by George Moore
“If I were to give you an order for another overdoor—”
“I’d much sooner you gave me an order for a portrait. You spoke about your wife?”
“I’ll think it over,” Mr. Carver answered. “Come up to supper next Sunday — number seven, Saville Row — and I’ll introduce you to my daughters. Mother is always asking me to have their portraits painted; and I’d like to have a portrait of my wife. Supper at eight; we’ll talk it over.”
A few years ago Lewis would have looked forward to supper with the Carvers as a great advancement, but his successes had given rise to a hope that he might eventually cut some sort of figure in society, and he now regarded shopkeepers with suspicion; and began to think that if he were to drop in to supper, they might drop into calling him Lewis. How was it to be managed? He couldn’t write a note pleading a prior invitation. “Once and once only,” he said to himself as he crossed St. James’s Park, and he looked askance at a somewhat nondescript servant who opened the door to him, “A sort of overgrown pantry boy,” he said to himself. And he began to examine the large picture by Tintoretto that hung in the passage. He noticed the rich furniture and China vases on the landing, and muttered as he went upstairs—” things he could sell in the shop.” And the people in the drawing-room struck him as being in keeping with the house. He recognised Mrs. Carver as a woman who had left much beauty behind her. A long white nose, beautifully shaped, divided a heart-shapen face, shaded with faded gold hair; Lewis could not tell if it were natural or dyed. She was expensively dressed, and it seemed to Lewis that she not only held his hand unduly, but had entirely forgotten the presence of her daughters, who waited in the background for mother to finish with the visitor. Some moments after she introduced him — somewhat surreptitiously, he thought — to Evelyn, a large white girl taking after her father rather than her mother in features and colouring; already she had begun to thicken in the waist, and the widening flanks filled Lewis with apprehensions for her future. But the second girl was on a much smaller scale, and would have been undoubtedly very beautiful in his eyes were it not for the large family nose. But was a nose ever more beautifully moulded? Lewis asked himself, and he admired the clear cynical eyes and the long thin lips, seldom parted except when she laughed; and when she laughed her lips disclosed a row of perfectly white and shapely teeth. Her hair was brown with a golden tinge in it, and the tiny curls that fell about her face put the thought into Lewis’s mind that he would like to persuade her to unpin it. Her hand rested in his as long as her mother’s; she began to speak to him in a low wavering voice, and before he was aware of it he was sitting by her at some distance from the rest of the family.
“How good of you to come here!” and Lewis was about to ask if she had ever sat for her portrait; but at that moment Carver began to speak of Mrs. Bentham, and then his tone changed suddenly; he read his wife’s face truthfully: it was on her tongue to ask: “Is she the lady who called here a week ago, just after we had sat down to dinner?” Carver was able to stop her in time, and the girls chimed in opportunely with, “I’m sure you like music, Mr. Seymour?”
“But if you prefer talking—” Ada said.
“I like both,” Lewis answered, “singing and talking, but not together.”
“I’m glad of that,” Ada whispered; “you shall hear us after supper”; and they all went down talking very loudly on the staircase. Mrs. Carver begged Lewis to take the chair next to hers, and she accentuated the request with an affectionate gesture. He was only just seated, however, when a diversion was caused by somebody ringing the front door bell. The whole family cried out the visitor’s name; Mrs. Carver whispered it to Lewis, bending over till he almost felt her lips upon his ear: “The largest importer of blotting books in Europe,” she said.
A small thin man entered and was placed between the two girls, who in turn besought him, half ironically and half because they wished to exhibit a wealthy acquaintance to Lewis, to tell them the result of the last year’s trading. The visitor seemed embarrassed at the girls’ loud entreaties, but having some instinct of a gentleman, he answered them quietly, and then resumed a silence which Lewis judged to be habitual.
“Now which of the girls is he after?” Lewis asked himself, and it seemed to him impossible that either could take much interest in the merchant, so uninviting was his appearance. “It would be difficult to get an interesting portrait out of him”; and Lewis fell to wondering what he should do with that round skull covered with short, scrubby hair, and a skin like aged parchment, without colour in it. “There is drawing in the hands; it would be well to place them on his knees. But which of the girls will he marry? He doesn’t seem interested in either particularly, nor is he interested in himself. A tedious creature, but kind withal. But he is after one for certain.’” He wondered why he should feel certain that the merchant was bent on matrimony, and hoped that the big girl was his choice, for already Lewis had begun to think of Ada, or certain parts of her, while talking to her mother. “It can hardly be the big girl he is after,” and as soon as an opportunity offered he disengaged his eyes from Mrs. Carver, taking a closer scrutiny of the merchant, with a view to discovering what the great importer’s chances were. “A tendency to consumption,” he said to himself, and he applied himself to the task of answering Ada, who had become suddenly interested in his painting.
“When may we come to your studio?” she inquired, and Lewis answered that any afternoon he would be pleased to see them. He never had a sitter after four, and five is the hour for talk and tea.
“We have heard,” she continued, “that you’re going to paint mother and father.”
“If it is to be a group,” Evelyn chimed in, “it had better be a family group. Father, mother, and ourselves.”
“What about Nellie?” Mrs. Carver asked.
“Oh, she’s married,” the girls exclaimed, “and no canvas would hold us all. He must take us as we are.”
Lewis began to feel frightened at the prospect of the group of four which had projected itself so suddenly on to a great canvas, and his mind was relieved as from a great weight when Mr. Carver said he was much too busy at present to give sittings. “You know, Mr. Seymour, that Ingres had as many as fifty-five sittings for his portrait of Monsieur B — . It was not till the fifty-first that he saw his sitter in the pose that he had first in mind all the while he was painting. He said, ‘My picture is finished. At last I see you in the pose in which you are yourself’; and fetching a new canvas he began again. Monsieur B — was, I suppose, a man of leisure, but a busy man like myself has sales to attend to and customers. Impossible, Mr. Seymour, just at present, but one of these days, perhaps”; and he burst into a cheery laugh.
“Mr. Seymour must begin with mother,” Ada said. Mrs. Carver said she should have had her portrait painted twenty years ago; Lewis protested and assured Mrs. Carver that he had in mind a very striking portrait if she would only be good enough to sit for it.
“And when mother’s portrait is finished,” Ada began, “it’ll be our turn. Will you paint us together or singly?”
Lewis said that he would like to do a group, and after supper, when the ladies had gone up to the drawingroom, Mr. Carver said: “Well now, Mr. Seymour, what about terms?” Lewis replied that the terms might well be left to Mr. Carver. He was sure he would have no cause to complain.
“Still, business is business,” Mr. Carver answered. “Have another cigar “; and he considered while smoking how much of these commissions should be paid by Mrs. Bentham. The whole amount could not be charged to her, since he was going to keep the pictures, but he was having his family painted by Lewis Seymour to meet Mrs. Bentham’s expressed desire to assist Lewis, and, therefore, must charge something to her account.
“What say you, Mr. Seymour, to three hundred pounds for each portrait?”
Lewis was overwhelmed inwardly at Mr. Carver’s generosity, but he managed to keep his countenance.
“Two hundred to Mrs. Bentham, and one hundred
to me,” Mr. Carver said to himself; “it sounds fair. In this way we shall all be painted for a hundred pounds apiece. A very fair proportion “; and he watched a ring of smoke flow upwards and disappear into the lustre.
“Shall we join the ladies? You said you’d like to hear my daughters sing. My wife is a first-rate pianist and could give points to a good many of the pros.”
As they ascended the staircase the girls broke out into “The Maid of Athens,” and being in the humour to hear them, Lewis thought that he was spending a highly delectable evening. And so he was, attended on by two girls, one of whom, Ada, besought him to sing something.
“You must hear mother, else she’ll not let us come to the studio,” Ada whispered. “Mother, dear, Mr. Seymour is dying to hear you play one of Chopin’s preludes,” said she, and Lewis was so pleased with her playing that she decided that the sittings for her portrait were to begin next day: “And you’ll tell me your interpretation of that wonderful prelude.”
“A woman, a balcony above a garden, scent, silence and darkness, inspired the melody,” he said. “But a sudden remembrance awakens a storm in her heart; she would have the past return. But the past may never return to us, and the sad exalted melody begins again. That is how I hear the prelude, Mrs. Carver,” Lewis said, and she answered that he had put her feelings for the prelude into words. “We shall have some pleasant talks during the sittings,” she said; and next day Lewis was listening to Mrs. Carver’s recital of Carver’s wooing of her and her married life, the birth of her children, and the temptations she had endured. Carver did not always remain Hannah’s ideal (Lewis discovered her Christian name before the end of the first sitting); all the same, notwithstanding some heartbreakings, she had remained faithful to Mr. Carver, a statement and assurance from her that frightened Lewis a little, for at the end of the sitting it seemed to him that she again held his hand a little longer than was necessary.
“We’ll pick up the thread where we dropped it to-day,” she said, looking back at him out of her carriage window, and the next day her daughters came to view the portrait, which they much admired. “I never should have thought that mother would have made such a good portrait,” Evelyn whispered to Lewis, but the more subtle Ada had always thought that mother would inspire a good portrait, a remark which so pleased Mrs. Carver that she proposed they should all go into the garden, and they were not long there before Ada contrived to lead Lewis away from her mother and sister.
“Tell mother that her hands are as plaintive as the prelude, and she will agree to anything.... I want her permission to take lessons, if you will give me lessons.”
“Of course I’ll give you lessons.” Ada’s bushy hair and appealing eyes came into his consciousness, and he finished her mother’s likeness while dreaming how he should possess the daughter.
A portrait painted in these circumstances would, if Nature were not altogether illogical, prove a great failure, but, as all painters know, their best work is often done in trying circumstances; and, despite Ada’s requests for assistance, the portrait progressed towards completion. It rose into being almost unconsciously without a check from the beginning, and while Lewis was placing the last touches upon it, the two girls were saying that mother would have a great success in the Academy, and their admiration brought Mr. Carver down to the Vale to admire the portrait, and he was so struck by it, that he somewhat incautiously announced that it exceeded his expectations, and that, perhaps, the time had come for him to consider how he might try to squeeze time to give Mr. Seymour sittings for his picture. His daughters hung on to the lapels of his coat; Mr. Carver clasped his wife’s hand, and a dream rose up in his mind of one whole wall in Saville Row covered with his family. “And after my death,” he said, striking his hand into his waistcoat and looking into space, “we shall all go to the National Gallery.”
The portraits of Ada and Evelyn were begun soon after, and guided by his remembrance of their singing he began to imagine them as sirens among rocks by a summer sea, lighted by stars only. One sister, Evelyn, would have liked the moon showing, but Lewis said that the moonlight would throw shadows, and his dream was a pale, suffused light. He garmented them in diaphanous robes, putting a lyre into Ada’s hand, saying to Evelyn, “throw back your head; sing the high G. Now I’ve gotten a singing mouth, and on that note your voice will stream across the Bay bringing many sailors to their doom.”
The girls came to sit for their portraits together and separately, accompanied by their maids, of course, and while Lewis was painting Evelyn, Ada worked at a water-colour till she was called to the dais.
The group flowed on as easily as the mother’s portrait had done, till one day the thought passed into Ada’s mind that she might go into the garden while Lewis was finishing Evelyn’s dress. “Lewis,” she said to herself, “will come to fetch me, and we needn’t return to the studio at once.”
Things happen very often as women have planned them, and on the day in question Lewis found Ada sitting under the mulberry-tree, overjoyed at the success of her trick. “At last!” she said and the words were full of significance, and carried them at once into another zone of intimacy. “We mustn’t keep Evelyn waiting more than five minutes, or she’ll be down after us. Tomorrow I’ll try to get rid of my maid. Evelyn is going to a singing lesson. You won’t hurry, dear, over my portrait.... How happy you are with your painting! But aren’t you often lonely?”
“Yes, in the evenings.”
“I don’t think I can come to you in the evenings, but I’ll get rid of the maid’s embargo.”
Ada was full of invention for walks in the garden, and beyond the garden, and Lucy’s friends told her that Lewis was often to be met walking with a Jewess in the King’s Road, and Lewis answered that after a sitting he put Miss Carver into a cab, and like one entirely detached, he related that Ada often spoke to him of the importer of blotting-books, which was true to a certain extent. Mr and Mrs. Carver, he said, looked favourably on the match, but for the present, at least, Ada couldn’t abide the importer of blotting-books, an aversion that Lewis was careful not to emphasize in his narrative. Lucy sought in his eyes for confirmation of these stories, but they told her nothing, his interest in the young girl being but a sensual curiosity, already declining. The same words would tell what her interest in him had been, and what it was, and without the other being aware of it, each was seeking independently a way out of an intrigue which began to seem to them to have run its course.
“Lewis, dear,” she said one day, “don’t make it harder for me. My father and mother are pressing me to marry him.”
“Darling, what is to be done?” he answered, though his heart was uplifted at the news. “Tell me,” he asked in a stern tone, “what your answer is,” and she answered: “We will always remain friends, but once I’m married you won’t care to kiss me again.”
“I shall always care to kiss lips as soft as yours and as red.”
“But not mine,” she answered. They bade each other good-bye; and feeling somewhat ashamed of his lack of soul, he walked in the garden, and standing in front of his picture he wondered how it was that things happened so oddly in this world. He added a few touches to her portrait, and fell to thinking that she would go to Germany to live, and when she returned it would be with a baby. How very sad! with this, however, of good in it, that the news of her marriage would quiet Lucy; and feeling he could do no more painting that day, he laid aside his palette and went to Carlton House Terrace to ask his mistress to come to the Park with him if she were disengaged that afternoon. She was always ready to do what he asked her, and while sitting under the trees watching the fashionable strollers he related the news to Lucy.
“Ada Carver is, as I told you, going to marry the importer of blotting-books.”
“Really? Well, I hope she’ll be happy,” Lucy answered. “Well, that is over,” she said to herself. But one flirtation begins another, and soon Lewis was entangled in many others. Love affairs seemed to rise out of his pict
ures as out of a love philtre, and again the news reached Lucy’s ears that he was in love: he had been seen driving with a woman, a girl in a plaid dress and with golden hair slipping over her ears, doubtless a model, and she began to try to take counsel with herself, reminding herself that she was now forty-five. She had said to herself in the days long ago at Fontainebleau: “If I get seven years I shall be satisfied and will retire gracefully. Sooner or later the break will come,” she said, “but how will it come?” And turning from the glass, she asked how it was the future is always hidden from us, and, therefore, we poor mortals can do nothing but wait till time or accident set us and our lives apart.
“A woman dies twice,” she said, “and in a very few years it is borne in upon us that our mouths are no longer fit for kisses. His mouth, too, will one day cease to be attractive. Would that it were hateful to all women to-day. He is twelve years younger than I.” And she fell to thinking. Something might be done to persuade her husband to consent to a divorce. But it was too late. He had loved her once, and would always like her better than any other woman, so he had said. Could she blame him? Not with justice, for he had given her many happy years — given her herself, for without his love she would not have known herself. Why, then, was she dissatisfied? If she had purchased her freedom and they had married, would her case be any better? Even in marriage one cannot keep on kissing indefinitely. Time brings an end to all things. Our pleasures go one after the other till nothing but our children remain. Ah, if she had had a child by Lewis, losing him would not be so hard to bear.
CHAP. XXVII.
WHILE LUCY SORROWED, Lewis rejoiced in his liberty regained. He had been faithful to Lucy for several years, not knowing whether his fidelity sprang from love or from gratitude, but he had been faithful. Ada had broken the bonds he had put upon himself, and once the bond was broken, there was no reason why he should deny himself the pleasure of every intrigue that presented itself. As soon as the day’s painting was over, he was paying visits in Mayfair, talking painting, architecture, sculpture, and sometimes landscape gardening to ladies. And sometimes they leaned over a table examining watercolours, views, and aspects that the lady had accomplished during the summer months in her country residence, while the men were shooting grouse and partridges; waterfalls, windmills, and other picturesque spots were examined with attention and appreciation, and sometimes Lewis asked for the water-colours and criticised, brush in hand. “You see what I mean?” he would say. “All the lines should run into the picture. Lines running out of the picture make bad composition, and though we hear a great deal about skies being light, skies are often better dark than light.”
