Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  The room was charming — not like the studio, but modern and fresh and dainty with chintz and flowered wall-paper and the graceful white furniture of a bed-room. There was a flowered screen there, too. Behind it stood a chair, and onto this she sank, laid her hands for an instant against her burning face, then stooped and, scarcely knowing what she was about, began to untie her patent-leather shoes.

  He remained standing at his easel, very busy with his string and lump of charcoal; but after a while it occurred to him that she was taking an annoyingly long time about a simple matter.

  “What on earth is the trouble?” he called. “Do you realise you’ve been in there a quarter of an hour?”

  She made no answer. A second later he thought he heard an indistinct sound — and it disquieted him.

  “Miss West?”

  There was no reply.

  Impatient, a little disturbed, he walked across to the folding doors; and the same low, suppressed sound caught his ear.

  “What in the name of—” he began, walking into the room; and halted, amazed.

  She sat all huddled together behind the screen, partly undressed, her face hidden in her hands; and between the slender fingers tears ran down brightly.

  “Are you ill?” he asked, anxiously.

  After a moment she slowly shook her head.

  “Then — what in the name of Mike—”

  “P-please forgive me. I — I will be ready in a in-moment — if you wouldn’t mind going out—”

  “Are you ill? Answer me?”

  “N-no.”

  “Has anything disturbed you so that you don’t feel up to posing to-day?”

  “No…. I — am — almost ready — if you will go out—”

  He considered her, uneasy and perplexed. Then:

  “All right,” he said, briefly. “Take your own time, Miss West.”

  At his easel, fussing with yard-stick and crayon, he began to square off his canvas, muttering to himself:

  “What the deuce is the matter with that girl? Nice moment to nurse secret sorrows or blighted affections. There’s always something wrong with the best lookers…. And she is a real beauty — or I miss my guess.” He went on ruling off, measuring, grumbling, until slowly there came over him the sense of the nearness of another person. He had not heard her enter, but he turned around, knowing she was there.

  She stood silent, motionless, as though motion terrified her and inertia were salvation. Her dark hair rippled to her waist; her white arms hung limp, yet the fingers had curled till every delicate nail was pressed deep into the pink palm. She was trying to look at him. Her face was as white as a flower.

  “All right,” he said under his breath, “you’re practically faultless. I suppose you realise it!”

  A scarcely perceptible shiver passed over her entire body, then, as he stepped back, his keen artist’s gaze narrowing, there stole over her a delicate flush, faintly staining her from brow to ankle, transfiguring the pallour exquisitely, enchantingly. And her small head drooped forward, shadowed by her hair.

  “You’re what I want,” he said. “You’re about everything I require in colour and form and texture.”

  She neither spoke nor moved as much as an eyelash.

  “Look here, Miss West,” he said in a slightly excited voice, “let’s go about this thing intelligently.” He swung another easel on its rollers, displaying a sketch in soft, brilliant colours — a multitude of figures amid a swirl of sunset-tinted clouds and patches of azure sky.

  “You’re intelligent,” he went on with animation,— “I saw that — somehow or other — though you haven’t said very much.” He laughed, and laid his hand on the painted canvas beside him:

  “You’re a model, and it’s not necessary to inform you that this Is only a preliminary sketch. Your experience tells you that. But it is necessary to tell you that it’s the final composition. I’ve decided on this arrangement for the ceiling: You see for yourself that you’re perfectly fitted to stand or sit for all these floating, drifting, cloud-cradled goddesses. You’re an inspiration in yourself — for the perfections of Olympus!” he added, laughing, “and that’s no idle compliment. But of course other artists have often told you this before — as though you didn’t have eyes of your own I And beautiful ones at that!” He laughed again, turned and dragged a two-storied model-stand across the floor, tossed up one or two silk cushions, and nodded to her.

  “Don’t be afraid; it’s rickety but safe. It will hold us both. Are you ready?”

  As in a dream she set one little bare foot on the steps, mounted, balancing with arms extended and the tips of her fingers resting on his outstretched hand.

  Standing on the steps he arranged the cushions, told her where to be seated, how to recline, placed the wedges and blocks to support her feet, chalked the bases, marked positions with arrows, and wedged and blocked up her elbow. Then he threw over her a soft, white, wool robe, swathing her from throat to feet, descended the steps, touched an electric bell, and picking up a huge clean palette began to squeeze out coils of colour from a dozen plump tubes.

  Presently a short, squarely built man entered. He wore a blue jumper; there were traces of paint on it, on his large square hands, on his square, serious face.

  “O’Hara?”

  “Sorr?”

  “We’re going to begin now! — thank Heaven. So if you’ll be kind enough to help move forward the ceiling canvas—”

  O’Hara glanced up carelessly at the swathed and motionless figure above, then calmly spat upon his hands and laid hold of one side of the huge canvas indicated. The painter took the other side.

  “Now, O’Hara, careful! Back off a little! — don’t let it sway! There — that’s where I want it. Get a ladder and clamp the tops. Pitch it a little forward — more! — stop! Fix those pully ropes; I’ll make things snug below.”

  [Illustration: “‘Now, Miss West,’ he said decisively.”]

  For ten minutes they worked deftly, rapidly, making fast the great blank canvas which had been squared and set with an enormous oval in heavy outline.

  From her lofty eyrie she looked down at them as in a dream while they shifted other enormous framed canvases and settled the oval one into place. Everything below seemed to be on rubber wheels or casters, easels, stepladders, colour cabinets, even the great base where the oval set canvas rested.

  She looked up at the blue sky. Sparrows dropped out of the brilliant void into unseen canons far below from whence came the softened roar of traffic. Northward the city spread away between its rivers, glittering under the early April sun; the Park lay like a grey and green map set with, the irregular silver of water; beyond, the huge unfinished cathedral loomed dark against the big white hospital of St. Luke; farther still a lilac-tinted haze hung along the edges of the Bronx.

  “All right, O’Hara. Much obliged. I won’t need you again.”

  “Very good, Sorr.”

  The short, broad Irishman went out with another incurious glance aloft, and closed the outer door.

  High up on her perch she watched the man below. He calmly removed coat and waistcoat, pulled a painter’s linen blouse over his curly head, lighted a cigarette, picked up his palette, fastened a tin cup to the edge, filled it from a bottle, took a handful of brushes and a bunch of cheese cloth, and began to climb up a stepladder opposite her, lugging his sketch in the other hand.

  He fastened the little sketch to an upright and stood on the ladder halfway up, one leg higher than the other.

  “Now, Miss West,” he said decisively.

  At the sound of his voice fear again leaped through her like a flame, burning her face as she let slip the white wool robe.

  “All right,” he said. “Don’t move while I’m drawing unless you have to.”

  She could see him working. He seemed to be drawing with a brush, rapidly, and with, a kind of assurance that appeared almost careless.

  At first she could make out little of the lines. They were all dark in ti
nt, thin, tinged with plum colour. There seemed to be no curves in them — and at first she could not comprehend that he was drawing her figure. But after a little while curves appeared; long delicate outlines began to emerge as rounded surfaces in monochrome, casting definite shadows on other surfaces. She could recognise the shape of a human head; saw it gradually become a colourless drawing; saw shoulders, arms, a body emerging into shadowy shape; saw the long fine limbs appear, the slender indication of feet.

  Then flat on the cheek lay a patch of brilliant colour, another on the mouth. A great swirl of cloud forms sprang into view high piled in a corner of the canvas.

  And now he seemed to be eternally running up and down his ladder, shifting it here and there across the vast white background of canvas, drawing great meaningless lines in distant expanses of the texture, then, always consulting her with his keen, impersonal gaze, he pushed back his ladder, mounted, wiped the big brushes, selected others smaller and flatter, considering her in penetrating silence between every brush, stroke.

  She saw a face and hair growing lovely under her eyes, bathed in an iris-tinted light; saw little exquisite flecks of colour set here and there on the white expanse; watched all so intently, so wonderingly, that the numbness of her body became a throbbing pain before she was aware that she was enduring torture.

  She strove to move, gave a little gasp; and he was down from his ladder and up on hers before her half-paralysed body had swayed to the edge of danger.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” he asked, sharply. “I can’t keep track of time when I’m working!”

  With arms and fingers that scarcely obeyed her she contrived to gather the white wool covering around her shoulders and limbs and lay back.

  “You know,” he said, “that it’s foolish to act this way. I don’t want to kill you, Miss West.”

  She only lowered her head amid its lovely crown of hair.

  “You know your own limits,” he said, resentfully. He looked down at the big clock: “It’s a full hour. You had only to speak. Why didn’t you?”

  “I — I didn’t know what to say.”

  “Didn’t know!” He paused, astonished. Then: “Well, you felt yourself getting numb, didn’t you?”

  “Y-yes. But I thought it was — to be expected” — she blushed vividly under his astonished gaze: “I think I had better tell you that — that this is — the first time.”

  “The first time!”

  “Yes…. I ought to have told you. I was afraid you might not want me.”

  “Lord above!” he breathed. “You poor — poor little thing!”

  She began to cry silently; he saw the drops fall shining on the white wool robe, and leaned one elbow on the ladder, watching them. After a while they ceased, but she still held her head low, and her face was bent in the warm shadow of her hair.

  “How could I understand?” he asked very gently.

  “I — should have told you. I was afraid.”

  He said: “I’m terribly sorry. It must have been perfect torture for you to undress — to come into the studio. If you’d only given me an idea of how matters stood I could have made it a little easier. I’m afraid I was brusque — taking it for granted that you were a model and knew your business…. I’m terribly sorry.”

  She lifted her head, looked at him, with the tears still clinging to her lashes.

  “You have been very nice to me. It is all my own fault.”

  He smiled. “Then it’s all right, now that we understand. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You make a stunning model,” he said frankly.

  “Do I? Then you will let me come again?”

  “Let you!” He laughed; “I’ll be more likely to beg you.”

  “Oh, you won’t have to,” she said; “I’ll come as long as you want me.”

  “That is simply angelic of you. Tell me, do you wish to descend to terra firma?”

  She glanced below, doubtfully:

  “N-no, thank you. If I could only stretch my — legs—”

  “Stretch away,” he said, much amused, “but don’t tumble off and break into pieces. I like you better as you are than as an antique and limbless Venus.”

  She cautiously and daintily extended first one leg then the other under the wool robe, then eased the cramped muscles of her back, straightening her body and flexing her arms with a little sigh of relief. As her shy sidelong gaze reverted to him she saw to her relief that he was not noticing her. A slight sense of warmth, suffused her body, and she stretched herself again, more confidently, and ventured to glance around.

  “Speaking of terms,” he said in an absent way, apparently preoccupied with the palette which he was carefully scraping, “do you happen to know what is the usual recompense for a model’s service?”

  She said that she had heard, and added with quick diffidence that she could not expect so much, being only a beginner.

  He polished the surface of the palette with a handful of cheese cloth:

  “Don’t you think that you are worth it?”

  “How can I be until I know how to pose for you?”

  “You will never have to learn how to pose, Miss West.”

  “I don’t know exactly what you mean.”

  “I mean that some models never learn. Some know how already — you, for example.”

  She flushed slightly: “Do you really mean that?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t. It’s merely necessary for you to accustom yourself to holding a pose; the rest you already know instinctively.”

  “What is the rest?” she ventured to ask. “I don’t quite understand what you see in me—”

  “Well,” he said placidly, “you are beautifully made. That is nine-tenths of the matter. Your head is set logically on your neck, and your neck is correctly placed on your spine, and your legs and arms are properly attached to your torso — your entire body, anatomically speaking, is hinged, hung, supported, developed as the ideal body should be. It’s undeformed, unmarred, unspoiled, and that’s partly luck, partly inheritance, and mostly decent habits and digestion.”

  She was listening intently, interested, surprised, her pink lips slightly parted.

  “Another point,” he continued; “you seem unable to move or rest ungracefully. Few women are so built that an ungraceful motion is impossible for them. You are one of the few. It’s all a matter of anatomy.”

  She remained silent, watching him curiously.

  He said: “But the final clincher to your qualifications is that you are intelligent. I have known pretty women,” he added with, sarcasm, “who were not what learned men would call precisely intelligent. But you are. I showed you my sketch, indicated in a general way what I wanted, and instinctively and intelligently you assumed the proper attitude. I didn’t have to take you by the chin and twist your head as though you were a lay figure; I didn’t have to pull you about and flex and bend and twist you. You knew that I wanted you to look like some sort of an ethereal immortality, deliciously relaxed, adrift in sunset clouds. And you were it — somehow or other.”

  She looked down, thoughtfully, nestling to the chin in the white wool folds. A smile, almost imperceptible, curved her lips.

  “You are making it very easy for me,” she said.

  “You make it easy for yourself.”

  “I was horribly afraid,” she said thoughtfully.

  “I have no doubt of it.”

  “Oh, you don’t know — nobody can know — no man can understand the terror of — of the first time—”

  “It must be a ghastly experience.”

  “It is! — I don’t mean that you have not done everything to make it easier — but — there in the little room — my courage left me — I almost died. I’d have run away only — I was afraid you wouldn’t let me—”

  He began to laugh; she tried to, but the terror of it all was as yet too recent.

  “At first,” she said, “I was afraid I wouldn’t do for a model — not e
xactly afraid of my — my appearance, but because I was a novice; and I imagined that one had to know exactly how to pose—”

  “I think,” he interrupted smilingly, “that you might take the pose again if you are rested. Go on talking; I don’t mind it.”

  She sat erect, loosened the white wool robe and dropped it from her with less consciousness and effort than before. Very carefully she set her feet on the blocks, fitting the shapely heels to the chalked outlines; found the mark for her elbow, adjusted her slim, smooth body and looked at him, flushing.

  “All right,” he said briefly; “go ahead and talk to me.”

  “Do you wish me to?”

  “Yes; I’d rather.”

  “I don’t know exactly what to say.”

  “Say anything,” he returned absently, selecting a flat brush with a very long handle.

  She thought a moment, then, lifting her eyes:

  “I might ask you your name.”

  “What? Don’t you know it? Oh, Lord! Oh, Vanity! I thought you’d heard of me.”

  She blushed, confused by her ignorance and what she feared was annoyance on his part; then perceived that he was merely amused; and her face cleared.

  “We folk who create concrete amusement for the public always imagine ourselves much better known to that public than we are, Miss West. It’s our little vanity — rather harmless after all. We’re a pretty decent lot, sometimes absurd, especially in our tragic moments; sometimes emotional, usually illogical, often impulsive, frequently tender-hearted as well as supersensitive.

  “Now it was a pleasant little vanity for me to take it for granted that somehow you had heard of me and had climbed twelve flights of stairs for the privilege of sitting for me.”

  He laughed so frankly that the shy, responsive smile made her face enchanting; and he coolly took advantage of it, and while exciting and stimulating it, affixed it immortally on the exquisite creature he was painting.

  “So you didn’t climb those twelve flights solely for the privilege of having me paint you?”

  “No,” she admitted, laughingly, “I was merely going to begin at the top and apply for work all the way down until somebody took me — or nobody took me.”