The Coming of Bill

by P. G. Wodehouse

  Chapter XII

  A Climax

  One afternoon, about two weeks later, Kirk, returning to the studiofrom an unprofitable raid into the region of the dealers, found on thetable a card bearing the name of Mrs. Robert Wilbur. This had beencrossed out, and beneath it, in a straggly hand, the name Miss Wilburhad been written.

  The phenomenon of a caller at the cell of the two hermits was sostrange that he awaited Ruth's arrival with more than his customaryimpatience. She would be able to identify the visitor. George Pennicut,questioned on the point, had no information of any value to impart. Avery pretty young lady she was, said George, with what you might call alively manner. She had seemed disappointed at finding nobody at home.No, she had left no message.

  Ruth, arriving a few moments later, was met by Kirk with the card inhis hand.

  "Can you throw any light on this?" he said. "Who is Miss Wilbur, whohas what you might call a lively manner and appears disappointed whenshe does not find us at home?"

  Ruth looked at the card.

  "Sybil Wilbur? I wonder what she wants."

  "Who is she? Let's get that settled first."

  "Oh, she's a girl I used to know. I haven't seen her for two years. Ithought she had forgotten my existence."

  "Call her up on the phone. If we don't solve this mystery we shan'tsleep to-night. It's like _Robinson Crusoe_ and the footprint."

  Ruth went to the telephone. After a short conversation she turned toKirk with sparkling eyes and the air of one with news to impart.

  "Kirk! She wants you to paint her portrait!"

  "What!"

  "She's engaged to Bailey! Just got engaged! And the first thing shedoes is to insist on his letting her come to you for her portrait,"Ruth bubbled with laughter. "It's to be a birthday present for Bailey,and Bailey has got to pay for it. That's so exactly like Sybil."

  "I hope the portrait will be. She's taking chances."

  "I think it's simply sweet of her. She's a real friend."

  "At fairly long intervals, apparently. Did you say you had not seen herfor two years?"

  "She is an erratic little thing with an awfully good heart. I feeltouched at her remembering us. Oh, Kirk, you must do a simply wonderfulportrait, something that everybody will talk about, and then ourfortune will be made! You will become the only painter that people willgo to for their portraits."

  Kirk did not answer. His experiences of late had developed in him anunwonted mistrust of his powers. To this was added the knowledge that,except for an impressionist study of Ruth for private exhibition only,he had never attempted a portrait. To be called upon suddenly like thisto show his powers gave him much the same feeling which he hadexperienced when called upon as a child to recite poetry before anaudience. It was a species of stage fright.

  But it was certainly a chance. Portrait-painting was an uncommonlylucrative line of business. His imagination, stirred by Ruth's, sawvisions of wealthy applicants turned away from the studio door owing topressure of work on the part of the famous man for whose services theywere bidding vast sums.

  "By Jove!" he said thoughtfully.

  Another aspect of the matter occurred to him.

  "I wonder what Bailey thinks about it!"

  "Oh, he's probably so much in love with her that he doesn't mind whatshe does. Besides, Bailey likes you."

  "Does he?"

  "Oh, well, if he doesn't, he will. This will bring you together."

  "I suppose he knows about it?"

  "Oh, yes. Sybil said he did. It's all settled. She will be hereto-morrow for the first sitting."

  Kirk spoke the fear that was in his mind.

  "Ruth, old girl, I'm horribly nervous about this. I am taken with asort of second sight. I see myself making a ghastly failure of this joband Bailey knocking me down and refusing to come across with thecheque."

  "Sybil is bringing the cheque with her to-morrow," said Ruth simply.

  "Is she?" said Kirk. "Now I wonder if that makes it worse or better.I'm trying to think!"

  Sybil Wilbur fluttered in next day at noon, a tiny, restless creaturewho darted about the studio like a humming-bird. She effervesced withthe joy of life. She uttered little squeaks of delight at everythingshe saw. She hugged Ruth, beamed at Kirk, went wild over WilliamBannister, thought the studio too cute for words, insisted on beingshown all over it, and talked incessantly.

  It was about two o'clock before she actually began to sit, and eventhen she was no statue. A thought would come into her small head andshe would whirl round to impart it to Ruth, destroying in a second thepose which it had taken Kirk ten painful minutes to fix.

  Kirk was too amused to be irritated. She was such a friendly littlesoul and so obviously devoted to Ruth that he felt she was entitled tobe a nuisance as a sitter. He wondered more and more what weirdprinciple of selection had been at work to bring Bailey and thisbutterfly together. He had never given any deep thought to the study ofhis brother-in-law's character; but, from his small knowledge of him,he would have imagined some one a trifle more substantial and seriousas the ideal wife for him. Life, he conceived, was to Bailey a statelymarch. Sybil Wilbur evidently looked on it as a mad gallop.

  Ruth felt the same. She was fond of Sybil, but she could not see her asthe fore-ordained Mrs. Bailey.

  "I suppose she swept him off his feet," she said. "It just shows thatyou never really get to know a person even if you're their sister.Bailey must have all sorts of hidden sides to his character which Inever noticed--unless _she_ has. But I don't think there is muchof that about Sybil. She's just a child. But she's very amusing, isn'tshe? She enjoys life so furiously."

  "I think Bailey will find her rather a handful. Does she ever sitstill, by the way? If she is going to act right along as she did to-daythis portrait will look like that cubist picture of the 'Dance at theSpring'."

  As the sittings went on Miss Wilbur consented gradually to simmer downand the portrait progressed with a fair amount of speed. But Kirk wasconscious every day of a growing sensation of panic. He was trying hisvery hardest, but it was bad work, and he knew it.

  His hand had never had very much cunning, but what it had had it hadlost in the years of his idleness. Every day showed him more clearlythat the portrait of Miss Wilbur, on which so much depended, was anamateurish daub. He worked doggedly on, but his heart was cold withthat chill that grips the artist when he looks on his work and sees itto be bad.

  At last it was finished. Ruth thought it splendid. Sybil Wilburpronounced it cute, as she did most things. Kirk could hardly bear tolook at it. In its finished state it was worse than he could havebelieved possible.

  In the old days he had been a fair painter with one or two bad faults.Now the faults seemed to have grown like weeds, choking whatever ofmerit he might once have possessed. This was a horrible production, andhe was profoundly thankful when it was packed up and removed from thestudio. But behind his thankfulness lurked the feeling that all was notyet over, that there was worse to come.

  It came.

  It was heralded by a tearful telephone call from Miss Wilbur, who rangup Ruth with the agitated information that "Bailey didn't seem to likeit." And on the heels of the message came Bailey in person, pink fromforehead to collar, and almost as wrathful as he had been on the greatoccasion of his first visit to the studio. His annoyance robbed hisspeech of its normal stateliness. He struck a colloquial note unusualwith him.

  "I guess you know what I've come about," he said.

  He had found Kirk alone in the studio, as ill luck would have it. Inthe absence of Ruth he ventured to speak more freely than he would havedone in her presence.

  "It's an infernal outrage," he went on. "I've been stung, and you knowit."

  Kirk said nothing. His silence infuriated Bailey.

  "It's the portrait I'm speaking about--the portrait, if you have thenerve to call it that, of Miss Wilbur. I was against her sitting to youfrom the first, but she insisted. Now she's sorry."

  "It's as bad as all that, is
it?" said Kirk dully. He felt curiouslyindisposed to fight. A listlessness had gripped him. He was even alittle sorry for Bailey. He saw his point of view and sympathized withit.

  "Yes," said Bailey fiercely. "It is, and you know it."

  Kirk nodded. Bailey was quite right. He did know it.

  "It's a joke," went on Bailey shrilly. "I can't hang it up. Peoplewould laugh at it. And to think that I paid you all that money for it.I could have got a real artist for half the price."

  "That is easily remedied," said Kirk. "I will send you a chequeto-morrow."

  Bailey was not to be appeased. The venom of more than three years criedout for utterance. He had always held definite views upon Kirk, andHeaven had sent him the opportunity of expressing them.

  "Yes, I dare say," he said contemptuously. "That would settle the wholething, wouldn't it? What do you think you are--a millionaire? Talkingas if that amount of money made no difference to you? Where does mysister come in? How about Ruth? You sneak her away from her home andthen-----"

  Kirk's lethargy left him. He flushed.

  "I think that will be about all, Bannister?" he said. He spoke quietly,but his voice trembled.

  But Bailey's long-dammed hatred, having at last found an outlet, wasnot to be checked in a moment.

  "Will it? Will it? The hell it will. Let me tell you that I came hereto talk straight to you, and I'm going to do it. It's about time youhad your darned dime-novel romance shown up to you the way it strikessomebody else. You think you're a tremendous dashing twentieth-century_Young Lochinvar_, don't you? You thought you had done a prettysmooth bit of work when you sneaked Ruth away! You! You haven't enoughbackbone in you even to make a bluff at working to support her. You'rejust what my father said you were--a loafer who pretends to be anartist. You've got away with it up to now, but you've shown yourself upat last. You damned waster!"

  Kirk walked to the door and flung it open.

  "You're perfectly right, Bannister," he said quietly. "Everything youhave said is quite true. And now would you mind going?"

  "I've not finished yet."

  "Yes, you have."

  Bailey hesitated. The first time frenzy had left him, and he wasbeginning to be a little ashamed of himself for having expressed hisviews in a manner which, though satisfying, was, he felt, lessdignified than he could have wished.

  He looked at Kirk, who was standing stiffly by the door. Something inhis attitude decided Bailey to leave well alone. Such had been hisindignation that it was only now that for the first time it struck himthat his statement of opinion had not been made without considerablebodily danger to himself. Jarred nerves had stood him in the stead ofcourage; but now his nerves were soothed and he saw things clearly.

  He choked down what he had intended to say and walked out. Kirk closedthe door softly behind him and began to pace the studio floor as he haddone on that night when Ruth had fought for her life in the roomupstairs.

  His mind worked slowly at first. Then, as it cleared, he began to thinkmore and more rapidly, till the thoughts leaped and ran like tongues offire scorching him.

  It was all true. That was what hurt. Every word that Bailey had flungat him had been strictly just.

  He had thought himself a fine, romantic fellow. He was a waster and aloafer who pretended to be an artist. He had thrown away the littletalent he had once possessed. He had behaved shamefully to Ruth,shirking his responsibilities and idling through life. He realized itnow, when it was too late.

  Suddenly through the chaos of his reflections there shone out clearlyone coherent thought, the recollection of what Hank Jardine had offeredto him. "If ever you are in a real tight corner----"

  * * * * *

  His brain cleared. He sat down calmly to wait for Ruth. His mind wasmade up. Hank's offer was the way out, the only way out, and he musttake it.

  BOOK TWO