Read Ebook: Aunt Olive in Bohemia by LM Leslie Moore

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 1818 lines and 65407 words, and 37 pages

"I am sure of it."

Again there was a silence. Then, quite suddenly, Miss Mason began to tell the woman the story of her life. She told it badly. For the last forty years at least Miss Mason had talked little. Miss Stanhope had never cared to encourage conversation other than her own. A daily and minute recital of her own imaginary ailments had sufficed her. That had been a subject which had never palled.

"And the summary of it all is," ended Miss Mason, "that my life has been utterly narrow." She stopped and looked at the woman. There was something half humorous, half pathetic, in the expression in her eyes.

"I think," said the woman slowly, "that one is too ready to use the term 'narrow' for lives and opinions which have not covered, as we imagine, a great deal of ground. Sometimes I think 'concentrated' would be a better word to use for them. I know that people who have darted hither and thither from one place to another, and from one excitement to another, often talk about 'living' and the broadness of their lives. But I fancy that if one could go up in a kind of mental aeroplane and look down upon those lives, one might see that their grooves, though they took an intricate pattern, were possibly narrower than some of those which have gone along one straight and monotonous course."

"Think so?" said Miss Mason again. Then she smiled half-shamefacedly. "There's one thing--in spite of all the monotony, I've never been able to get rid of my belief in kind of fairy tale happenings. Utterly ridiculous, of course."

The woman laughed, a low clear laugh, which pleased Miss Mason enormously.

"Now we're on ground with which I'm far more familiar," she replied. "I was trying to get hold of words and expressions before which were rather outside my vocabulary, and I fear I sounded a little stilted in consequence. But fairy tales! Why life is a fairy tale. Bad fairies and wicked magicians get mixed up in it of course, or it wouldn't be one, but there are good fairies and all kinds of unexpected and delicious happenings right through it in spite of them. There's often, too, a long journey through a wood. You've been through yours. What do you hope to find on this side?"

"A studio," said Miss Mason promptly. This woman was making it extraordinarily easy for her to tell her fairy tale. "Have wanted one ever since I was seventeen, and I think almost before that. Perhaps because my father was an artist."

"And now you'll take one?"

"Have come up to look for one," said Miss Mason. "Am going to look at pictures too. There's the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, and the Academy. Used to read about them. Later I shall go abroad. Thought I'd better get used to going about in England first. Have read a lot about pictures. Used to take in a magazine called 'The Studio.' Saw it advertised once and sent for it. Miss Stanhope used to make me a small allowance. She was kind really, though didn't always understand."

"The kindest people don't always understand," said the younger woman quickly. "Are you going to take an unfurnished studio? and will you have some of the furniture sent up from your old home?"

There is a curious luxury in speaking of the details of a cherished scheme, and especially to one who has never before found a sympathetic audience. This the woman knew when she put the question.

Miss Mason gave a little laugh.

"Wouldn't ask that if you'd seen the furniture. Was so used to it it was a wonder I still went on thinking it hideous. I think it was after I'd been away from it for a year and came back to it that I knew how terrible it was. After that it remained terrible. It will all be sold. Have arranged for that. Couldn't stay with it any longer than was necessary. Don't care what becomes of it now."

Miss Mason was feeling so light-hearted again she was almost reckless.

"Then you'll buy new things?" asked the woman.

"Yes. Soft colours--blues and greens. Love blue. Your dress is lovely." The words were jerky but genuine.

"It's my favourite colour," said the woman.

Miss Mason looked in the direction of a mirror near her. She could see both their figures reflected in it. Again a little wistful look crept into her eyes.

"I suppose," she said suddenly, "that it was my dress those two girls were laughing at. Perhaps it is queer. Never thought of that before. Couldn't change now, any more than I could change my skin."

She stopped, then looked directly at the woman.

"I suppose people will always laugh at me?" she queried. "I suppose those girls were right to laugh. I am queer."

There was a moment's pause. Then the woman in the blue dress spoke deliberately.

"I am going to ask you a question which may sound rather conceited," she said. "Which would you value most--my opinion or the opinion of those two girls?"

"Yours," said Miss Mason promptly.

"Then I am going to tell you exactly what I think, and you must forgive me if what I say sounds impertinent. I don't think you are the least queer. I think you are quaint and original. Any artist would infinitely prefer your method of dressing than the method chosen by the older women of the present day. I think it quite possible that you will find a few people will laugh at you, for, as I've already said, in this fairy tale world there are bad fairies, and, worse still, stupid ones. But they don't count, because they aren't worth consideration, at least not as regards their opinion of our actions." She spoke the words slowly and simply, almost as she would have spoken them to a child.

Again there was a silence.

"Where will you take your studio?" asked the woman suddenly.

"Chelsea," said Miss Mason. "Whistler lived there."

"Conclusive," laughed the woman.

"Want it to be a nice studio," said Miss Mason. "Rent won't matter. Miss Stanhope left me a lot of money. Can't spend it all."

"Now the fairy tale progresses," said the woman joyfully. "Plenty of money and fairy tale ideas are the happiest of combinations."

Miss Mason laughed.

"Glad I met you," she said. "Feel like I did when I came up in the train this morning."

"Our meeting was evidently part of the fairy tale," said the woman. "Now I must go and get my cloak. It's five minutes to nine."

She went towards the stairs. Miss Mason watched her ascending them.

A moment after she had left, a man came into the lounge. He was wearing a thin dark grey overcoat, and held a flat black hat in one hand. Miss Mason had never before seen an opera hat. She looked at it with interest. From it she looked at the man. He was tall and distinctly aristocratic-looking. Miss Mason noticed that he wore a small moustache and imperial.

She heard a step on the stairs. The woman in the blue dress was coming down again. She had a black satin cloak round her.

"Christopher, darling," she cried, "is that you? I'm beautifully punctual."

He went up to her and kissed her hand. There was something charming in the courtliness of his manner. Miss Mason, who had been momentarily shocked by the "darling," felt it somehow explained by the subsequent action.

"One moment, and I'll come," said the woman.

She crossed to Miss Mason. The man waited for her.

"I shan't be home till midnight," she said, "and I'm leaving for Italy at an unearthly hour to-morrow morning. But I am sure one day we shall meet again. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Miss Mason. "Hope you'll enjoy yourself." She longed to say something more, but the words failed her.

She watched her rejoin the man and leave the lounge. It seemed extraordinarily empty after her departure.

It was not till she was in bed that she realized that she had no idea of the woman's name. It also never dawned on her to ask the hotel management for it.

THE COURTYARD

Dan Oldfield was standing in front of an easel on which was a minute canvas. The scene depicted thereon was a pastoral of Mesonnier-like detail. At the moment Dan was engaged in painting lilac flowers on a green and white dress. The original dress was on a lay figure before him.

The studio in which he was working was one of seven enclosed in a courtyard. Two of the studios had small gardens in front. Standing in one of the gardens it was easier to imagine oneself in the depths of the country than in the midst of London. The roll of the traffic in the King's Road was just sufficiently remote to sound not unlike the roar of the sea.

There were lilac bushes and laburnums in the gardens. A thrush sang in one of the laburnum trees in the spring, and a robin in the winter. The robin was very tame. It had established a visiting acquaintance with all seven studios. There was a certain amount of jealousy among the inhabitants when occasionally for a week at a time, it would show a marked preference for one studio. On the whole its affections were most deeply centred on studio number seven. At the moment this studio was empty.

Dan painted in the lilac flowers carefully, using extremely small brushes. Every now and then he stepped back from his work to judge of the effect. Any onlooker uneducated in the mysteries of art would have imagined the use of a magnifying glass a more desirable method to study the effect. Dan was evidently not of that opinion. He had just finished painting in the yellow heart of the thirteenth flower when the sound of the wheels of some large vehicle entering the courtyard struck upon his ears.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet