by George Moore
Her model asked Etta if he might leave off blowing the flageolet, and she answered: Of course, my dear boy, you can; I had forgotten all about it; and you can rest yourself. The boy rose with some difficulty from his chair, crying: Oh, Lord! pins and needles! And whilst he walked about the studio, Etta remembered the reasons that had decided her to go to Paris with Elsie Lawrence and Cissy Clive. It had seemed unkind to her to leave Ralph, but if she wasn’t going to marry him it would be better for her to go away for a time, for in no other way could she free herself from him. He had asked her to marry him, and as she did not feel that she could marry him, she had gone to Paris to learn painting. Had he not said it was the only place where painting could be learnt? So it was his fault, to some extent, that she had left London. She had written to him from Paris, and, she was prepared to admit, more affectionately than she would have done in pleasanter circumstances; for she was not happy in France, nor very well, and in one letter she wrote about her great loneliness and of the joy it would be were he suddenly to draw aside the curtain and seek her out among the students. He had taken her at her word and come over, and she remembered how startled she was when one of the monitors handed her Ralph’s card, saying she would find him in the ante-room. She had written to him out of the impulse of the moment; his arrival was provoking, but there was no escape from him now. And they had gone downstairs together, and after walking about the streets in the neighbourhood of the Place de la Bourse, she proposed a café to him; and once out of the heat and noise of the street, some of her old liking for him had returned, though indeed she was annoyed with herself for having written the letter, and with him for having taken her at her word so easily.
As she painted, she could see herself in her thought laying out her drawings on the café table, and Ralph taking them up one after the other, criticising them perfunctorily, for, as she soon perceived, he had not come to Paris to teach her drawing, but to ask her to marry him. She took pleasure in recalling his words: I have read your letters a thousand times, till at last I felt that I couldn’t go on reading them without seeing you, till I began to be afraid that you would find somebody here to fall in love with, somebody whom you would prefer to me. Have you? She remembered her very words: I don’t know that I have. But unabashed by them, he had asked her to marry him. You mean now, in Paris? Why not, Etta? If you haven’t met anybody you like better, you know. And give up my painting just at the time I’m beginning to get on! I’d give anything to draw like Doucet. You don’t know him — a student of the Beaux Arts. Ralph did not think that even if she could draw like Doucet, she would be any nearer painting a picture. A man in love hardly knows what he is saying, and they had left the café, Ralph pleading, saying that he would wait if she would only promise. And it was in the rue Vivienne, by the Café Vivienne (Davau was there, drinking coffee), that Ralph began to plead so earnestly that she had to make an end of it. She remembered her words: I really must send you away now. That was all. So you won’t promise to marry me? No, I cannot marry you. His face darkened. I cannot live without you, he said, and frightened at the thought of his suicide, she had tried to dissuade him, saying: You have your art to live for. You’re no longer a sentimental boy. You’ve got your man’s life to lead. You must think of it. But the words had barely passed her lips when it occured to her that his was perhaps one of those narrow, gentle natures that cannot outlive a disappointment. He had never loved a woman before — all he knew of women was one of his models.
The sound of the flageolet recalled Etta from the memories of her unkindness to Ralph in Paris, for she admitted to herself that she had been unkind. Would you mind, miss, if I was to say something to you about the bird? You tell me that you’re going to paint a bullfinch into this cage, and that he is learning a tune off me. Now, I could play the flageolet much better if there was a real bullfinch, and I knows where you can get one for one-and-six; and then it would be a real picture, painted from me learning the bullfinch a tune on the flageolet. What do you say to paying one-and-six for the bird, miss? You see, he’ll be listening, and will stay quiet on his perch for you. You are a clever little boy, Etta answered; you can bring the bullfinch with you to-morrow.
IV
But in spite of the work that she did upon it, the picture did not progress; instead of going forwards, it seemed to go backwards. She was in trouble in turn with the background, the bird cage, and then the bird. She could not get the action of the cheeks blowing, nor the movement of the fingers on the flageolet, and after repeated efforts the picture began to show signs of weariness, becoming like woolly cotton in the whites, and in the blacks dim and lustreless. She lay awake thinking about her picture, and every morning before she finished dressing the canvas was wheeled into the light in the hope that yesterday’s judgment of it was at fault.
Sometimes she thought one thing and sometimes another, and all the time her heart misgave her. I shall never get it right, she said to herself, not without help. I want criticism. And her thoughts going back to the studio, she began to wonder what the Professor would say if she could summon him to her aid. Any one of the leading students could criticise her picture from a painter’s point of view, and what would she not give to get it! But in England she knew nobody who could tell her whether she should scrape it down or start afresh on a new canvas, nobody but Ralph, and she was not certain that he would come down if she wrote to ask him, for Cissy and Elsie held that she had treated Ralph cruelly; he no doubt thought so himself, but that was several months ago, and she had never known a man who did not respond if she held up her little finger. And it was in this conviction that she went up to London one morning, telling her brother she must copy a certain picture in the National Gallery. He asked her why she felt obliged to copy it, and she answered petulantly that she could not explain. Only a painter would understand, she said, and fell to thinking that she would not walk round the students asking for news of Ralph Hoskin; being well known in the Gallery, if she began to copy somebody would come to speak to her, Ralph’s name would crop up in the course of conversation, and she would get news of him without asking for it.
Nobody, however, came to talk to her. All her old acquaintances were away. But Etta was as patient as she was resolute in her flirtations, and she continued copying the Greuze till one day an acquaintance, an occasional copyist in the Gallery, caught sight of her; and she learnt from Miss Brand that Ralph had not been seen in the Gallery for more than a year. You know that he has been ill? asked Miss Brand. No; I was in France and have been ill myself and am only just recovering. But Ralph, I hope, is not seriously ill? Lung trouble, Miss Brand answered. That is always serious, Etta replied, and when her friend had left her she sat staring at her Greuze, till unable to endure its silly sentimentality any longer, she locked up her paintbox and left the gallery, walking without seeing or hearing, even to the danger of getting herself run over, asking herself if her refusal to marry him had anything to do with his illness. She hoped it had not, admitting at the end of a little sensuous meditation on the bridge in St. James’s Park that she might have led him to expect she would marry him sooner or later. But she couldn’t have made him happy; she was not sure that she could make any man happy.
As she crossed the open space in front of Buckingham Palace, the desire to see him laid hold of her, and hailing a hansom she drove to his studio. The door was opened by a young woman who looked like a servant, but Etta, not deceived by her appearance, guessed her to be one of his models. I’ve come, she said, from the National Gallery, where I heard that Mr. Hoskin is ill. Can I see him? He has just dozed off, the young woman answered. I dare not awake him, but I’ll give him a message. Give him my card and say I would like to see him. Stay, I’ll write a word upon it. And whilst Etta wrote on the card the girl watched her — her face full of suspicion, and when she read the name an indiscreet Oh escaped from her, and Etta knew that Ralph had spoken of her. His mistress, no doubt, she thought; she wouldn’t be here nursing him if she wasn’t. And lowerin
g her eyes she murmured: Thank you, reaching the end of the street humiliated and angry, humiliated that the girl should have seen through her so easily, angry that Ralph should have spoken about her to his mistress; for she was sure that the woman was, or had been, his mistress. She regretted having asked to see Ralph, but she had asked for an appointment — she could hardly get out of it now.... She would have to meet that woman again; but she wanted to see Ralph. Ralph, I suppose, told her the truth, she thought. A moment’s reflection convinced her that he probably had, and reassured she went to bed, wondering when she would get a letter. She might get one in the morning.
The first letter she opened read:
MADAM, — Mr. Hoskin begs me to thank you for your kind inquiry. He is feeling a little stronger and will be glad to see you. His best time is in the afternoon, about three o’clock. Could you make it convenient to call about that time? I think it right to warn you that it would be well not to speak of anything likely to excite him, for the doctor says that all hope of his recovery depends upon his being kept quiet. — I am, madam,
Yours truly, ELLEN GIBBS.
Ellen Gibbs; so that is her name, thought Etta. There was a note of authority in the letter which did not escape her. She did not like meeting this woman, but she wanted to see Ralph; and an expression of vindictiveness came into her cunning eyes. If she dares to try to oppose me, she’ll soon find out her mistake. She has been his mistress; I have not, and shall get the better of her easily. Tomorrow! This letter was written last night, so I have to go to see him to-day, this afternoon, at three o’clock. I shall have to go up after luncheon by the two o’clock train. That will get me there by three. Now I wonder if he is really dying? If I were to go to see him and he were to recover, it would mean beginning it over again. But would it? And why do base thoughts and calculations enter my head? I don’t know, for I do not call them, nor do their promptings affect me. I am going to see him because I was once very fond of him, because I caused him, through no fault of mine, a great deal of suffering. I know he’d like to see me before he dies, that’s why I’m going, and yet horrid thoughts will come into my head. To hear me thinking, anybody would imagine that it was only on account of my own vanity that I wanted to see him, whereas it’s quite the contrary. As a rule, I hate sick people, and I’m sure it is most disagreeable to me to meet that woman.
The two o’clock train took her to town, a hansom from Victoria to Chelsea, and she walked up the street thinking of the woman who would open the door to her. There was something about her she didn’t like. But it didn’t matter; she would be shown in at once, and of course left alone with Ralph.... Supposing the woman were to sit there all the while! But it was too late now; she had knocked. I’ve come to see Mr. Hoskin. Feeling that her speech was too abrupt, she added: I hope he is better to-day. Ellen answered that Mr. Hoskin seemed a little better and was in the studio. Etta expected to find him dawdling from easel to easel, and was shocked to catch sight of him in a small iron bed, hardly more than a foot from the floor, his large features wasted by illness. His eyes glowed, and Ellen placed a chair by his bedside, saying that she was going out, but would not be away for more than half an hour. As soon as the door closed, Etta took the thin hand extended to her.
Oh, Ralph, I’m so sorry to find you ill. But you’re better to-day, aren’t you?
Yes, I feel a little better to-day. It was good of you to come.
I came at once, Ralph.
How did you hear I was ill? We’ve not written to each other for a long while.
I heard it in the National. Miss Brand told me.
You know her? I remember, she wrote about the new pictures for an American paper.
Yes; how familiar it sounds; those dear days in the National. Ralph’s eyes were fixed upon her. She could not bear their wistfulness, and she lowered hers, saying: She told me you were ill.
But when did you return from France? Tell me.
About six weeks ago. I fell ill the moment I got back.
What was the matter?
I had overdone it. I had overworked myself. I had let myself get run down. The doctor said that I didn’t eat enough meat; you know, I never did care for meat.
I remember.
When I got better I was ordered to the seaside; then I went on a visit to some friends and didn’t get back to Sutton till Christmas. We had a lot of stupid people staying with us. I couldn’t do any work while they were in the house. When they left I began a picture, but I tried too difficult a subject and got into trouble with my drawing. You said I’d never succeed. I often thought of what you said. Well, then I went to the National. Ethel Brand told me you were ill, that you had been ill for some time, at least a month. A thin smile curled Ralph’s red lips, and his eyes seemed to grow more wistful. I’ve been ill for more than a month, he said. But no matter. Ethel Brand told you, and — ?
Of course I couldn’t stay at the National. I felt I must see you, and my feet turned towards St. James’s Park, to the little bridge where we used to stand talking of painting and each other. She looked at him sideways, so that her bright brown eyes might have all their charm. His pale eyes, wistful and dying, were fixed upon her, not intently as a few moments before, but vaguely, and the thought stirred in her mind that he might die before her eyes. In that event, what was she to do? Are you listening? she said. Oh yes, I’m listening, he answered. His smile was reassuring, and she continued: Suddenly I felt that — that I must see you. I felt I must know what was the matter, so I took a cab and came straight here. Your servant —
You mean Ellen.
I thought she was your servant. She said that you were lying down and couldn’t be disturbed. She didn’t seem to wish me to see you or to know what was the matter.
I was asleep when you called yesterday, but when I heard of your visit I told her to write the letter which you received this morning. It was kind of you to come.
Kind of me to come! You must think badly of me if you think I could have stayed away. But now tell me, Ralph, what does the doctor say? Have you had the best medical advice? Are you in want of anything? Can I do anything? Pray don’t hesitate. You know that I was, that I am, very fond of you, that I would do anything. You have been ill a long while now — what is the matter?
Thank you, dear. Things must take their course. What that course is it is impossible to say. I’ve had excellent medical advice, and Ellen takes care of me.
But what is your illness? Ethel Brand told me that you caught a bad cold about a month ago. Perhaps a specialist —
Yes, I had a bad attack of influenza about a month or six weeks ago, and I hadn’t strength, the doctor said, to recover from it. I have been in bad health for some time. I’ve been disappointed. My painting hasn’t gone very well lately. That was a disappointment; and disappointment, I think, is as often the cause of a man’s death as anything else. The doctors give it a name: influenza, paralysis of the brain, or failure of the heart’s action; but these are the superficial causes of death. There is oftener a deeper reason, one which medical science is unable to take into account.
Oh, Ralph, you mean me! Don’t say that I am the cause. It was not my fault. If I broke my engagement, it was because I knew I could not have made you happy. There’s no reason to be jealous, it wasn’t for any other man. I was really very fond of you. It wasn’t my fault.
No, dear, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. We were not in luck’s way, that’s all.
Etta longed for tears, but her eyes remained dry, and rising from the chair Ellen Gibbs had given her, she wandered round the studio, examining the various canvases. In one, a woman who had just left her bath passed her arms into the sleeves of a long, white wrapper, and Etta admired its naturalness. But she was more interested in the fact that the picture was painted from the woman who had opened the door to her. She sits for the figure and attends on him when he is ill! She must be his mistress; since when, I wonder.
How do you like it, Etta?
&nb
sp; Very much. It is beautifully drawn, so natural and so original. How did you think of that movement? How did you think of it?
I don’t know. She took the pose. I think the movement is all right.
Yes; it is a movement that happens every morning, yet no one thought of it before. How did you think of it?
I don’t know; I asked her to take some poses, and it came like that. I think it is good. I’m glad you like it.
It is very different from the stupid things we draw in the studio.
I told you that you’d do no good by going to France.
I learnt a good deal there. Everybody cannot learn by themselves, as you did. Only genius can do that.
Genius! A few little pictures.... I think I might have done something if I’d had the chance. I should have liked to finish that picture. It is a good beginning. I never did better.
Dearest, you will live to paint your picture. I want you to finish it. I want you to live for my sake. I will buy that picture.
There’s only one thing I should care to live for.
And that you shall have.
Then I’ll try to live. He raised himself a little in bed. His eyes were fixed on her and he tried hard to believe. I’m afraid, he said, it’s too late now. She watched him with the eyes she knew he loved, and though ashamed of the question, she could not put it back: Would you sooner live for me than for that picture?