"I looked down the columns of the paper with a very lively interest, and my eye was soon caught by a paragraph encircled by a thick blue pencil mark. It gave from a paper called the _London Satirist_ what professed to be a long account of you, in which it was said that you were living in a bungalow in Wales with a Gypsy girl."
When Winifred said this I forgot my promise not to interrupt her narrative, and exclaimed,
"And you believed this infamous libel, Winnie?"
"To say that I believed it as a simple statement of fact would of course be wrong. I never doubted you loved me as a child."
"As a child! Do you then think that I did not love you that night on Raxton sands?"
"I did not doubt that you loved me then. But wealth, I had been told, is so demoralising, and I thought your never coming forward to find me and protect me in my illness might have something to do with inconstancy. Anyhow, these thoughts combined with my dread of your mother to prevent me from writing to you."
"Winnie, Winnie!" I said, "these theories of the so-called advanced thinkers, whom your aunt taught you to believe in--these ideas that love and wealth cannot exist together, are prejudices as narrow and as blind as those of an opposite kind which have sapped the natures of certain members of my own family."
"The sight of your dear sad face when I first saw it here was proof enough of that," she said. "As your life was said to be that of a wanderer, I did not care to write to Raxton, and I did not know where to address you. What I had read in the newspaper, I need not tell you, troubled me greatly. I cried bitterly, and made but a poor breakfast. After it was over Mr. D"Arcy entered the room, and shook me warmly by the hand. He saw that I had been crying, and he stood silent and seemed to be asking himself the cause. Drawing a chair towards me, and taking a seat, he said,
""I fear you have not slept well, Miss Wynne."
""Not very well," I answered. Then, looking at him, I said, "Mr.
D"Arcy, I have something to say to you, and this is the moment for saying it."
"He gave a startled look, as though he guessed what I was going to say.
""And I have something to say to _you_, Miss Wynne," he said, smiling, "and this seems the proper time for saying it. Up to the last few weeks a young gentleman from Oxford has been acting as my secretary. He has now left me, and I am seeking another. His duties, I must say, have not been what would generally be called severe. I write most of my own letters, though not all, and my correspondence is far from being large. His chief duty has been that of reading to me in the evening. For many years my eyes have not been so strong as a painter"s ought to be, and the oculist whom I consulted told me that the strain of the painter"s work was quite as much as my eyes ought to bear, and that I could not afford much eyesight for reading purposes. I am pa.s.sionately fond of reading. To be without the pleasure that books can afford me would be to make me miserable, and I have looked upon my secretary"s duty of reading aloud to me as an important one. If you would take his place you would be conferring the greatest service upon me."
""Mr. D"Arcy," I said, "I suspect you."
""Suspect me, Miss Wynne?"
""I suspect that generous heart of yours. I suspect you are merely inventing a post for me to fill, because you pity me."
""No, Miss Wynne; upon my honour this is not so. I will not deny that if it were not in your power to do me the service that I ask of you, I should still feel the greatest disappointment if you pa.s.sed from under this roof. Your scruples about living here as you lived during your illness--simply as my guest--I understand, but do not approve.
They show that you are not quite so free from the bondage of custom as I should like every friend of mine to be. The tie of friendship is, in my judgment, the strongest of all ties, stronger than that of blood, because it springs from the natural kinship of soul to soul, and there is no reason in the world why I should not offer you a home as a friend, or why, if the circ.u.mstances of our lives were reversed, you should not offer me one. But in this case it is the fact that the service I am asking you to render me is greater than any service I can render you."
"I was so deeply touched by his words and by his way of speaking them, that my lips trembled, and I could make no reply.
""It is a shame," he said, "for me to talk about business so soon after your recovery. Let us leave the matter for the moment, and come to me in the studio during the morning, and let me show you the pictures I am painting, and some of my choice things."
"The morning wore on, and still I sat pondering over the situation in which I found myself. The servant came and removed the breakfast things, and her furtive glances at me showed that I was an object at once familiar and strange to her. But very little attention did I pay to her, in such a whirl of thoughts as I then was. The moment that one course of action seemed to me the best, the very opposite would occur to me as being the best. However, I was determined to know from Mr. D"Arcy, and at once, what was the state in which I was when I was brought to this place, and what had been the course of my life during my stay here. Mr. D"Arcy had told me that, for reasons which he so touchingly alluded to, he had not used me as a model. How, then, had my time been pa.s.sed? To question poor Mrs. t.i.twing would only be to frighten her. I would ask Mr. D"Arcy for a full confession.
"Mrs. t.i.twing came into the room. She began pulling at the ribbon of her black silk ap.r.o.n as though she wanted to speak and could not find the proper words. At last she said,
""I hope, miss, there have been no words between you and Mr. D"Arcy?"
"""Words between me and Mr. D"Arcy? What do you mean?" I asked.
""He seems very much upset, miss, about something. He is not at his easel, but keeps walking about the studio, and every now and then he asks where you are. I"m sure he used to dote on you when you were a child, miss."
""When I was a child?" I said, laughing. "But I see what it is. I have been very neglectful. I promised to go into the studio to see the pictures, and he is, of course, impatient at my keeping him waiting. I will go to him at once," and I went.
"When I entered the studio he turned quickly round and said,
""Well?"
""You were so kind," I said, "as to invite me to see your treasures."
""To be sure," he said. "I thought you came to give your decision."
"He then showed me the curious divan upon which I had rested the day before, and explained to me the meaning of the carved designs."
VIII
Winifred described the designs on the divan so vividly that I could almost see them. But what interested me was the painter, not his surroundings; and she now seemed to grow weary of talking about herself.
"Did he," I said, "did he say anything about--about painters"
models?"
"Yes," she said, "Mr. D"Arcy took me to an easel and showed me a picture. It was only the half-length of a woman; but it was a tragedy rendered fully by the expression on one woman"s face.
""I had no idea," I said, "that any picture of a single face could do such work as that. Was this painted from a model?"
""Yes," he said, with a smile, which was evidently at my ignorance of art. "It was painted from life."
"There were four other half-lengths in the room, all of them very beautiful.
""Two of these," he said, "are copies; the originals have been sold.
The other two need still a few touches to make them complete."
""And they were all painted from life?" I said.
""Yes," he said. "Why do you repeat that question?"
""Because," I said, "although they are all so wonderful and so beautiful in colour, I can see a great difference between them--I can scarcely say what the difference is. They are evidently all painted by the same artist, but painted in different moods of the artist"s mind."
""Ah," he said, "I am much interested. Let me see you cla.s.sify them according to your view. There are, as you see, two brunettes and two blondes."
""Yes," I said, "between this grand brunette, to use your own expression, holding a pomegranate in her hand and the other brunette whose beautiful eyes are glistening and laughing over the fruit she is holding up, there is the same difference that there is between the blonde"s face under the apple blossoms and the other blonde"s face of the figure that is listening to music. In both faces the difference seems to be that of the soul."
""The two faces," said he, "in which you see what you call soul are painted from two dear friends of mine--ladies of high intelligence and great accomplishments, who occasionally honour me by giving me sittings--the other two are painted from two of the finest hired models to be found in London."
""Then," I said, "an artist"s success depends a great deal upon his model? I had no idea of such a thing."
""It does indeed," he said. "Such success as I have won since my great loss is very largely owing to those two ladies, one so grand and the other so sweet, whom you are admiring."
"The way in which he spoke the words "since my great loss" almost brought tears into my eyes. He then went round the room, and explained in a delightful way the various pictures and objects of interest. I felt that I was preventing him from working, and told him so.
""You are very thoughtful," he said, "but I can only paint when I feel the impulse within me, and to-day I am lazy. But while you go and get your luncheon--I do not lunch myself--I must try to do something. You must have many matters of your own that you would like to attend to. Will you return to the studio about five o"clock, and let me have your company in another walk?"