Part 7

“Ay, Mistress Una,” said he, “you’re all pretty players, from miss to my lady dowager. Don’t tell me. You all love to excite the emotions you don’t understand, and then off with you from the stage, sweet ethereals, to the suppers of steak and porter which you do, while Jack and my lord are wetting their pillows with tears over your sensibility.”

“Thank you,” I said, rising, highly offended. “As I, for one, am not playing to be hooked, I’ll take your warning in time.”

I had expected de Crespigny to strike in, in angry protest over his servant’s insolence; but, to my astonishment, he did not move or interfere. A little pregnant silence ensued, and the tears were already rising to my eyes, when, to my horror, I heard madam’s voice at the door.

“De Crespigny,” she said, “may I come in for once?”

He stumbled to his feet, and stood paralysed a moment, before he answered--

“A minute. You know the conditions: I must hide it away, and then”--

When she entered a little later, there was he standing to receive her with a spasmodic grin; his easel was empty, Gogo pounded at his mortar, and I--I was shrunk behind the curtain, peeping in a very shiver of terror.

She looked at him with a little shaky propitiating smile. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. She tried to speak, and could not. He understood so far, the poor clown, and bade his servant withdraw. When they were alone, she turned upon him with a little appealing motion of her hands.

“Am I never to be allowed to see it?” she asked.

He frowned, and bit his trembling lip.

“No, no,” she said, “I know the sensitiveness of your beautiful art. Only, O, Noel! I cannot rest where we ended just now. Believe me, it was so far from my wish to offend or alarm you. But time goes on, and the pledge this finished picture was to redeem is withheld, until I am at a loss how to explain.”

“To whom?” he muttered sullenly, “to that priest? O, I know. What right has he, a grudging Churchman, and you a saint?”

“O, indeed, I am but a weak woman!” she said, with a faint smile, “and he an anointed Father. He does right--dear, he does--to be jealous for his daughter. It is only that he would ask you, that I would ask you, what period”--

“Art is not to be forced,” he interrupted her peevishly. “I made the finishing of this picture, as it was begun--as it was begun, mind--the condition of my being received into your Church. Didn’t I, now?”

“Yes,” she sighed; “but there are some vows better broken.”

“A bad recommendation to what you call the truth,” he sneered.

“But, Noel, it _is_ the truth,” she cried. “O, say you are convinced that it is!”

“Well, I don’t know,” he answered, “since you bid me to a lie.”

“I will take the burden,” she cried, her eyes streaming, “to save the soul I love.”

She hardly breathed the final word. For a wonder, the poor creature she entreated found enough in it to move him.

“There,” he said, “don’t distress yourself, Sophia. I’ll work hot-handed on the picture to-morrow. There, I promise I will.”

“Thank you, Noel,” she whispered, so kindling, so grateful, that de Crespigny shrunk before her. “I--I won’t interrupt you any longer. It was like you, kind and considerate, not to blame me for breaking your rule.”

The room remained so still after her going that I thought he too had followed, until, stealing out presently in a panic, I found him seated in a corner, biting his nails.

“I had better go now, hadn’t I?” I whispered, half choking.

“Yes,” he growled, “to the devil!”

X. I BEWITCH A MONSTER

On the following morning, going indifferently by the studio, where was a back way into the grounds, I encountered Gogo.

“He’s at work on the portrait,” he said, standing moodily against the room door. “He’ll be at it all day. It’s no good your coming.”

I tossed my head, vouchsafing no reply, and, singing to myself, passed on and out.

The day after, descending the stairs, I observed that the studio door was left ajar. I laughed, taking no other notice, and went my way into the garden.

On the third day, seeing de Crespigny walk out with his Sophia, I borrowed the opportunity to slip down and investigate. The truth was, I was devoured with curiosity to learn how madam’s little explosion had stimulated the artistic verve, and to obtain a glimpse of the portrait, even, if necessary, by bending myself to the corruption of my poor infatuated Gogo. But I was to be disappointed, for the room was empty, and the canvas locked into its press.

Peering here and there, considerably chagrined, in the hope of discovering the key, I came, in the alcove, upon the full-sleeved waistcoat in which the artist usually worked, and, diving eagerly into the pockets thereof, found, not the key indeed, but some scraps of paper, much scribbled over, which instantly aroused my curiosity, and, presently, my amusement.

“Ho-ho!” thought I, “you are inspired in other than the pictured arts, are you, my gentleman? A poet, and fainting in the perfume of some little naughty Mignonette!”

So he had fancy-named the subject of his agonised Muse; and, indeed, why should I prevaricate to myself about the application? I blushed a little, making myself merry over these suffering scrawls and scratches, of which, I was sure, my own poor little person must be the victim. I had a face, it seemed, the calendar of innocence; _une bonne poitrine_; a sweetest little double chin, like a robin’s throat swelled with song. I put my hand to my neck. I could not but admit that the poor man had taken a poetic licence; but, in truth, it was a very example of the licence that was wont to drug his art. The flesh held his fine imagination in thrall, and laboured his first spiritual conceptions into Parisian models. He was divine only in his sketches--impressions. When he wrought to improve upon them, he became transubstantiated.

So this was his repentance! He had spent the brief period of it in painting me in verse, since he was debarred my presence in actuality. I smiled, reading--

“Mignonette, Mignonette, Of all flowers the pet.”

and “Indeed!” thought I, tossing my head; “but not _yours_ as yet, sir!”

While I studied to disentangle the scribble, I heard breathing near me, and started to find Gogo regarding me with a cynical, half-diverted scowl. The creature walked like a cat on carpet. He had no creaking leather to betray him.

“So-ho!” growled he; “you can yet blush to be found out by your dog?”

I laughed, vexed, and a little embarrassed.

“O,” said he, “never mind! I am honoured in even that little rose of shame. You won’t grow it long.”

“Gogo,” I said, “how dare you?”

“Why,” said he, “as dogs dare, who love without respect, and see no more harm to serve a thief than a prince.”

I looked at him a moment, between tears and defiance.

“You are very unkind,” I said. “What is the good of my confessing anything to you, if you so distrust me?”

“Confessing?” said he, “the good? Why, because I have no legs to run away, and a man’s better judgment is always in his legs. My foolish heart is nearer the ground than most. Tread on it, thou Circe; and prove me less than half Ulysses. Confess to me--confess; and I will stay, and smile--and believe.”

“No,” I said, recovering my confidence. “I swear not to, unless you confess first. I asked you the other day how--how you came to lose them; and you put my question by, sir, and were dreadfully rude into the bargain. Very well, I am waiting to have you atone by answering it.”

I dropped into a chair, and he followed me, and squatted himself on the floor, a very abortion of passion, yet moving somehow in his grotesqueness. I kicked off my slippers, and put my feet into his hands--

“There,” I said, “they are tired, Gogo. Soothe them while you talk.”

He caressed the weariness from them, as gentle as a woman.

“I am at odds,” he said, in a low great voice, full of emotion, “I am at odds with what remains of myself. How can I reconcile this with my loyalty to the poor inspired ape I serve, and love through serving?”

“How did you come to serve him?” I whispered, half drugged by the creature’s touch. “You are cleverer than he, better educated, and all that.”

“I love,” he groaned, “I have always loved, to find romantic excuses for the material uglinesses of life; to get a little salt out of its offences. Who are those who say the visible form is but an expression of the individual spirit--an internal autocracy shaping itself on the surface? Poor atomists who cannot feel the pressure of all eternity moulding them from without! Amidst sordid functions they go groping for the essence, turning blank faces to the sweet air, the sun in the trees, the far-drawn winds, the song of birds and scent of flowers, all the spirit influences which really shape us. The soul ceases at the portals of the senses. The dross it carries with it alone goes on and in. _We_ are but so many obstructions in the vast harmony--foreign bodies which it is for ever striving to penetrate and decompose. It focuses its burning light upon us; it takes the swimming heavens for its lens; and we die and are dissolved into it. Only in rare instances does the process wring from us a fine frenzy, or melt us into song; and then we see genius--genius, which fools call self-issuing, but which is really spirit reflected, like heat cast back from a wall.”

“You odd creature,” I murmured. “You may go on, though I don’t understand you a bit. Has Mr. de Crespigny been half melted into song? I shouldn’t be surprised, by his appearance.”

“Nor do _I_ understand,” he said. “I can find romance in everything external to man, but I can’t pursue it into his organic tissues. Can _you_ be so penetrated by it, and yet not perish, or even show one scar? I think you are immortal, woman; unless it is the genius of human beauty which you reflect, and which will presently destroy and annihilate you. Why, then, I would give my own soul to keep you soulless, you wretched, adorable child.”

“Gogo!” I protested, too languid to be resentful.

“Ay!” he said, his voice hoarse with miserable passion. “Let me speak. It is all the licence I ask. I know my place, if I have grown confused about my service. What I don’t know is why I, a free spirit, who have never before truckled to the flesh, should suddenly find myself bound to it, soul and honour.”

He bent and kissed the foot he was caressing; then quickly sat up, and set his strong teeth.

“You ask me how I came by my hurts,” he said. “Well, listen to the story of this most laughable butt of Fortune. It is soon told.”

He passed his hand across his forehead.

“It has been my doom to serve Nature; to worship her through those visible concentrations of her light upon individuals whom we call geniuses. How I discovered too late that her preferences were arbitrary, fanciful, often unworthy; that her signal gifts could be used to stultify her own creed of natural faith, natural justice, natural order, let these witness and call me fool.”

He jerked up his poor stumps so comically that I could not help laughing.

“Ay,” he said, “a tragic prolegomena to the history of a Dutch tumbler, isn’t it? Well, for the text. It was at Oxford that I met and worshipped my first genius. He was a man of great family, an inspired naturalist, an unerring shot and rare sportsman. In those early days we had already planned an expedition together to the unexplored North Western ‘Rockies,’ for the purpose of making such a collection of their flora and fauna as should bring us wealth and reputation. Though the world of Nature seemed even too cramped a stage for my boundless lust of life, the prospect of those unspeakable teeming solitudes, inviting all that was most strenuous in me to conquer, was a certain solace in itself. My soul sought territory; it seeks it still; and, though I be what I am, the stars, this poor earth once subdued, still enter into my plan of campaign.

“I was not rich. When the time came, I had to realise all my capital to sail with my friend. We reached, after considerable hardships, the Athabasca territory, and thence started on our exploration westwards. I soon found that my comrade, though a genius in comparative analysis and definition, lacked the physique necessary to the task we had set ourselves. He was often ailing and querulous, and the gathering of the specimens practically devolved upon me. Still, we had garnered and classified a considerable harvest in one of the little settlements of the Fur Company, before the accident befell which was to deprive me for ever of the fruits of my devotion. We were one day duck-shooting over a lake, when the ice broke and my friend was plunged in frozen water to the knees. His frantic cries brought me hurriedly to his assistance. By the greatest good fortune a little gravelly shallow had received us; but, inasmuch as this shelved away acutely on every side, our desperate scrambles to escape only let us into deeper water. There was nothing for it but to stay where we were till rescue could reach us from the shore, and so we set ourselves to endure. Not long, on my companion’s part. He soon complained that he must die unless relieved. He was frail and spare, and I only something less than a giant. I took him first into my arms, then upon my shoulders, designing to hold him so until succour came. It reached us in the shape of some Indians from the shore, who pushed a canoe towards us over the ice. But by then I was stark frozen, and my legs to the knees insensible. By chance there was an ex-medical student in the settlement, who turned what rough knowledge of surgery was his to the best account he was able. One of my legs was mortified beyond recovery; and this he amputated. The other, after incredible suffering, was saved to me. For weeks, however, I was kept knocking at death’s door; and, when at length I could creep from under the shadow, it was to the knowledge of an anguish more cruel than the other. This man, this genius, whom I had given so much to save, had deserted me while I lay stricken, and, carrying with him all the rare accumulations of our enterprise, had gone south to Vancouver. There was no message left, no consideration for me in all his vile philosophy of self-interest. It was just a case of treacherous abandonment.

“When I was sufficiently recovered, I pursued him by tedious heart-breaking stages, long months in their accomplishment. I will not weary you, you thing of thoughtless life, with their particulars. I was sustained, and only sustained, through all by the thought of wresting from this scientific egoist an acknowledgment of my share in the practical success of our expedition. At last, poor, friendless, crippled, I ran him to earth in London. I found him there, his name writ famous in the annals of the Royal Society; himself the honoured recipient of its gold medal; his collection--_our_ collection--already on view in the hallowed precincts of Crane Street.

“I faced, and upbraided him with his treachery. He retorted coldly that he had never considered me but as the servant of his enterprise, useless to it when once, through my own folly, disabled. I found a friend, and the affair made a little stir. To my accusations he answered that he had employed, but had been forced to discard me, through the irregularity of my habits. Outraged beyond words, I challenged him; he accepted, and we met at Richmond. His first shot, aimed with diabolical ingenuity, shattered the bones of my sound knee; and, in the result, the limb had to be amputated above. When I was discharged from the hospital, it was to find the exhibition closed, the town empty, and myself thrust upon it, a helpless, destitute hulk.

“The friend I have mentioned, humorous and good-natured, came to my assistance. He commanded some pale interest at Court. By means of it, he procured me, as an expert naturalist, the post of Royal Ratcatcher, in succession to a Mr. Gower, who had lately filled the office at a yearly salary of one hundred pounds. The royal economy, however, docked me, as only two-thirds of a man, of a third of the sum. I wore a uniform of scarlet and yellow worsted, with emblematic figures of rats destroying wheat-sheaves embroidered on it; and in this I stood, the laughing-stock of the maids of honour, for three years.

“At the end of that time, having had the misfortune to overlook a rat which had made its nest in a pair of the Duke of Cumberland’s state breeches, I was dismissed without a character. Again I applied to my friend, and was recommended by him, for my scientific attainments, to a French nobleman, who was troubled by the croaking of frogs in his ponds, and employed me to whip the water all night with a long wand of willow that his rest might be undisturbed. But the constant immersion rotting my stumps, and he refusing to supply me with others, I was obliged to resign my post, and returned to England.

“In the meantime, my friend had died of a humour, and I was stranded entirely without resources. For some time I earned a precarious livelihood, in my naturalist character, by worming dogs; and again, one still more precarious, by cleansing ladies’ _toupées_ of the vermin which long usage engendered in them. It was here, while serving my master, a wig-maker, that chance brought me acquainted with my present manner of service.

“During all this time, I will say, I had never ceased to regard soul as external to form, or to scout that introspection which is the real unhappiness. What did it concern me, if I was destroying rats, or picking fleas out of a poodle? In any case, I was helping Nature to its freer manifestations on matter, and, in my constant communion with it, prepared to welcome such rare accidents of genius as might come my way. My master’s business brought him into frequent relations with the theatre; and it was thus that I first encountered de Crespigny, who was at the time acting scene-painter to the new house at Sadler’s Wells. I had no sooner had the chance to see his work than I recognised genius, glaring and manifest. He did wonders in a few touches, that he might idle for an hour. My opportunity was come, and I entreated him to employ me, in however menial a capacity. He was touched by my enthusiasm; flattered, perhaps, by my admiration; persuaded by my strength. He engaged me, first as his assistant; soon as his nurse and mentor. For years I have helped to direct his career, have goaded his inspirations, cossetted his weaknesses. Ah, child! He is _my_ child, made glorious by my faith in him. Do not seduce me from my allegiance to my child, and for the first time make me out of love with Nature!”

He ended with a groan, and flung himself prostrate on the floor, beating, I think, his forehead against it.

“Poor Gogo!” I said. “You have confessed; and so will I now. He is my child too. I adore him, and am so ravished by his art that I could not rest with thinking what he had made of the portrait. Do you know, Gogo? I will tell you the truth. I was hunting for the key of the press when you came in and caught me.”

He lay, without answering.

“Won’t you lend it me, Gogo?” I coaxed softly.

“Thank God,” he muttered, raising his head, “I am tied from the temptress. It is not in my power, thou Circe. He always carries it with him.”

XI. I ADD THE LAST TOUCH TO A PORTRAIT

That same night, while undressing, with my room door open for the heat, I suddenly thought I distinguished an unwonted footstep on the landing below me, from which Patty’s little chamber led. I listened, quite still, for some moments; then, the stealthy sounds seeming to recede into the hall and thence die away, descended cat-footed to the landing, and, after hearkening an instant, opened her door swiftly and noiselessly upon my friend. Instantly I knew that the amazed suspicion which had sprung upon my heart was justified. The child stood before me, terror in her startled eyes, her dark hair falling upon her shoulders, a brush in one hand, a paper in the other.

“Diana!” she gasped, in a whisper. “What do you want?”

“Has he been with you?” I asked instantly, leaving her no time to prevaricate.

“_With_ me!” she exclaimed, so scandalised and incredulous that the worst of my qualm was laid on the spot.

Without another word I held out my hand. Without a word she put the paper into it. I took it, and read--

“Mignonette, Mignonette, Of all flowers the pet,”--

(“O, shameful!” I whispered, and set my lips.)

“O, beautiful, beautiful, sweet Mignonette! Dear, kind little blossom, Soft, soft in the bosom, Who gives to thee, takes from thee, sweet Mignonette? Was it thou at her ear that shed sweets passing by me? Is it thou in her shape, or herself that doth fly me? Is it thou, is it she, Mignonette, Mignonette, That I follow, must follow, As the Summer the Spring, Who hides warm in the wing Of its darling the swallow?

As love chases the swallow To the eaves and the leaves High up under the roof, Mignonette, so I follow. Ah! to whose little chamber, Sweetheart? As I clamber, I trow not, I know not What dream flew before to the room high aloof. But my heart pants delight In the thought, half a fright, Half delirious sweetness, That the spirit of the flower, That the spirit of the hour Shall reveal love’s completeness.”

She was as pale as death and trembling all over as I looked up. For the moment my heart withered to her. The shock, the outrage was unendurable.

“Who wrote this?” I demanded, in a hoarse whisper.

She did not answer.

“Speak,” I said. “How did it come to you?”

“I heard it slipped under the door,” she muttered.

“By him? O, you little traitor and wanton!”

She fell on her knees, sobbing and clinging to me in a soft anguish of desperation.

“O, my dear, don’t look at me so! I’m not untrue to you. I never imagined it was me--no, not for one moment--till to-night.”

“And you are shocked, no doubt, to find your precious virtue at fault. O, you little serpent that I have trusted and warmed in my bosom!”

“Diana!” she wept, in a very frenzy of despair. “O, what can I say or do? I thought it was you. It shall be you, Diana!”

“Yes, it shall be me,” I answered, “but no thanks to you. Don’t think that this is anything but a passing mood of his, played upon you for my delectation because I have been cold to him of late.”

“I think it is, I know it is,” she said, brightening.

“And you hope it is, I daresay,” I said scornfully.

“Yes, indeed,” she answered. “There is no love in the world but yours that I care for, Diana!”

“Love!” I exclaimed. “Don’t flatter this poor half-breeched makeshift with the sentiment.”

But I looked down on her more kindly, with a vexed laugh. My good-humour was returning to me. It seemed too comical, the way we three pious spinsters were scrambling for the favour of a sheep’s-eyes. A pair of small-clothes flung into our nunnery had been worse than an apple of discord. Skirts were so _de rigueur_ with us, that I think even Gogo’s wooden legs seemed a little _outrés_.

“I do believe you were innocent, in everything but your cuddlesome looks,” I said, relenting.

“O yes, Diana!” she answered eagerly. “And I can’t help them.”

“Would you if you could?” I questioned doubtfully. “I don’t know. There is a good deal of method in artlessness. It can always plead itself in excuse for enjoying the pleasures which we sinners must take at the expense of our consciences.”

She knelt at my feet, silently fondling and kissing my hands.

“Are you sure you don’t regret giving him up?” I asked.

“Quite--sure,” she answered, so faintly as to set me off laughing.

“There, Patty _mia_,” I said; “you are not to be sacrificed to a self-indulgent vapours. You will see some day how kind I am being to you; and you shall have a large family yet.” And with that I kissed and left her, taking the paper with me.