The outfit of a water-colour painter is a good deal more portable than that of a painter in oil, but as Andrew’s purchases amounted to the entire stock-in-trade, including a substantial folding easel, a stool, drawing-boards, palette, brushes, tubes of colour, a supply of paper and various other items, they resulted in two bulky and heavy parcels; burdened with which he went forth (having regretfully declined the salesman’s offer to send them, as that would have involved disclosing his address) and waited in some anxiety for the tram. The chances that his pursuer—as he assumed her to be—would happen to be on that tram were infinitesimal to the point of absurdity. Nevertheless, when the vehicle drew up in response to his hail, he scanned the faces of the female passengers nervously as he stepped up to the footboard.
Similarly, but with more reason, he looked about him apprehensively as he alighted at the terminus; and disregarding the weight of his burden, struck out across the Heath with elaborate precaution and an occasional glance to the rear, before making the final turn into Well Walk. At the mouth of the alley he paused for a moment to make sure that the close contained no enemy and that no one was looking in from the High Street; and when, at length, he let himself in with his latchkey and closed the door, he experienced a sense of relief which he himself recognized as slightly ridiculous.
Having deposited his parcels in his sitting-room, he walked through to the back room, half-kitchen and half-parlour, to report his return and exchange a few-words with his landlady. And here he had a genuine stroke of luck. At intervals, amidst his distractions, he had been trying to think of a subject to fit into the background of his own room. Now, as he opened the door, after a perfunctory tap with his knuckles, behold a subject almost ready made. By the low, small-paned window sat Mrs. Pendlewick in a Windsor arm-chair with a little gate-leg table by her side and a lace pillow on her lap.
She looked up with a smile of welcome, viewing him over the tops of her spectacles as he stood in the doorway regarding her with delighted surprise. She made a charming picture. Figure, lighting and accessories made up just such an ensemble as the old “genre” painters would have loved; and Andrew, being a belated survivor of that school, felt a like enthusiasm. For a while he stood, taking in the effect of the group—the old-world figure with its silky-white hair and antique cap, the black pillow with its covering of lace and rows of bobbins, the simple, elegant chair and the ancient table-until the old lady became quite puzzled. “I am taking the liberty of admiring you, Mrs. Pendlewick,” he said at length.
“Law!” she exclaimed, “I thought I had got beyond that.”
“But this is a new accomplishment,” said he. “I didn’t know you were a lace-maker.”
“New!” she chuckled. “I was a lace-maker before I was eight year old. Had my own pillow and bobbins and used to play at making lace. All the girls did down at my home; began it as child’s play, and that’s how we learnt. Down where I come from—I’m a Buckinghamshire woman, born and brought up at Wendover—down there you wouldn’t meet a woman, no, nor a girl over ten, that couldn’t make bone lace. They usually began to learn when they were about four or five.”
“Why do you call it bone lace?” he asked.
“It’s on account of these,” she explained, indicating the bewildering multitude of little bobbins that dangled by their threads from the edge of the work. “They were mostly made of bone, though sometimes they used horn or hard wood. But bone was the regular thing because it was easy to come by. The lads used to make ’em for their sweethearts; carved ’em out with their pocket knives, they did, and some of them were uncommonly pretty bits of work. There’s one that my grandfather made when he was courting my grandmother more than a hundred years ago; and it’s as good as new now.”
She picked out the historic bobbin—a little bone stick elaborately decorated with shallow carving—and held it up proudly for his inspection; and as he examined it she babbled on: “Yes, we’re all of a piece, me and my belongings. We are all getting on. This chair that I’m sitting in was made by my Uncle James. He was a chair maker at High Wycombe, and they used to work out in the open beech-woods. And this little table was made by my grandfather—him that made that bobbin. He was a wheelwright, but he used to make furniture in the winter when the wagons was laid up and work was slack.”
So she rambled on, but not to the hindrance of her work; for, as she talked, her fingers were busy with their task, the right hand managing the pins while the left manipulated the bobbins, and all with an effortless dexterity that was delightful to watch. Nor were her babblings of the old country life in the Vale of Aylesbury without interest; and Andrew, looking on and listening, found himself gathering the sentiment and atmosphere that he hoped presently to express in his picture.
After a spell of somewhat one-sided conversation, he ventured cautiously to approach the subject of that picture. But his caution was unnecessary, for Mrs. Pendlewick was all agog to “have her likeness drawn,” as she expressed it. “Not but what I should have thought,” she remarked, “that you might have found someone better worth drawing. Who wants to look at the likeness of an old woman like me?”
“You are too modest, Mrs. Pendlewick,” he replied. “You don’t appreciate your own beauty. Wait until you see my picture; you’ll be surprised to find how handsome you are.”
With this he retired—leaving her chuckling over her work—to unpack his parcels and to spend what was left of the morning in straining a sheet of paper on one of the boards and making one or two preliminary sketches to settle the composition and arrangement of the projected picture. Then, after the simple mid-day meal, he set up his easel in the kitchen, arranged the accessories, and, while Mrs. Pendlewick went about her household activities, he drew in the background—the interior of the room, the window and the furniture; finishing with a short sitting until it was time for the model to lay the pillow on the table, spread a handkerchief over her face, and compose herself for her afternoon nap.
The painting of that picture did Andrew a world of good. It kept him indoors during the daylight hours and enabled him partly to forget the Avenger who was on his track; and, as a normal and customary occupation, it brought him back out of the nightmare world in which he had been living, into the region of sane and ordinary human life. He worked with intense enjoyment. Painting was at all times the passion of his life; but now, to the pleasure that he always found in his work, was added a certain feeling of novelty, due to the nightmare interregnum. And, as the work progressed and he perceived with some surprise that he was painting “at the top of his form,” the discovery engendered a sense of power which was very pleasant in contrast to the sense of feebleness and futility by which he had been oppressed.
He worked steadily for four days, by which time the background was well advanced and the figure practically finished; and a most excellent portrait of the old lady it turned out, though he had not specially aimed at a likeness. They had been happy days, days of blessed relief from his troubles and distractions. But now, as the finishing work could be done at his own time without the model’s assistance, his thoughts turned to an out-door subject or a study which would serve as the background for a studio composition. By this time his terror of the mysterious woman had subsided to a great extent. After all, what was the risk of her shadowing him? She lived at Brondesbury and she had a job in the City. It was hardly possible that she could be haunting the neighbourhood of Hampstead.
Thus reassuring himself, and tempted out by a brilliant autumn morning, he set forth with his sketching kit to look for a subject. Sneaking out with his usual caution by the back way, he made for Well Walk and then struck out across the Heath to the Vale of Health. Here, on the high ground above the pond, he paused to look about him and consider which direction he should take, laying down his easel and stool the more conveniently to fill his pipe. But as he felt for his pouch, its lean and deflated condition reminded him that his stock of tobacco had run out.
It was very annoying, for his tobacc
onist’s shop was at the lower end of High Street, a locality which he preferred to avoid by daylight. However, his stock would have to be replenished, and, as he habitually smoked as he worked, he decided to brave the terrors of the High Street rather than go on with an empty pouch. Accordingly he picked up his easel, and, turning his face westward, re-entered the village by way of Heath Street, walking quickly down that thoroughfare and the High Street and keeping a bright lookout for any suspicious figures of the feminine gender.
Having arrived safely at the tobacconist’s and made his purchase, he began once more to turn over in his mind the most likely spots in which to look for a subject; and as the High Street and its northward continuations would, if he followed them, eventually bring him to the West Heath, he decided to explore that locality and particularly the neighbourhood of the Leg of Mutton Pond, in spite of the fact that this route involved the passage of close upon a mile of fairly frequented streets and roads. But the acute alarm which had affected him on the day following the encounter in the train had to a great extent subsided; notwithstanding which, as he strode along, pipe in mouth, he kept a wary eye ahead and around and even paused from time to time to look back and scrutinize such wayfarers as happened to be coming in the same direction. It was only when he had at length emerged from the village on to the rustic road known as Rotten Row, with the open Heath on all sides of him, that he was able to dismiss from his mind the idea of a possible “shadower” and give his attention to the search for a subject.
The search did not, in fact, take up very much time. He knew the place pretty well and was able to make his way almost at once to a suitable spot, which he found within a short distance from the pond. Here he spent a quarter of an hour circling round and trying various points of view with the aid of a little cardboard view-finder; and having, at length, decided on the most satisfactory composition, he set up his easel and stool, refilled his pipe and set to work with his open satchel hitched to the foot of the easel so that his materials were all conveniently within reach.
For upwards of an hour he worked away in uninterrupted peace, becoming more and more absorbed in his occupation as he proceeded from the preliminary drawing to the stage of colour. From time to time, solitary wayfarers had passed along the road below him and once a horseman had gone by at a canter. But although they all looked up at him as they passed, they had made no nearer approach. His pitch might have been in some remote country district rather than in a populous London suburb.
But his peace was not to remain entirely undisturbed. Pausing in his work to squeeze out on to his palette a fresh supply of colour from a tube, he became aware of a phenomenon familiar to out-door painters and designated in the slang of the craft a “snooper.” The peculiarity of this type of onlooker is in his mode of approach. The simple rustic spectator regards the artist frankly as a public entertainer. He approaches boldly, takes up his position with an air of permanence and stares with undissembled wonder, sometimes at the painting but more usually at the painter. Not so the snooper. His approach is devious and unpredictable as to direction—excepting that it will inevitably bring him within a yard or so of the easel. He maintains an ostentatious unawareness of the painter’s existence until, by some unforeseen chance, his sinuous advance (at a gradually diminishing speed) has brought him abreast of the easel; when he takes one long, hungry, side-long look and passes on.
As he squeezed out the little blob of pigment, Andrew observed a man approaching from the high ground above him, and, by the manner of his advance was able to make a provisional diagnosis. Not that he minded in the least. He had no prejudice against the snooper; who, after all, is actuated only by a reasonable curiosity tempered by good manners. It is only the unseasoned amateur who quails at the snooper’s approach.
The man drew nearer by degrees, meandering down the slope, and still profoundly unconscious of Andrew’s existence, until he had reached the inevitable spot a yard or two from the artist’s pitch; when he suddenly “unsnooped” (if I may use the expression) and became a normal spectator. “Mind my having a look?” he asked civilly, with his eye on the painting.
“Not at all,” Andrew replied; “but there isn’t much to look at. I have only just begun.”
With this permission, the man stepped forward and took up a position close beside the artist, making a show of examining the painting, though, in fact, he seemed more interested in the painter, judging by the frequent and somewhat furtive glances that he stole at Andrew’s profile. “A lovely scene!” he remarked. “Don’t you think so?”
“Well,” replied Andrew, “I would rather say ‘pleasant.’ It is not romantically beautiful.”
“No,” the other agreed; “not romantic, but, as you say, very pleasant; extremely so. You are making a pretty big sketch, aren’t you?”
“It isn’t a sketch,” Andrew explained; “it is going to be a rather detailed study, so it has to be a good size.”
“I see. But there will be a lot of work in it, won’t there? If you are going to paint all the detail?”
“Yes,” Andrew replied, “there will be plenty to do. But I rather like a subject with a fair amount of matter in it.”
“But won’t it take a deuce of a time to do? I should think there will be a week’s work in it, at least.”
“No,” said Andrew, “not as much as that. I shall probably get it finished in three or four sittings.”
“Will you, indeed? Three or four sittings? And how long do you generally work at a sitting?”
“As long as the light will let me,” Andrew replied. “Three hours, at the outside. It doesn’t do to go on too long, or you get the light and shade all wrong.”
Here Andrew paused rather definitely. He was a naturally polite and civil man, but he disliked interruptions of his work and he felt that the conversation had gone on long enough. Apparently, he had managed to convey a hint to this effect, for the man stepped back a pace and remarked apologetically: “I am afraid I am hindering you, and that won’t do. Perhaps I shall be passing this way again before you have finished your study. I should like to see the completed work. In the meantime I will wish you ‘Good morning’ and many thanks for letting me see it in its early stage.”
With this he turned away and walked off towards the road; and Andrew, glancing at his retreating figure, was struck by the contrast between the brisk, purposive manner of his retirement and his aimless, sauntering approach. Apparently he was making up for the time that he had spent in the conversation; and Andrew, turning once more to his painting, proceeded to do likewise.
But in spite of his growing interest in his work as the picture progressed, the incident had left a slightly disagreeable impression. Perhaps it was natural that the disturbing and insecure circumstances in which he was living should cause him to view with a critical and suspicious eye any chance contacts with strangers. So he persuaded himself and tried to dismiss the matter from his thoughts. Nevertheless, he could not quite get rid of the impression. Little details of the incident tended obstinately to recur. He recalled the elaborate, leisurely, snooperesque manoeuvres by which the man had managed to establish the contact, and then the quick, definite way in which he had departed, with the air of having accomplished some specific object. Again there was the rather futile conversation. Obviously, the man neither knew nor cared anything about painting. Yet he had made a very evident pretext to open the conversation.
Then there was the appearance of the man. Once or twice as they were talking Andrew had looked in his face, and his artist’s eye had been quick to note certain slight anomalies. The hair was sleek and black and had somewhat the appearance of a wig; and the eyebrows were black and heavy, like little moustaches. But the eyes were pale blue and the skin was fair and slightly freckled. Now, the black-haired blond is a recognized type, and is not so very rare. Still, there was an anomaly; and to a man in Andrew’s circumstances, it tended to attract uneasy notice. Oddly enough, the one really significant point in the incident escaped him e
ntirely. It was only by the light of subsequent events that he was able to perceive the relevancy of that apparently futile conversation.
He worked on for nearly an hour beyond his allotted time in order to get the painting well started; and, by degrees, as he became more and more engrossed in his task, the incident faded into the background of his mind. But the impression tended to revive when, the day’s work finished, he packed up his kit and started on his way home; manifesting itself in a long detour, punctuated by searching glances around, before the final plunge into Well Walk.
CHAPTER IX
The Axe Falls
Andrew’s forecast was so far correct that, by the end of the third sitting, his picture was virtually finished. Another short sitting to “pull it together” would see the work complete. He leaned back on his stool and viewed the painting critically and not without satisfaction. For the work of one who was not a professed landscape painter, it was quite a creditable performance; and, as the material for future studio subjects, it should be of some value.
He had sat thus for a minute or two, inspecting his work and comparing it with the landscape before him when he became conscious of someone standing behind him. Assuming that it was some stranger who had crept up to have a look at the painting, he took no notice and remained still, in the hope that the spectator would presently depart without attempting to open a conversation. But as the time ran on and the onlooker remained immovable, he began unostentatiously to put his kit together; for he had finished work, and certain internal sensations associated themselves pleasantly with the lamb cutlets which he happened to know would be awaiting him at his lodgings.
He disposed of his colours, put the brushes away tidily in their case, emptied the dipper and put it into its special pocket, and still the person behind him made no move. Finally, he took the pin-frame board, on which the painting was stretched, off the easel and slipped it into its compartment in the satchel. Then he stood up and turned round to face the spectator; and, instantly, he realized that some kind of mischief was brewing. There was not one spectator, but three; two tall, massive men and one shorter; and though the latter had close-cropped reddish hair and no eyebrows to speak of, Andrew had no difficulty in recognizing the “snooper” of two days ago.
The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 175
