Here was frankness with a vengeance, and I fell back upon silence, whereupon a pause ensued, to my share of which I imparted the deepest shadow of disapproval within my power. Unfortunately, she did not look at me; my effort passed with no other effect than to make some of my facial muscles ache.
“‘Portrait of Miss E., by George Ward, H. C.,’” this painfully plain-speaking young lady continued presently. “On the line at next spring’s Salon, then packed up for the dear ones at home. I’d as soon own an ‘Art Bronze,’ myself — or a nice, clean porcelain Arab.”
“No doubt you’ve forgotten for the moment,” I said, “that Mr. Ward is my friend.”
“Not in painting, he isn’t,” she returned quickly,
“I consider his work altogether creditable; it’s carefully done, conscientious, effective—”
“Isn’t that true of the ladies in the hairdressers’ windows?” she asked with assumed artlessness. “Can’t you say a kind word for them, good gentleman, and heaven bless you?”
“Why sha’n’t I be asked to Quesnay again?”
She laughed. “You haven’t seemed FANATICALLY appreciative of your opportunities when you have been there; you might have carried her off from Cresson Ingle instead of vice versa. But after all, you AREN’T” — here she paused and looked at me appraisingly for a moment-”you AREN’T the most piratical dash-in-and-dash-out and leave-everything-upside-down-behind-you sort of man, are you?”
“No, I believe I’m not.”
“However, that’s only a SMALL half of the reason,” Miss Elliott went on. “She’s furious on account of this.”
These were vague words, and I said so.
“Oh, THIS,” she explained, “my being here; your letting me come. Impropriety — all of that!” A sharp whistle issued from her lips. “Oh! the EXCORIATING things she’s said of my pursuing you!”
“But doesn’t she know that it’s only part of your siege of Madame Brossard’s; that it’s a subterfuge in the hope of catching a glimpse of Oliver Saffren?”
“No!” she cried, her eyes dancing; “I told her that, but she thinks it’s only a subterfuge in the hope of catching more than a glimpse of you!”
I joined laughter with her then. She was the first to stop, and, looking at me somewhat doubtfully, she said:
“Whereas, the truth is that it’s neither. You know very well that I want to paint.”
“Certainly,” I agreed at once. “Your devotion to ‘your art’ and your hope of spending half an hour at Madame Brossard’s now and then are separable; — which reminds me: Wouldn’t you like me to look at your sketch?”
“No, not yet.” She jumped up and brought her camp-stool over to mine. “I feel that I could better bear what you’ll say of it after I’ve had some lunch. Not a SYLLABLE of food has crossed my lips since coffee at dawn!”
I spread before her what Amedee had prepared; not sandwiches for the pocket to-day, but a wicker hamper, one end of which we let rest upon her knees, the other upon mine, and at sight of the foie gras, the delicate, devilled partridge, the truffled salad, the fine yellow cheese, and the long bottle of good red Beaune, revealed when the cover was off, I could almost have forgiven the old rascal for his scandal-mongering. As for my vis-a-vis, she pronounced it a “maddening sight.”
“Fall to, my merry man,” she added, “and eat your fill of this fair pasty, under the greenwood tree.” Obeying her instructions with right good-will, and the lady likewise evincing no hatred of the viands, we made a cheerful meal of it, topping it with peaches and bunches of grapes.
“It is unfair to let you do all the catering,” said Miss Elliott, after carefully selecting the largest and best peach.
“Jean Ferret’s friend does that,” I returned, watching her rather intently as she dexterously peeled the peach. She did it very daintily, I had to admit that — though I regretted to observe indications of the gourmet in one so young. But when it was peeled clean, she set it on a fresh green leaf, and, to my surprise, gave it to me.
“You see,” she continued, not observing my remorseful confusion, “I couldn’t destroy Elizabeth’s peace of mind and then raid her larder to boot. That poor lady! I make her trouble enough, but it’s nothing to what she’s going to have when she finds out some things that she must find out.”
“What is that?”
“About Mrs. Harman,” was the serious reply. “Elizabeth hasn’t a clue.”
“‘Clue’?” I echoed.
“To Louise’s strange affair.” Miss Elliott’s expression had grown as serious as her tone. “It is strange; the strangest thing I ever knew.”
“But there’s your own case,” I urged. “Why should you think it strange of her to take an interest in Saffren?”
“I adore him, of course,” she said. “He is the most glorious-looking person I’ve ever seen, but on my WORD—” She paused, and as her gaze met mine I saw real earnestness in her eyes. “I’m afraid — I was half joking the other day — but now I’m really afraid Louise is beginning to be in love with him.”
“Oh, mightn’t it be only interest, so far?” I said.
“No, it’s much more. And I’ve grown so fond of her!” the girl went on, her voice unexpectedly verging upon tremulousness. “She’s quite wonderful in her way — such an understanding sort of woman, and generous and kind; there are so many things turning up in a party like ours at Quesnay that show what people are really made of, and she’s a rare, fine spirit. It seems a pity, with such a miserable first experience as she had, that this should happen. Oh I know,” she continued rapidly, cutting off a half-formed protest of mine. “He isn’t mad — and I’m sorry I tried to be amusing about it the night you dined at the chateau. I know perfectly well he’s not insane; but I’m absolutely sure, from one thing and another, that — well — he isn’t ALL THERE! He’s as beautiful as a seraph and probably as good as one, but something is MISSING about him — and it begins to look like a second tragedy for her.”
“You mean, she really—” I began.
“Yes, I do,” she returned, with a catch in her throat. “She conies to my room when the others are asleep. Not that she tells me a great deal, but it’s in the air, somehow; she told me with such a strained sort of gaiety of their meeting and his first joining her; and there was something underneath as if she thought I might be really serious in my ravings about him, and — yes, as if she meant to warn me off. And the other night, when I saw her after their lunching together at Dives, I asked her teasingly if she’d had a happy day, and she laughed the prettiest laugh I ever heard and put her arms around me — then suddenly broke out crying and ran out of the room.”
“But that may have been no more than over-strained nerves,” I feebly suggested.
“Of course it was!” she cried, regarding me with justifiable astonishment. “It’s the CAUSE of their being overstrained that interests me! It’s all so strange and distressing,” she continued more gently, “that I wish I weren’t there to see it. And there’s poor George Ward coming — ah! and when Elizabeth learns of it!”
“Mrs. Harman had her way once, in spite of everything,” I said thoughtfully.
“Yes, she was a headstrong girl of nineteen, then. But let’s not think it could go as far as that! There!” She threw a peach-stone over her shoulder and sprang up gaily. “Let’s not talk of it; I THINK of it enough! It’s time for you to give me a RACKING criticism on my morning’s work.”
Taking off her coat as she spoke, she unbuttoned the cuffs of her manly blouse and rolled up her sleeves as far as they would go, preparations which I observed with some perplexity.
“If you intend any violence,” said I, “in case my views of your work shouldn’t meet your own, I think I’ll be leaving.”
“Wait,” she responded, and kneeling upon one knee beside a bush near by, thrust her arms elbow-deep under the outer mantle of leaves, shaking the stems vigorously, and sending down a shower of sparkling drops. Never lived sane man, or madman, since ti
me began, who, seeing her then, could or would have denied that she made the very prettiest picture ever seen by any person or persons whatsoever — but her purpose was difficult to fathom. Pursuing it, I remarked that it was improbable that birds would be nesting so low.
“It’s for a finger bowl,” she said briskly. And rising, this most practical of her sex dried her hands upon a fresh serviette from the hamper. “Last night’s rain is worth two birds in the bush.”
With that, she readjusted her sleeves, lightly donned her coat, and preceded me to her easel. “Now,” she commanded, “slaughter! It’s what I let you come with me for.”
I looked at her sketch with much more attention than I had given the small board she had used as a bait in the courtyard of Les Trois Pigeons. Today she showed a larger ambition, and a larger canvas as well — or, perhaps I should say a larger burlap, for she had chosen to paint upon something strongly resembling a square of coffee-sacking. But there was no doubt she had “found colour” in a swash-buckling, bullying style of forcing it to be there, whether it was or not, and to “vibrate,” whether it did or not. There was not much to be said, for the violent kind of thing she had done always hushes me; and even when it is well done I am never sure whether its right place is the “Salon des Independants” or the Luxembourg. It SEEMS dreadful, and yet sometimes I fear in secret that it may be a real transition, or even an awakening, and that the men I began with, and I, are standing still. The older men called US lunatics once, and the critics said we were “daring,” but that was long ago.
“Well?” she said.
I had to speak, so I paraphrased a mot of Degas (I think it was Degas) and said:
“If Rousseau could come to life and see this sketch of yours, I imagine he would be very much interested, but if he saw mine he might say, ‘That is my fault!’”
“OH!” she cried, her colour rising quickly; she looked troubled for a second, then her eyes twinkled. “You’re not going to let my work make a difference between us, are you?”
“I’ll even try to look at it from your own point of view,” I answered, stepping back several yards to see it better, though I should have had to retire about a quarter of the length of a city block to see it quite from her own point of view.
She moved with me, both of us walking backward. I began:
“For a day like this, with all the colour in the trees themselves and so very little in the air—”
There came an interruption, a voice of unpleasant and wiry nasality, speaking from behind us.
“WELL, WELL!” it said. “So here we are again!”
I faced about and beheld, just emerged from a by-path, a fox-faced young man whose light, well-poised figure was jauntily clad in gray serge, with scarlet waistcoat and tie, white shoes upon his feet, and a white hat, gaily beribboned, upon his head. A recollection of the dusky road and a group of people about Pere Baudry’s lamplit door flickered across my mind.
“The historical tourist!” I exclaimed. “The highly pedestrian tripper from Trouville!”
“You got me right, m’dear friend,” he replied with condescension; “I rec’leck meetin’ you perfect.”
“And I was interested to learn,” said I, carefully observing the effect of my words upon him, “that you had been to Les Trois Pigeons after all. Perhaps I might put it, you had been through Les Trois Pigeons, for the maitre d’hotel informed me you had investigated every corner — that wasn’t locked.”
“Sure,” he returned, with rather less embarrassment than a brazen Vishnu would have exhibited under the same circumstances. “He showed me what pitchers they was in your studio. I’ll luk ’em over again fer ye one of these days. Some of ’em was right gud.”
“You will be visiting near enough for me to avail myself of the opportunity?”
“Right in the Pigeon House, m’friend. I’ve just come down t’putt in a few days there,” he responded coolly. “They’s a young feller in this neighbourhood I take a kind o’ fam’ly interest in.”
“Who is that?” I asked quickly.
For answer he produced the effect of a laugh by widening and lifting one side of his mouth, leaving the other, meantime, rigid.
“Don’ lemme int’rup’ the conv’sation with yer lady-friend,” he said winningly. “What they call ‘talkin’ High Arts,’ wasn’t it? I’d like to hear some.”
CHAPTER XVI
MISS ELLIOTT’S EXPRESSION, when I turned to observe the effect of the intruder upon her, was found to be one of brilliant delight. With glowing eyes, her lips parted in a breathless ecstasy, she gazed upon the newcomer, evidently fearing to lose a syllable that fell from his lips. Moving closer to me she whispered urgently:
“Keep him. Oh, keep him!”
To detain him, for a time at least, was my intention, though my motive was not merely to afford her pleasure. The advent of the young man had produced a singularly disagreeable impression upon me, quite apart from any antagonism I might have felt toward him as a type. Strange suspicions leaped into my mind, formless — in the surprise of the moment — but rapidly groping toward definite outline; and following hard upon them crept a tingling apprehension. The reappearance of this rattish youth, casual as was the air with which he strove to invest it, began to assume, for me, the character of a theatrical entrance of unpleasant portent — a suggestion just now enhanced by an absurdly obvious notion of his own that he was enacting a part. This was written all over him, most legibly in his attitude of the knowing amateur, as he surveyed Miss Elliott’s painting patronisingly, his head on one side, his cane in the crook of his elbows behind his back, and his body teetering genteelly as he shifted his weight from his toes to his heels and back again, nodding meanwhile a slight but judicial approbation.
“Now, about how much,” he said slowly, “would you expec’ t’ git f’r a pitcher that size?”
“It isn’t mine,” I informed him.
“You don’t tell me it’s the little lady’s — what?” He bowed genially and favoured Miss Elliott with a stare of warm admiration. “Pretty a thing as I ever see,” he added.
“Oh,” she cried with an ardour that choked her slightly. “THANK you!”
“Oh, I meant the PITCHER!” he said hastily, evidently nonplussed by a gratitude so fervent.
The incorrigible damsel cast down her eyes in modesty. “And I had hoped,” she breathed, “something so different!”
I could not be certain whether or not he caught the whisper; I thought he did. At all events, the surface of his easy assurance appeared somewhat disarranged; and, perhaps to restore it by performing the rites of etiquette, he said:
“Well, I expec’ the smart thing now is to pass the cards, but mine’s in my grip an’ it ain’t unpacked yet. The name you’d see on ’em is Oil Poicy.”
“Oil Poicy,” echoed Miss Elliott, turning to me in genuine astonishment.
“Mr. Earl Percy,” I translated.
“Oh, RAPTUROUS!” she cried, her face radiant. “And WON’T Mr. Percy give us his opinion of my Art?”
Mr. Percy was in doubt how to take her enthusiasm; he seemed on the point of turning surly, and hesitated, while a sharp vertical line appeared on his small forehead; but he evidently concluded, after a deep glance at her, that if she was making game of him it was in no ill-natured spirit — nay, I think that for a few moments he suspected her liveliness to be some method of her own for the incipient stages of a flirtation.
Finally he turned again to the easel, and as he examined the painting thereon at closer range, amazement overspread his features. However, pulling himself together, he found himself able to reply — and with great gallantry:
“Well, on’y t’ think them little hands cud ‘a’ done all that rough woik!”
The unintended viciousness of this retort produced an effect so marked, that, except for my growing uneasiness, I might have enjoyed her expression.
As it was, I saved her face by entering into the conversation with a question, which I put quickly:
“You intend pursuing your historical researches in the neighborhood?”
The facial contortion which served him for a laugh, and at the same time as a symbol of unfathomable reserve, was repeated, accompanied by a jocose manifestation, in the nature of a sharp and taunting cackle, which seemed to indicate a conviction that he was getting much the best of it in some conflict of wits.
“Them fairy tales I handed you about ole Jeanne d’Arc and William the Conker,” he said, “say, they must ‘a’ made you sore after-WOIDS!”
“On the contrary, I was much interested in everything pertaining to your too brief visit,” I returned; “I am even more so now.”
“Well, m’friend” — he shot me a sidelong, distrustful glance— “keep yer eyes open.”
“That is just the point!” I laughed, with intentional significance, for I meant to make Mr. Percy talk as much as I could. To this end, remembering that specimens of his kind are most indiscreet when carefully enraged, I added, simulating his own manner:
“Eyes open — and doors locked! What?”
At this I heard a gasp of astonishment from Miss Elliott, who must have been puzzled indeed; but I was intent upon the other. He proved perfectly capable of being insulted.
“I guess they ain’t much need o’ lockin’ YOUR door,” he retorted darkly; “not from what I saw when I was in your studio!” He should have stopped there, for the hit was palpable and justified; but in his resentment he overdid it. “You needn’t be scared of anybody’s cartin’ off THEM pitchers, young feller! WHOOSH! An’ f’m the luks of the CLO’ES I saw hangin’ on the wall,” he continued, growing more nettled as I smiled cheerfully upon him, “I don’ b’lieve you gut any worries comin’ about THEM, neither!”
“I suppose our tastes are different,” I said, letting my smile broaden. “There might be protection in that.”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 105