Cecil Dreeme

by Theodore Winthrop

  “En avant, with such sports of Nature!”

  “With such types of manhood! Sion, the sculptor, is in town for a day or two. I caught him last night, and he promised to sit for me this morning. Towers, also, is to come and stir up Sion while he sits,—to put him through his paces of expression.”

  “Ah, Towers and Sion! I withdraw my doubts. If my great barn here will serve you, pray bring your tools and your men over at once.”

  Pensal went off for his friends.

  I was delighted with this interruption. It was a tourniquet on the bleeding artery.

  I had felt too forlorn to solace myself with Cecil Dreeme’s society this morning. I was conscious, also, that I could not see him now without pouring forth the whole story of my doubtful love for Emma Denman, my hesitant resolve to be her lover, the shock of last night, and the suspense of to-day. All this, with only the name suppressed, I knew must gush from me when I saw my friend of friends. And yet, by a certain inexplicable instinct, I shrank from thrusting such confidence upon him. I loved him too much, and with too peculiar a tenderness, to tell him that I had fancied I loved even a woman better than him.

  I had said to myself, “I will wait for my usual evening walk with Dreeme, and then, if my heart opens toward him, I will let the current flow. He cannot console; he will teach me to be patient.”

  Meantime I welcomed the visit of Pensal and our two friends, as a calm distraction in my miserable mood. I was too much shaken and unmanned to trust myself out in the world and at my tasks.

  Presently Pensal arrived with the two gentlemen, and set up his easel before my window.

  I need hardly describe men so well known as the three artists, Sion, Towers, and Pensal. Indeed, as their business in this drama is merely to hasten one event by a few hours, it would be impertinent to distinguish them as salient characters. I glance at them merely, as they enter, halt a moment, do their part and disappear.

  It was a blessed relief to me that morning to have their society. And now that I compel myself to write this sorrowful history, the relief is hardly less, to pause here and recall how blessed then it was. I had never known fully until then what it was to have the friendship of pure and true hearts.

  Pensal sat down and wielded his crayon with a rapid hand. Each of the party, artist, sitter, critic, began to scintillate, to flash and glow, according to the fire that was in him.

  Stillfleet’s collection suggested much of our conversation. It was, as I have said, an epitome of all history. My three guests took the American view of history; that, give the world results, the means by which those results were attained cease to be of any profound value or interest. Everything ancient is perpetually on its trial,—whether its day has not come to be superannuated, and so respectably buried. Antiquity deserves commendation and gratitude; but no peculiar reverence or indulgence. The facts and systems of the past are mainly rubbish now; what is precious is the spirit of the present, which those systems have reared, or at least failed to strangle, and those facts have mauled strong and tempered fine.

  These three great artists act on this theory, adapted to art. Hence their vigor. Hence also their recognition by a nation whose principle is faith in the present,—the only healthy faith for a man or Man.

  While the magnetic current of a lively conversation flowed, Pensal worked away at his paper.

  Presently, on the blank surface, a semblance of a man’s face began to appear, rather fancied than distinguished, as we behold a countenance far away, and say, “Who is it?”—the question implying the instant answer, as we approach, “It is he!”

  Sion’s head, mildly lion-like, grew forth from the sheet,—lion-like, with its heavy mane of hair and beard. A potent face, but gentle.

  Slowly the creation grew more distinct. The face drew near, and demanded recognition for its spiritual traits.

  It was Sion’s self.

  And yet it was not the Sion who sat there before us, in high spirits, making jokes, telling stories, laughing with a frank and almost boyish gayety of heart, as if his life was all careless jubilee, and never visited by those dreams of tender, nay, of pensive and of melancholy sweetness, which he puts into undying marble.

  Yet it was this joyous companion too, and the other and many another Sion, whom we had always known, but never perceived that we had known, until this moment.

  In fact, Pensal, a master, had not merely seized and combined the essence of all Sion’s possible looks in all possible moods; but he had divined and created the inspiration the sculptor’s face would wear, if changeful mortal features could show the calm and final beauty of the immortal soul. The picture was Sion’s apotheosis.

  “Come and look at yourself, Sion,” said Towers, as this expression at last by a subtle touch revealed itself. “Pensal has drawn you as you will look in Valhalla, if you are a good boy, and don’t make any bad statues, and so get your own niche there at last.”

  Sion stepped round to survey himself.

  “I am lucky,” said he, “Pensal, to have nothing to be ashamed of lurking in my heart. You would be forced to obey your insight, drag it out, and set it inexorably in full view, in my portrait. It’s well for Byng, there, that you are not doing him this morning.”

  “Why?” said I.

  “You look as if ‘Et tu, Brute?’ had been giving you a deadly stab. But what a poor bungler, compared with Pensal, the sun is in picturing men!” continued Sion. “To say nothing of his swelling our noses and blubbering our lips, spoiling our lights and blackening our shades, he can only take us as we choose to look while he is having his little wink at us.”

  “And a man cannot choose to look his noblest on occasion. A got-up look is generally a grimace,” says Towers.

  “Well, Pensal,” said Sion, “your picture convinces me that I am not a miserable failure and a humbug, who cannot see anything in marble or out. Now let me free for a moment. I am tired of sitting to be probed and flayed.”

  Sion took his furlough, and strayed about the room, glancing at Stillfleet’s precious objects. I stepped aside to get a cigar for Pensal.

  “Ah!” cried Sion. “Here is a fresh thing. This was never painted in Europe; and yet I do not know any one here who could do it.”

  He had found the sketch, my present from Cecil Dreeme. In my sickness of heart last night, I had neglected the painter’s injunction, and left it exposed on my table, half covered by a newspaper.

  Sion held it up for inspection.

  Now that it had been seen, there was nothing to do, except to get the approval of these final authorities, and communicate it to Dreeme.

  “It is a new hand,” said I, “what do you think of it?”

  “She has great power, as well as delicacy,” said Pensal,—the others waiting for him to speak.

  “She! Who?” I asked.

  “The artist.”

  “Odd fancy of yours! It is a man.”

  “What! and paint only a back view of a woman? I supposed that being a woman, as the general handling too suggests, she took less interest in her own sex; or, on the other hand, fancied that she could not represent it worthily.”

  “O no!” said I. “He had no female model.”

  “Probably,” said Towers, “he is too young to have a woman’s image in his brain, which fevers him until he wreaks it on a canvas.”

  “Man or woman,” said Sion, “and I confess it seems to me to have a somewhat epicene character, it is a very promising work,—a pretty anecdote well told. I should like to see what this C. D.—it seems to be so signed—can do in other subjects calling for deeper feeling.”

  “A friend of mine in the building has other drawings and sketches by the same hand. I will see if I can borrow them,” said I.

  “Do,” said Sion. “If they are worthy of this, we must know him, and have him known at once. Fame waits him. Here is that fine something called Genius.”

  If Dreeme would only profit by this chance, and give his fame into the hands of my friends, his success
was achieved.

  I forgot my own sorrows, and ran up-stairs, eager to persuade the recluse to seize this moment, to terminate his exile and step forth into the light of day.

  25

  Churm before Dreeme’s Picture

  Full of hope for my friend, I left the three artists below, and darted up to his studio.

  I knocked lightly, thinking a quick ear listened, and a quick voice would respond.

  No answer.

  I knocked again, distinctly and deliberately, and listened with some faint beginning of anxiety. Yesterday I had not seen him. Was he ill again?

  Still no answer.

  All the remembrance of the night when Locksley and I first made entrance there rushed back upon me.

  I knocked once more, and spoke my name.

  Again no answer.

  I thundered at the door, striking it hard enough to hurt the dull wood that was baffling me.

  Profound silence within.

  “Is it possible that he has ventured out into daylight? It would be an unlucky moment for his first absence, now when good-fortune waits to befall him. His Fame is here, holding her breath to trumpet him, and he is away.”

  At the same time I doubted much if he could have gone. His terror of exposing himself was still great, and would be more extravagant after his panic-struck flight from Densdeth.

  An indefinable dread seized upon me. I resisted, and dashed down stairs to the janitor’s room.

  I knocked peremptorily.

  Locksley peered out, holding the door ajar.

  “Dreeme!” whispered I, panting, “do you know anything of Dreeme?”

  “It’s you, sir,” says Locksley. “Come in. It was only strangers I was keeping out.”

  “Don’t let anyone enter,” said a voice within,—a miserable voice, between a whimper and a moan.

  “He won’t hurt you, Towner,” said Locksley. “This is Mr. Byng, a friend of Mr. Churm’s.”

  The janitor looked worn and worried. By the stove, in a rocking-chair, sat, slinking, a miserable figure of a man. There sat Towner, a bloodless, unwholesome being, sick of himself,—that most tenacious and incurable of all diseases. There he sat, sick with that chronic malady, himself,—a self all vice, all remorse, and all despair. Himself,—his cowering look said that he knew the fatal evil that was devouring his life, and that he longed to free himself from its bane by one bold act of surgery, such as his evasive eyes would never venture to face, such as his nerveless fingers dared not execute.

  My glance identified the man, but I did not pause to study him. I had my own troubles to consider.

  “Locksley,” I said, seizing him by the arm, “where is Cecil Dreeme?”

  My perturbation communicated itself to the janitor.

  “Yes,” said he, “I hadn’t given my mind to it; but he did not answer when Dora went up with his breakfast. Then Towner was brought in, and we’ve been so busy with him that I forgot to send her up again.”

  “He is not there. He does not answer my knock.”

  “Going out in the daytime is as unlikely for him as the sun’s showing at midnight. I mistrust something’s happened.”

  “Do not say so, Locksley. Disaster to him is misery to me. Yes, double misery to-day!”

  “Did you have your walk together last night?”

  “No. I was at the opera until late.”

  “We must try his door again.”

  “I can’t be left here alone,” feebly protested Towner.

  “Dora will take care of you.”

  “But Densdeth might come,” shuddered the invalid.

  “He never comes here. He’d better not,” said Locksley, bristling.

  “Who keeps the key of his dark room?”

  “His servant, I suppose. Come, Mr. Byng.” Locksley led the way up stairs. “Towner isn’t long for this world, you see,” said he. “We thought he’d better die among friends. Mr. Churm will be back this morning to talk to him, and get his facts.”

  It was afternoon, and the boys of Chrysalis, the College, were skylarking in the main corridor. Their rumor died away as we climbed the stairs. It was as quiet at Cecil Dreeme’s door as on the night when we first forced entrance,—as quiet without, and, when we knocked, as silent within.

  Locksley tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened. We entered, in a tremor of apprehension.

  My friend of friends was gone! Gone! and another, some unfriendly and insolent intruder, had been there desecrating the place. The picture of Lear was flung from the easel and lying on the floor. The portfolio was open, and its drawings scattered. Upon one—a sketch of two sisters tending a mild and venerable father—a careless heel had trodden. Even the bedroom the same rude visitor had violated, and articles of the young painter’s limited wardrobe lay about. How different from the order that usually lent elegance to his bare walls and scanty furniture!

  Locksley and I looked at each other in indignant consternation.

  “My old scare has got hold, and is shaking me hard,” said the janitor. “Some of them he was hiding from must have found him out, and been here rummaging, to pry into what he’s been at all this time. When did you see him, Mr. Byng?”

  “Not yesterday. Night before last,—can it be only night before last that we met Densdeth?”

  “Densdeth!” said Locksley, bristling more than ever with alarm. “Is he in this business?”

  “I dread to think so,” said I, unnerved, and sinking into Dreeme’s arm-chair. And then across my mind flitted my friend’s warnings against Densdeth, the meeting at Mrs. Bilkes’s steps, the covert inspection, Densdeth’s triumphant, cruel look, the panic, the flight, the conversation,—all the mystery of Dreeme.

  “What are we going to do?” said Locksley, staring at me, in a maze. “Henry Clay’s ghost couldn’t persuade me that Mr. Dreeme had got himself into a scrape. Something’s happened to the lad. His enemies have taken hold of him. Why did you leave him, Mr. Byng?”

  “Why did I leave him? Why? To be taught the bitterest lesson a soul can learn,” said I; and again I seemed to hear that mocking sound of Densdeth’s laugh, echoed from the lips of Emma Denman, in the corridor of the Opera-House; again I seemed to see that hateful look of hers. The blight fell upon me more cruelly. I could not act.

  “If Mr. Churm were only here!” said Locksley, forlornly, seeing my prostration.

  With the word, there came through the open door the sound of a heavy trunk bumping up the staircase, now dinting the wall, and now cracking the banisters, and presently we heard Churm’s hearty voice hail from below: “Hillo, porter! that’s the wrong way.”

  “There comes help,” cried Locksley.

  “Call him up,” said I, and the janitor hurried after him.

  In came Churm, sturdy, benevolent, wise. His moral force reinvigorated me at a glance. His keen, brave face solved difficulty, and cleared doubt.

  “What is it, Byng?” said he. “What has come to this young painter?”

  Before I could answer, his eye caught Dreeme’s picture of Lear, resting against the easel, where I had replaced it. His calm manner was gone. He sprang forward, kneeled before the easel, stared intently. Then he looked eagerly at me.

  “What does this mean?” he exclaimed.

  “Mean!” repeated I, astonished at his manner.

  “Yes. Who painted this?” He spoke almost frantically.

  “Cecil Dreeme,” I replied.

  “Cecil Dreeme! Cecil Dreeme! Who is Cecil Dreeme?”

  “The young painter who lives here.”

  “Where is he? Where?”

  “Gone, spirited away, I fear.”

  “What are you doing here,” said he, almost fiercely.

  “Mr. Churm,” said I, “I do not understand your tone nor your manner. What do you know of this recluse?”

  I seemed faintly to remember how Dreeme had shown a slight repugnance, more than once, when I named Churm as a trusty friend.

  “You,—what do you know,” he rejoined, s
taring again at the picture. “Tell me, sir; what do you know?”

  “In a word, this,” replied I, resolved not to take offence at his roughness. “The evening I moved into Chrysalis, Locksley called me to go up with him to this chamber. He feared the tenant was dying alone.”

  “Poor child! poor child!” interjected Churm.

  “We broke in, and found him in a death-trance. Locksley’s thoughtfulness saved him. We soon warmed, fed, and cheered him back to life.”

  “God bless you both!” said Churm, fervently.

  “Churm,” I asked, “what does this mean? Do you know my friend?”

  “Go on! Tell your story!”

  “Little to tell of fact, much of feeling. There was a mystery about Mr. Dreeme. I took him, mystery and all, unquestioned, to my heart of hearts. He was utterly alone, and I befriended him. I befriended unawares an angel. He has been blue sky to me.”

  “I am sure of it,” said Churm; “but the facts, Byng! the facts of his disappearance!”

  “He kept himself absolutely secluded. He never saw out-of-doors by daylight. We walked together constantly in the evening. I made it my duty to force him to a constitutional every day. We were walking as usual night before last, when we met Densdeth.”

  “No!” exclaimed Churm, vehemently. “Densdeth! I have been waiting for that name. Has he put his cloven hoof on this trail?”

  “Densdeth observed us. I noticed ugly triumph in his face. Dreeme was struck with a panic at this meeting. I thought it instinct. It may have been knowledge. Densdeth, we suspected, followed us. Dreeme dragged me away in flight. But it would be easy for Densdeth, if he pleased, to watch Chrysalis, see me enter, and identify my companion. I am all in the dark, Churm. Can you help me to any light?”

  “Let us hope so! Locksley, is Towner here?”

  “Yes sir; and ready to make a clean breast of it.”

  “Bring him up to Mr. Byng’s quarters. I have no fire, and the poor creature must be coddled. I may take this liberty, Byng? You are interested. It may touch the question of Dreeme. It does so, I believe.”

  “Certainly; my room is yours. Pensal was there, drawing Sion; but he will be done by this time. But, my dear friend, do you penetrate this mystery of Cecil Dreeme’s? Tell me at once. He is dearer to me than a brother.”