The words would have choked him. Ask any man in ordinary Art-jargon and common print to applaud the woman to whom his own heart began to give a kind of wordless, half-unconscious worship! Ask for praise, public praise, for his padrona. He would as soon have thought of leading her upon the stage to have garlands thrown at her feet like a prima donna. Here was a disability of woman which nobody had ever thought of before. It did not matter much, from Laurie's point of view, whether they blamed her or praised her. To name her at all was a presumption unpardonable, the mere thought of which made his cheek burn. And yet it would have done Mrs. Severn a great deal of good had the 'Sword' taken an enthusiasm for her. And Laurie had no objection to her work. He knew that he could not have done it for her had he tried his hardest. Her independence, and her labours, and her artist life, were all part of herself. He could not realise her otherwise. But to have her talked of in the papers! Laurie's private feeling was, that instead of influencing Slasher in her favour, he would like to knock down the fellow who should dare to have the presumption to think that she could be the better for his praise!

But Suffolk was a totally different matter. And Laurie, having turned his back upon the studio, and turned himself loose, so to speak, upon the world again, set to work at the club and elsewhere, to cultivate Slasher with devotion. Slasher was understood to be the special art-critic of the 'Sword;' and he had qualified himself for such a post, as most men do, by an unsuccessful beginning as a painter, which had, however, happened so long ago that some people had forgotten, and some even were not aware of the fact. Though he was not ill-natured, it must be admitted that Laurie commended himself to the critic by the want of success which the young fellow did not attempt to disguise. 'My friends are a great deal too good to me,' Laurie said, with comic simpleness; 'they have all fallen upon my picture so, that I have given it up. What is the use of trying to paint with every man's opinion against you? I have not stuff enough in me for that!'

'Poor Laurie!' Slasher said, with a laugh which was not unkind. 'If you had persevered, probably I, too, should have been compelled, in the interests of art, to let loose my opinion. So it is as well for me you stopped in time.'

'But I want you to let loose your opinion, and do a service to the nation,' said Laurie. 'I want you to come to my place and meet a friend of mine,--the cleverest fellow I know. All he wants is, that you should speak a good word for him in the "Sword."'

'Ah!' said the critic, with a groan of disgust; 'I am tired of speaking good words. I don't mind walking into anybody to do you a favour, my dear fellow. There's always some justice in anything you like to say against a picture,--or a man either. But if you knew the sickening stuff one has to pour forth for one's own friends, or one's editor's friends! I am never asked to give a good notice in the 'Sword' but I feel that it's for an ass. Instinct, Laurie! I dare say your friend is everything that's delightful, but if his pictures were worth twopence you would never come to me for a good word.'

'I should not ask you to praise him, certainly, if I did not think he deserved it,' said Laurie, with a little offence.

'Ah! if you were as well used to that sort of thing as I am,' said Slasher, with a sigh. 'I don't mind cutting 'em all up in little pieces to please the public. A slashing article is the easiest writing going. You have only to seize upon a man's weak point,--and every man has a weak point,--and go at it without fear or favour; but when Crowther comes and lays his hand on my shoulder in his confounded condescending way, "My dear fellow," he says, "here's a poor devil who is always pestering me. He is a cousin of my wife's;" or, "He's a friend of my brother-in-law's;" or, "He was at school with my boy," as the case may be. "I suppose his picture's as weak as water; but, hang it! say a good word for him. It may do him good, and it can't do us any harm." That's what I've got to do, till it makes me sick, I tell you. I'll pitch into your aversions, my dear Laurie, and welcome; but don't ask me to say good words for your friends.'

'But my friend is a man of genius,' said Laurie. 'I don't want you to speak up for him because he is my friend; but because his pictures are as fine as anything you ever saw.'

'But I don't suppose you ever saw them', said Laurie, standing his ground.

'I've seen them as well as anybody could see them', said Slasher. 'I remember there was one in the North Room down on the floor one year, and one over the doorway. My dear fellow, I've seen the kind of thing,--that's enough. Heroic figures, with big bones, and queer garments--red hair, that never was combed in its life--and big blue saucer eyes, glaring out of the canvas. I know;--there are two or three fellows that do that sort of thing. But it will never take, you may be sure. The British public likes respectable young women with their clothes put properly on them; in nice velvet and satin, that they can guess at how much it cost a yard.'

'The British public ought to be ashamed of itself,' said Laurie; 'but you may come with me on Thursday all the same.'

'He is boy enough to be fond of women a dozen years older than himself,' said Miss Hadley, with a significant nod. To which Mrs. Severn, with her eyes fixed on the fire, made no immediate reply.

'After all, it is quite natural,' the padrona continued, after a pause; 'he is separated from his own family by this strange business;--and such an affectionate, soft-hearted fellow!'

'Well, I think it is chiefly affectionateness,' Miss Hadley admitted: and she added after a moment: 'It cannot be for Alice, as I thought!'

'The child!' cried Mrs. Severn, in alarm. 'She is but a child. Don't talk as if it were possible any one should dream of stealing her from me. What should we do without Alice?' cried the mother, with a sudden pang. 'Jane, I hope you will not do anything to put such ideas in any one's mind.'

'Such ideas come of themselves,' said Miss Hadley. 'She will be sixteen in summer. She is of more use than many a woman of six-and-twenty. She must marry some time or other. Why, what else could you look for when you refused to bring her up to do anything? A girl who has no fortune in this world must either marry, or work, or starve; and I don't know,' said the strong-minded woman, with energy, 'which is the worst.'

'Hush,' said the padrona, with a smile, 'infidel! and here is the child going to her music. Alice, come and look me in the face.'

'Have I been naughty, mamma?' said Alice, bending over her mother. For a moment the two looked into each other's eyes, with the perfect love, and trust, and understanding which belongs to that dearest of relationships. If it gave a pang to the heart of the woman looking on, who had no child, I cannot tell. The mother lifted her face, still warm with all the vigour, and softness, and beauty of life, and kissed the lovely, soft cheek, in its perfection of youth. 'It would be no wonder if any one loved her,' she said softly, when the child had disappeared into the soft darkness in the next room, her heart wrung with a premonitory pang of tender anguish. That was the night on which Laurie brought his brother Frank,--splendid young Guardsman, who had run up to town to endeavour to arrange the exchange he wanted into a regiment going to India,--to introduce him to his friends in the Square.

'I will send for them,' said the padrona, 'and keep his wife with me till you come back. It is very good of you to take all this trouble. I wish you had a picture to show splendidly too.'

'How inconsistent some people are,' said Laurie. 'After making an end of my poor picture! No, padrona, that is all over. Let us now be of some use to our friends.'

'But it is not all over,' said Mrs. Severn. And then she paused, seeing, perhaps, some signs of impatience in him. 'Heaps of people can paint pictures,' she said; 'but it is not everybody who can serve their friends,--like this.'

'If it but succeed it will be something gained,' said Laurie, with a sigh of anxiety; 'and you will think me, after all, not useless in the world?' he went on, holding out his hand. Miss Hadley was looking on, with very sharp eyes; and she saw that the young man stood holding the padrona's hand much longer than was necessary for the formality of leave-taking. 'Slasher is to dine with me at the club,' he continued. 'He will be in good humour at least. And you will think of us, and wish us good speed.'

'Surely,' the padrona said, withdrawing her hand; and Miss Hadley sat glancing out of the darkness with her keen eyes; knitting for ever, and looking on. When the young man was gone a certain embarrassment stole over Mrs. Severn,--she could not tell why. 'He is as eager and excited as if his own fate were to be decided to-night,' she said. 'What a good fellow he is!' Miss Hadley made no reply. No sound but that of the knitting-needles clicking against each other with a certain fierceness came out of the twilight in the corner. In this silence there was a certain disapproval, which made the padrona uncomfortable in spite of herself. 'I am afraid you have changed your opinion of poor Laurie,' she said, after a pause. 'I thought you used to like him?' The children had not yet come down from their game of romps in the nursery up-stairs, and the two were alone.

'I like him very well,' said Miss Hadley. 'I like him so well that I can't bear to see him making a fool of himself.'

'How is he making a fool of himself?' said Mrs. Severn, quickly.

'Or to see other people making a fool of him,' said Miss Hadley. 'There, I have said my say! I don't know if it be his fault or yours; but the young fellow is losing his head, my dear, and you must see it as well as I do.'

'I see nothing of the kind,' said the padrona, with dignity. 'I am surely old enough to be safe from such nonsense; and you are too old to talk like a school-girl. You are as jealous as a man,' she added, after a pause, relapsing into easier tones. 'Would you like me to forbid the poor boy the house?'

'It might be best,' said Miss Hadley, stiffly;--'certainly for him. I don't know about you.'

WHAT CAME OF IT.

When Laurie left the Hydrographic in company with his friend Slasher, he had still a hope of being able to present himself for a few moments in the Square to report how he had sped. But his companion, as it turned out, had no such idea. The Hydrographic held its meetings in the artists' quarter,--in that region which, but for art, no man of fashion would think of visiting. But being in it, for once in a way, Slasher, who considered himself a man of fashion, had made up his mind to make the best of it. He went with Laurie to his rooms, talking all the way of Suffolk's pictures. That the critic had been shaken by the sight of them, there could be no doubt. He had been moved by the admiration of so many men who knew better than he did. The mere fact that the painter had been invited to make such an exhibition showed that he was becoming known to his own profession, and had been owned by it. There was light, and space, and leisure to look at the pictures. There was the comfortable sensation,--in Slasher's case,--of a good dinner and pleasant company, and just such an amount of deference to himself as soothed and glorified his self-esteem. He insisted on going with Laurie to finish the evening, letting his tongue loose as they walked along. 'There is something in it, I don't deny,' he said. 'The contrast between that fair group of children and the dark Romans is very well done, and the monk's figure is full of expression. Let us see what you have yourself, Laurie. I, for one, am more interested in that. Welby is such a friend of yours, he might have found a place for something of your own to-night. It is not a bad room for showing a picture,--and all sorts of men go to the Hydrographic. It would be as good a thing as you could do to make Welby exhibit you there next time he has a chance. Yes, I don't deny there's a good deal that's fine about that picture. The light is very well managed. It sets one thinking of Rome, you know, and how the air all smiles and glows about you on a spring morning. It's not a bad picture. Is this where you live? It is not so nice as Kensington Gore.'

'No,' said Laurie, 'it's not so nice; but it's better for work;' and he ushered his companion into his room, where the contents of his portfolios, which he had carried off for Suffolk's sketches, lay about, all mingled with books and studies in oil and a great deal of litter. The big canvas, thrust back into a corner, a pale shadow of what might have been, presided over the confusion. It was not so nice as Kensington Gore; but to Slasher, who liked to feel himself a man of fashion and superior to professional persons, the disorder of the place was not disagreeable. Laurie Renton had once been 'a cut above him,' and it was not unpleasant to feel that Laurie Renton was now in circumstances to appeal to his patronage. They sat down together over the fire, and lighted their cigars; and what with the smoke, and what with the liquids that accompanied it, and the witching hour of night which makes men confidential, and the old associations, Slasher's lips were opened, and he unfolded to Laurie many particulars of his life. 'You would not think it, but I began the world in much such a place as this,' said the critic. Laurie, of course, knew all about the manner in which his companion had begun the world; for everybody does know all about everybody else, especially in respect to those circumstances of which everybody else is the least proud. The listener in this case had the embarrassing privilege of contrasting autobiography with history, which is always a curious process. But, notwithstanding this difficulty, Laurie was, as always, a good listener,--not from policy, which seldom deceives any one, but because he preserved that tender politeness of the heart and regard for other people's feelings which make it impossible for a man to contradict, or doubt, or sneer at his neighbour. 'I suppose he thinks it all happened so,' Laurie said to himself; and Slasher was grateful to him for the good faith,--a little puzzled certainly, but genuine,--with which he listened. In the breaks of his story he would get up and saunter about the room, turning over Laurie's sketches, and now and then he would interject some remark upon the special subject of the evening.

'One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,' said Laurie, oracularly. 'And half a loaf is better than no bread.'

'Hang it, what can a fellow do?' cried Slasher. 'You are the most pertinacious little beggar I ever came across. Do you think a man can go and eat his own words and stultify himself? Look here, I'll tell you what I'll do. You shall write a notice of the Hydrographic for the "Sword." Blow the fellow's trumpet up to the skies, if you like; say there's never been anything like him since Titian. And I'll take it to Crowther. Now I don't see what more a man can do.'

'I write the notice for the "Sword!"' cried Laurie, laughing,--'that is a little too strong. I never put a sentence together in my life.'

'As if that had anything to do with it!' said the critic. 'Why that's the only good thing I can see in this blessed trade of literature. You can go at it off-hand. Put a sentence together! Why I've heard you put twenty. It's nothing but talking, my dear fellow. A practical writer like myself, you know, goes off at the nail, and talks of fifty other subjects before he touches the right one; but I can fancy that the public, by way of a change, might prefer to hear what you wanted to say at once. Of course you can do it; and I'll take it to Crowther. A man cannot make a fairer offer than that.'

Suffolk had gone home hours before, calling at the Square for his wife. He gave the ladies the very scantiest account of what had happened, but suffered the particulars to be drawn out of him, bit by bit, as he walked home through the dimly-lighted streets. Though he was too proud to make any demonstration of satisfaction before Mrs. Severn, yet his wife read in the eyes, whose expression she knew so well, that for once in his life the sense of general approbation had warmed him. 'It is all Laurie Renton's doing,' she said, in the candour of delight, with a generosity which was not so easy to her husband. Suffolk himself had never made any appeal to Laurie, and did not see it in the same light.

'I don't think Laurie Renton has so much in his power,' he said, 'though he has taken a great deal of trouble. It was Welby's affair chiefly, of course; and then, after all, a man who has been labouring a dozen years surely does not need to be grateful to anybody if he gets a bit of recognition on his own merits at last.'

'Of course it is on your own merits, Reginald,' said his wife; but the woman was more grateful than the man. She knew very well that it was not her husband's merits,--which, indeed, had met with but little recognition hitherto,--but that wistful word she had once spoken to Laurie, and his soft heart which had not forgotten it. Suffolk went on, quite unconscious of her thoughts and of her interference, to set down poor Laurie at his just value.

'Oh, I was civil; don't be frightened,' said Suffolk. 'Deadly civil we both were; and he had something complimentary to say, like the rest. Trust those fellows to see which way the wind's blowing. But what disgusts one is to find Laurie Renton,--a fellow one likes,--hand in glove with a snob like that.'

'He does not mean it, Reginald, I am sure,' said Mrs. Suffolk, driven to her wits' end, and feeling at once disposed to assault her husband for his stupidity, and to cry over poor Laurie, thus cruelly belied.

But he never knew how near his wife was to shaking him as she clung to his arm. And Mrs. Suffolk said no more on the subject,--reflecting, first, that when a man takes a ridiculous idea into his head, it is of no use reasoning with him; and, secondly, that Laurie should never know how little gratitude had attended his efforts. That at least she would take into her own hands. If Reginald did not know what his friend had done for him, she at least did. And so did the padrona; and the chances were that their thanks would be more congenial to Laurie than any gruff acknowledgments that might be made from another quarter. Thus the pair walked on, excited by the faint prospect of better days, through the glimmering, silent streets, when most people were in bed--the husband making his report in snatches, the wife drawing it forth bit after bit, and piecing the fragments together with an art familiar to women. She knew about as well what had passed as he did by the time they reached their own narrow, dingy door. And after one peep at the children, sleeping up on the fourth floor at the top of the house, Mrs. Suffolk joined her husband in his studio,--where he had gone to smoke his final pipe,--and drew forth further his bits from him, and added her words of assent or advice to the deliberations he fell into, standing with a candle in his hand before his half-finished picture. 'Please God, you shall have your comforts like the rest, if this comes to anything, my good little wife,' he said at last. 'Oh, Reginald, it is for you I wish it most,' she cried, with tears in her pretty eyes. That gleam of a possible brightening in their lot went to their hearts. Ah, hard, happy, chequered life!--so hard to bear while it is present, so sweet to look back upon when it is past!

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet