Part 4

Ada used to say of Reggie that he was a “monument of selfishness and egotism,” and that he spent more on himself for his clothes and expensive rooms and other luxuries than papa did on our whole family. She repeatedly declared that he was quite able to support a wife, and that his only reason for putting off our marriage was because he hated to give up any of the luxuries to which he was accustomed. In fact, Ada had taken a dislike to my Reggie, and she even declared that St. Vidal against whom she had been merely prejudiced because he was a French wine-merchant, would have been more desirable.

Anyway, Ada insisted that it was about time for me to do something toward the support of our family. Here I was nineteen years old and scarcely earning enough to pay for my own board and clothes.

“Read that.”

She handed me the “Star,” and pointed to the advertisement:

WANTED: A young lady who has talent to work for an artist. Apply to Count von Hatzfeldt, Château de Ramezay, rue Notre Dame.

“Why,” I exclaimed, “that must be the old seigniory near the Notre Dame Cathedral.”

“Of course, it is,” said Ada. “I was reading in the papers that they are going to make it into a museum of historical and antique things. It used to be the home of the first Canadian governors, and there are big cannons down in the cellars that they used. If I were you, I’d go right over there now and get that work. There won’t be many applicants, for only a few girls can paint.”

I was as eager as Ada, and immediately set out for the Château de Ramezay.

It was a long ride, for we only had horse-cars in those days, and the Château was on the other end of the city. I liked the ride, however, and looked out of the window all of the way. We passed through the most interesting and historical part of our city, and when we came to the dismal, mottled, old stone jail, I could not help shuddering as I looked up at it, and recalled what my brother Charles used to tell me about it when I was a little girl. He said it was mottled because the house had small-pox. If we did this or that, we would be thrown into that small-pox jail and given black bread and mice to eat, and when we came out we would be horribly pock-marked. He said all the anti-vaccination rioters had been locked up in there, and they were pitted with marks.

As my car went by it, I could see the poor prisoners looking out of the barred windows and a great feeling of fear and pity for the sorrows of the world swept over me, so that my eyes became blinded with tears. A covered van was going in at the gate. A woman next to me said:

“There’s the Black Maria. Look! There’s a young girl in it!”

My heart went out to that young girl, and I wondered vaguely what she could have done that would make them shut her up in that loathsome “pock-marked” jail.

When we reached the French hospital, “Hôtel Bon Dieu,” the conductor told me to get off, as the Château was on the opposite side, a little farther up the hill.

I went up the steps of the Château and banged on the great iron knocker. No one answered. So I pushed the huge heavy door open--it was not locked--and went in. The place seemed entirely deserted and empty, and so old and musty, even the stairs seeming crooked and shaky. I wandered about until finally I came to a door on the second floor, with a card nailed on it, bearing the name: “Count von Hatzfeldt.”

I knocked, and the funniest little old man opened the door, and stood blinking at me.

“Count von Hatzfeldt?” I inquired.

Ceremoniously he bowed, and holding the door open, ushered me in. He had transformed that great room into a wonderful studio. It was at least five times the size of the average New York studio, considered extra large. From the beams in the ceiling hung a huge swing, and all about the walls and from the ceilings hung skins and things he had brought from Iceland, where he had lived for over six months with the Esquimaux, and he had ever so many paintings of the people.

I was intently interested and I wished my father could see the place. Count von Hatzfeldt showed me the work he was doing for the directors of the Château de Ramezay Society, who were intending to make a museum of the place. He was restoring the old portraits of the different Canadian governors and men of historical fame in Canada.

“I will want you to work on this Heraldry,” he said, and indicated a long table scattered with water-color paper, water colors, and sketches of coats of arms. “I will sketch in the coat of arms, and you will do the painting, young lady. We use this gold and silver and bronze a great deal. This, I suppose, you know, is called ‘painting _en gauche_.’”

I assured him I could do it. Papa had often painted in that medium, and had taught me. I told the Count that once a well-known artist of Boston called on papa to help him paint some fine lines on a big illustration. He said his eyes were bothering him, so he could not finish the work. It just happened that at that time papa’s eyes were also troubling him, but as he did not want to lose the work, he had said:

“I’ll send my little girl to you. She can do it better than I.”

“And Count von Hatzfeldt,” I said proudly, “I did do it, and the artist praised me when I finished the work, and he told papa he ought to send me to Boston to study at the art schools there.”

At that time I was only thirteen. The Boston artist gave me ten dollars. I gave eight of it to mama. With the other two, I bought fifty cents’ worth of candy, which I divided among all of us, mama included. With the dollar-fifty left, I bought Ellen a birthday present of a brooch with a diamond as big as a pea in it that cost twenty-five cents. Then Ellen and I went to St. Helen’s Island, and there we ate peanuts, drank spruce beer (a French-Canadian drink), had two swings and three merry-go-rounds, and what with the ten cents each for the ferry there was nothing left to pay our carfare home. So we walked, and mama was angry with us for being so late. She slapped Ellen for “talking back,” and I always got mad if Ellen got hurt, so I “talked back” worse and then I got slapped, too, and we both had to go to bed without supper.

I didn’t tell all this to the Count; only the first part about doing the work, etc. He said--he talked with a queer sort of accent, like a German, though I believe he was Scandinavian:

“Ya, ya! Vell, I will try you then. Come you to vork to-morrow and if you do vell, you shall have five dollar a veek. For that you vill vork on the coat of arms two hours a day, and if I find you can help me mit the portraits--it maybe you can lay in the bag-grounds, also the clothes--if so, I vill pay you some little more. Ya, ya!”

He rubbed his hands and smiled at me. He looked so much like a funny little hobgoblin that I felt like laughing at him, but there was also something very serious and almost angry in his expression.

“Now,” said he, “the pusiness talk it is all done. Ya, ya!”

He said “Ya, ya!” constantly when he was thinking.

“I have met your good papa,” he went on, “and I like him much. He is a man of great gift, but--”

He threw out his hands expressively.

“Poor papa,” I thought. “I suppose he let the Count see how unbusiness-like and absent-minded he is.”

After a moment the Count said:

“His--your papa’s face--it is a typical northern one--such as we see plenty in Scandinavia-- Ya, ya!”

“Papa is half-Irish and half-English,” I explained.

He nodded.

“Ya, ya, it is so. Nevertheless his face is northern. It is typical, while you--” He regarded me smilingly. “Gott! You look like one little Indian girl that I meet when I live in the North. Her father, the people told me, was one big rich railway man of Canada, but he did not know that pretty little Indian girl, she was his daughter. Ya, ya!”

He rubbed his hands, and nodded his head musingly, as he studied me. Then:

“Come, I will show you the place here.”

Pulling aside a curtain covering a large window (the Count shut out all the light except the north light), he showed me the great panorama of the city below us. We looked across the St. Lawrence River, and in the street directly below was the old Bonsecour market. I could see the carts of the “habitants” (farmers) loaded with vegetables, fruit and fresh maple syrup, some of it of the consistency of jelly. Never have I tasted such maple syrup since I left Canada. In the midst stood the old Bonsecour Church.

“Good people,” it seemed to say, benevolently, “I am watching over you all!”

“It is,” said the Count, “the most picturesque place in Montreal. Some day I will paint it, and then it shall be famous. Ya, ya! At present it is convenient to get the good things to eat. I take me five or ten cents in my hand, and those good habitants they give me so much food I cannot use it all. You vill take lunch with me, Ya, ya! and we will have the visitors here in the Château de Ramezal. Ya, ya!”

He had kept on tap two barrels of wine, which he bought from the Oke monks. He said they made a finer wine than any produced in this country or the United States. They made it from an old French recipe and sold it for a mere song. These monks, he told me, also made cheese and butter, and the cheese, he said, was better than the best imported. I used to see these monks on the street, and even in the coldest days in winter they wore only sandals on their feet, and their bare heads were shaved bald on top. They owned an island down the St. Lawrence, and depended on its products for their existence.

XIII

To my surprise, Reggie was not at all pleased when I told him of the work I had secured. I had been so delighted, and papa thought it an excellent thing for me. He said the Count was a genius and I would learn a great deal from him. Reggie, however, looked glum and sulky and said in his prim English way:

“You are engaged to be married to me, and I don’t want my wife to be a working girl.”

“But, Reggie,” I exclaimed, “I have been working at home, doing all kinds of painting for different people and helping papa.”

“That’s different,” he said sulkily. “A girl can work at home without losing her dignity, but when she goes out--well, she’s just a working girl, that’s all. Nice girls at home don’t do it. My word! My people would take a fit if they thought I married a working girl. I’ve been trying to break it to them gradually about our engagement. I told them I knew very well a girl who was the granddaughter of Squire Ascough of Macclesfield, but I haven’t had the nerve yet to tell them--to--er--”

I knew what he meant. He hadn’t told them about us here, how poor we were, of our large family, and how we all had to work.

“I don’t care a snap about your old people,” I broke in heatedly, “and you don’t have to marry me, Reggie Bertie. You can go back to England and marry the girl they want you to over there. (He had told me about her.) And, anyway, I’m sick and tired of your old English prejudices and notions, and you can go right now--the sooner the better. I hate you.”

The words had rushed out of me headlong. I was furious at Reggie and his people. He was always talking about them, and I had been hurt and irritated by his failure to tell them about me. If he were ashamed of me and my people I wanted nothing to do with him, and now his objecting to my working made me indignant and angry.

Reggie, as I spoke, had turned deathly white. He got up as if to go, and slowly picked up his hat. I began to cry, and he stood there hesitating before me.

“Marion, do you mean that?” he asked huskily.

I said weakly:

“N-no, b-but I sha’n’t give up the work. I gave up acting for you, but I won’t my painting. I’ve _got_ to work!”

Reggie drew me down to the sofa beside him.

“Now, old girl, listen to me. I’ll not stop your working for this Count, but I want you to know that it’s because I love you. I want my wife to be able to hold her head up with the best in the land, and none of our family--none of our women folk--have ever worked. As far as that goes, jolly few of the men have. I never heard of such a thing in our family.”

“But there’s no disgrace in working. Poor people have to do it,” I protested. “Only snobs and fools are ashamed of it. Look at those Sinclair girls. They were all too proud to work, and their brother had to support them for years, and all the time he was in love with Ivy Lee and kept her waiting and waiting, and then she fell in love with that doctor and ran away and married him, and when Will Sinclair heard about it, he went into his room and shot himself dead. And it was all because of those big, strong, lazy sisters and vain, proud old mother, who were always talking about their noble family. All of us girls have got to work. Do you think we want poor old papa to kill himself working for us big, healthy young animals just because we happen to be girls instead of boys?”

Reggie said stubbornly:

“Nevertheless, it’s not done by nice people, Marion. It’s not proper, you know.”

I pushed him away from me.

“Oh, you make me sick,” I said.

“My brother-in-law, Wallace Burrows, would call that sort of talk rank snobbery. In the States women think nothing of working. They are proud to do it, women of the best families.”

Reggie made a motion of complete distaste. The word “States” was always to Reggie like a red rag to a bull.

“My dear Marion, are you going to hold up the narsty Yankees as an example to me? My word, old girl! And as for that brother-in-law of yours, I say, he’s hardly a gentleman, is he? Didn’t you say the fellow was a--er--journalist or something like that?”

I jumped to my feet.

“He’s a better kind of gentleman than you are!” I cried. “He’s a genius, and--and--and-- How dare you say anything about him! We all love him and are proud of him.”

I felt my breath coming and going and my fist doubling up. I wanted to _pummel_ Reggie just then.

“Come, come, old girl,” he said. “Don’t let’s have a narsty scene. My word, I wouldn’t quarrel with you for worlds. Now, look here, darling, you shall do as you like, and even if the governor cuts me off, I’ll not give up my sweetheart.”

He looked very sweet when he said that, and I melted in an instant. All of my bitterness and anger vanished. Reggie’s promise to stand by me in spite of his people appealed to me as romantic and fine.

“Oh, Reggie, if they do cut you off, will you work for me with your hands?” I cried excitedly.

“My word, darling, how could I?” he exclaimed. “I’m blessed if I could earn a tuppence with them. Besides, I could hardly do work that was unbecoming a gentleman, now could I, darling?”

I sighed.

“I suppose not, Reggie, but do you know, I believe I’d love you lots more if you were a poor beggar. You’re so much richer than I am now, and somehow--somehow--you seem sort of selfish, and as if you could never understand how things are with us. You seem--always--as if you were looking down on us. Ada says you think we aren’t as good as you are.”

“Oh, I say, Marion, that’s not fair. I’ve always said your father was a gentleman. Come, come!” he added peevishly, “don’t let’s argue, there’s a good girl. It’s so jolly uncomfortable, and just think, I sharn’t be with you much longer, now.”

He was to sail for England the following week. I was wearing his ring, a lovely solitaire. In spite of all his prejudices and his selfishness, Reggie had lots of lovable traits, and he was so handsome. Then, too, he was really very much in love with me, and was unhappy about leaving me.

The day before he went, he took me in his arms and said, jealously:

“Marion, if you ever deceive me, I will kill you and myself, too. I know I ought to trust you, but you’re so devilishly pretty, and I can’t help being jealous of every one who looks at you. What’s more, you aren’t a bit like the girls at home. You say and do really shocking things, and sometimes, do you know, I’m really alarmed about you. I feel as if you might do something while I’m away that wouldn’t be just right, you know.”

I put my hand on my heart and solemnly I swore never, never to deceive Reggie, and to be utterly true and faithful to him forever. Somehow, as I spoke, I felt as if I were pacifying a spoiled child.

XIV

All of that summer I worked for the old Count. Besides the Heraldry work, I assisted him with the restoration of the old oil portraits, some of which we had to copy completely. The Count had not much patience with the work the Society set him to do, and he let me do most of the copying, while he worked on other painting more congenial to him.

He was making a large painting of Andromeda, the figure of a nude woman tied to the rocks, and in the clouds was seen Perseus coming to deliver her. He had a very pretty girl named Lil Markey to pose for this.

My father was a landscape and marine painter, and never used models, and the first time I saw Lil I was repulsed and horrified. She came tripping into the studio without a stitch on her, and she even danced about and seemed to be amused by my shocked face. I inwardly despised her. Little did I dream that the time would come when I, too, would earn my living in that way.

I got much interested when I saw the Count painting from life. He tied Lil to an easel with soft rags, so as not to hurt her hands, and later he painted the rocks from a sketch, behind her, where the old easel was. While Lil rested, she would swing (still naked) in the big swing, and jump about and sing. In all my experiences later as an artist’s model in America, I never saw a model who behaved as Lil did. The Count would give her cigarettes and she would tell stories that were not nice, and I had to pretend I didn’t hear or couldn’t understand them.

Lil was not exactly a bad girl, but sort of reckless and lacking entirely in modesty. She did have some decent homely traits, however. She would wrap a piece of drapery about her and say:

“You folks go on painting, and I’ll be the cook.”

Then she would disappear into the kitchen and come back presently with a delicious lunch which she had cooked all herself. I was afraid the Count was falling in love with her, for he used to look at her lovingly and sometimes he called her “Countess.” Lil would make faces at him behind his back, and whisper to me: “Golly, he looks like a dying duck.”

Twice a week, the Count had pupils, rich young women mostly, who learned to paint just as they did to play the piano and to dance. The Count would make fun of them to Lil and me. They would take a canvas and copy one of the Count’s pictures, he doing most of the work. Then he would practically repaint it. The pupil, so the Count said, would then have it framed and when it was hung on the wall the proud parents would point to the work and admiring friends would say:

“What talent your daughter has!”

The Count, between chuckles and excited “Ya, ya’s,” would illustrate derisively the whole scene to Lil and me.

He tried to form a Bohemian club to meet at the studio in the Château, and we sent out many invitations for an opening party. When the evening came there was a large gathering of society folk, and we had the place full. Every one went looking at the Count’s things and exclaiming about them, and they asked what he termed the “most foolish questions” about art.

Among them was a violinist, Karl Walter, whose exquisite music made me want to cry. He had a beautiful face, and I could not take my eyes from it all evening. When the party was over, he offered to see me home. The rest of the company were all departing in their carriages, and I thought rather drearily of that ride home on the horse-car. It seemed very short, however, with Mr. Walter. When we came to our door, he took my hand and said:

“Mademoiselle, I am going away for six months. When I return, I would like to know you better. Your sympathetic face was the only one I was playing to. The rest were all cattle.”

He never came back to our Montreal, and I heard that he died soon after leaving us.

The morning after the party, the old Count was very irritable and cross, and when I asked him if he had enjoyed himself, he exclaimed disgustedly:

“Stupid! Stupid! Those Canadians, do not know the meaning of the word ‘Bohemian.’ It was a ‘pink tea.’ Ugh!”

I suggested that next time we should invite Patty Chase and Lu Fraser, and girls like that, but the Count shook his head with a hopeless gesture.

“That is the other extreme,” he said. “No, no, you, my little friend, are the only one worthy to belong to such a club as I had hoped to start. It is impossible in this so stupid Canada.”

XV

Rat-a-tat-tat, on the big iron knocker. I called:

“Come in,” and Mrs. Wheatley, an English woman, accompanied by her daughter, Alice, a pretty girl of fifteen, entered. She came directly over to me, with her hand held out graciously.

“How do you do, Marion? I have been hearing about the Count, and I want you to introduce us.”

I did so, of course, and she went on to tell the Count that she wanted her daughter’s portrait painted.

“Just the head and shoulders, Count, and Miss Marion is here--her father and I are old friends--I shall not consider it necessary to come to the sittings. Marion will, I am sure, chaperon my little girl,” and she smiled at me sweetly.

The Count was much pleased, and I could see his eyes sparkling as he looked at Alice. She was lovely, in coloring like a rose leaf, and her hair was a beautiful reddish gold. Her mother was a woman of about forty-five, rather plump, who affected babyish hats and fluffy dresses and tried to look younger than she was. After the Count had named a price she thought reasonable, she said Alice would come the next day. The Count was very gallant and polite to her and she seemed much impressed by his fine manners and I suppose, title.

“I have such a lovely old-gold frame, Count,” she said, “and I thought Alice’s hair would just match it and look lovely in it.”

The Count threw up his hands and laughed when the door closed upon her, but he anticipated with pleasure painting the pretty Alice.

The following day Alice came alone, and soon we had her seated on the model’s platform. She was a gentle, shy little thing, rather dull, yet so sweet and innocent that she made a most appealing picture. The Count soon discovered that her neck was as lovely as her face. In her innocence, Alice let him slip the drapery lower and lower until her girlish bosoms were partly revealed. The Count was charmed with her as a model. He made two pictures of her, one for himself, with her neck and breasts uncovered, and the other for her mother, muffled up with drapery to the neck.

A few weeks later, after the pictures were finished, I was crossing the street, when Mrs. Wheatley came rushing up to me excitedly:

“Miss Ascough! I am furious with you for allowing that wicked old Count to paint my Alice’s portrait as I am told he did. Every one is talking about the picture in his studio. It is disgraceful! An outrage!”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Wheatley,” I tried to reassure her, “it is not disgraceful, but beautiful, and the Count says that all beauty is good and pure and that is art, Mrs. Wheatley. Indeed, indeed, it is.”

“Art! H’mph! The idea. Art! Do you think I want my Alice shown like those brazen hussies in the art galleries? I am surprised at you, Marion Ascough, and I advise you, for the sake of your family, to be more careful of your reputation. I am going right over to that studio now and I will put my parasol through that disgraceful canvas.”

Fairly snorting with indignation and desire for vengeance, this British matron betook herself in the direction of the Château. Fortunately I was younger, and more fleet-footed than she, and I ran all of the way, and burst into the studio: