Complete weird tales of.., p.1305
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1305
The big Irishman studied the younger man with keen, kindly eyes. He knew what Leeds’s frieze really was — a piece of work that for sheer inspired beauty had not its equal in modern mural art. He knew — even his artisans knew. And he knew, also, that in this fifth essay, a young man, of whom the public had already heard, was stepping half unconsciously into the highest place in the Western world of art. All this McManus was shrewdly aware of, and he was aware, too, that Leeds was more or less conscious of it, and that Thorne was utterly unconscious that, in his new house, the golden ballroom already contained the mural masterpiece of the twentieth century — an exquisite, gay riot of color and design, so lovely, so fresh, that, concealed under the miracle of its simplicity, the marvelous technical perfections of color, drawing, and composition were almost unnoticed in the blinding brilliancy of the ensemble.
“Did that red-necked madman say he’d rip it out?” inquired McManus, his fiery blue eyes aglitter.
“That’s what he said. I don’t know whether the work is good or bad; I’m two years stale on it. I could paint a better one now. But if he holds me to the letter of the contract and throws back two years’ work on my hands, what can I do? I — I never imagined he was that sort of a man; I knew he didn’t care much for painting — his architects got him to give me the work — my first commission that promised any profit—”
Something tightened in his throat, and he turned his head sharply to the window of the corridor.
“Arrah, thin,” said McManus hastily, “don’t be frettin’. G’wan, now, an’ paint like the divil. Give him anny ould thing f’r to ploog the key. Sure, ’tis his fri’nds will tell him fasht enough the bargain he’s got in a frieze — a frieze, begob! that no man twixt the two poles can paint like you! — an’ that’s the truth, Misther Leeds, though ye don’t know it, bein’ modestlike an’ misthrustin’ av the powers God sinds ye. Ploog him up with a key panel — anny ould daub, I tell ye! — f’r to clinch the contract come pay-day! An’ I’ll set it accordin’ to conthract Thursday cornin’; an’ afther he’s opened his big gilt house to the millionaires he consorts with, an’ afther the bunch has christened their muddy wits with the j’yful juice, go to him quietlike, yer foot in yer hand an’ the tongue in the cheek o’ ye, an’ say modestlike: ‘Wisha, sorr, me mastherpiece is not quite to me likin’; an’ I’m thinkin’ to add a few millions to its value wid a stroke av a badger brush.’”
The big Irishman laughed heartily and laid an enormous paw on Leeds’s shoulder — a gesture so kindly that the familiarity seemed without offense.
“Phwat does the like o’ youse care for Mr. Thorne an’ his big red neck an’ the pants o’ him wid the creases, an’ his collar buttoned by his valley? F’r all his scarf pin an’ his shiny shoes an’ his Thrust Company an’ his millions, I seen a bit of a lass give him the frozen face an hour ago.” Leeds looked up curiously.
“Arrah, thin, that’s what crazed him. I was there in his office discoorsin’ on conthracts, pwhen the dure opened an’ a young lady sthepped in not seein’ me pwhere I sat behind the dure.
“‘Naida!’ sez he, joompin’ up, the Burrgundy flush on the face an’ neck av him.
“‘I came to tell you that I can’t do it,’ sez she, her purty face like a rose in blush. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sez, ‘but I thought you ought to be told, an’ I drove downtown in a hurry,’ sez she, ‘f’r to tell you,’ she sez, ‘that I was not in me right mind when you asked me to marry you,’ sez she. ‘So I’m sorry — I’m so sorry,’ she sez, ‘an’ good-by!’ an’ wid that the breath stopped in her an’ she gulped, scairtlike.
“‘Phwat!’ sez he, bitin’ the worrud in two halves. An’ she gulped an’ shook her head.
“Wid that he began in a wild way, clane forgettin’ me in the corner, me hat on me two knees; an’ the young lady was a bit wild, too, bein’ very young an’ excited; an’ there they had it like John Drew an’ his leadin’ lady — quietlike an’ soft-spoken, but turrible as a dress-shirt drama, till she said: ‘No! No! No!’ wid a little sob, an’ out o’ the dure an’ off, he afther her. Sorra the sight av her he got, with Farren hunting her, an’ himself ridin’ up an’ down in the cages when the porther tould him she’d dodged an’ gone up to the top floor.”
“So that was why he was so ugly,” said Leeds curiously.
“It was. He was smooth enough till the lass came in an’ left him her sweet little mitten. But whin he came back, red as a bottle o’ Frinch wine, an’ the two eyes o’ him like black holes burnt in a blanket — save us! All that was close an’ hard an’ mean an’ sly an’ bitter an’ miserly came out in the man, an’ the way he talked to me av honest work done wud stir the neck hair on a fightin’ pup. I was wild; but I sez to meself, lave him talk his talk; it’s all wan on pay-day. An’ so it is, Misther Leeds; it is so. G’wan into ye’re workshop, an’ shpit on ye’re hands, an’ we’ll ploog that key space by 5 P.M., come Thursday, bad cess to the bad, an’ luck to the likes of us, glory be!” Leeds stood half inside his threshold, the edge of the open door grasped in his hand, gazing thoughtfully at the floor.
“All right, McManus,” he said quietly; “I’ll do what I can to save my bread, but” — he looked straight at the Irishman— “it’s bitter bread we learn to eat sometimes — we who are employed.”
“Troth, I’ve swallyed worse nor that; I have so, Misther Leeds. Bide the time, sorr. An’ phwin it comes! — paste him wan.”
“Oh, I’ll have forgotten him by that time,” said Leeds, laughing, as McManus, with a significant and powerful gesture, turned on his broad heel and strode off toward his own rooms, where Kenna, his partner, had been making frantic signals to him for the last five minutes.
Leeds entered his studio, the Ghost of Chance at his heels, closing the door behind him. Through the golden gloom of the room his huge picture loomed up, somber in the subdued light; an aromatic odor of wet colors and siccatif hung in the air.
First, he laid aside his overcoat and hat, unhooked from a door peg a short painting blouse and pulled it over his head; then he moved about briskly, opening ventilators to air the place, manipulating the curtains for top and side lights, dragging the carved mahogany model stand into the position marked by the chalk crosses on the polished floor. Presently he touched a spring; the top shade rolled up with a click; a flood of pure north light fell upon the gorgeous colors of the canvas. He began to adjust the delicate machinery of the complex easel, turning a silver screw to regulate the pitch of the heavy canvas, twisting a cogwheel here, a lever there, until he had brought that part of the canvas within reach whereon he expected to work.
He was one of those modest, dissatisfied young men who can never be content with the work done, perfectly aware of possibilities not yet attained, willing to try for them, vaguely confident of attaining them; a young man who would go far — had gone far — farther than he realized. Yet, although the critics were joyously bellowing his praises as the coming man, his work so far had barely given him a living.
He required great surfaces to cover, and the beauty of the results was apparent in the new marble library, the Hotel Oneida, the Theater Regent, and the new Brooklyn Academy of Music. Superb color, faultless taste, vigor, delicacy — all were his. The technique that sticks out like dry bones, the spineless lack of construction, fads, pitiful eccentricities to cover inability — nothing of these had ever, even in his student days, threatened him with the pitfall of common disaster. Nor was there in his work the faintest hint of physical weakness — nothing unwholesome, smug, suggestive — nothing sugary, nothing insincerely brutal; perhaps because he was a very normal young man, inclined to normal pleasures, and worldly enough to conform to the civilized code outside the barriers of which genius is popularly supposed to pasture.
And still, with all this, he had been paid so little for his work heretofore, and to produce his work had cost him so much in materials and in model and studio hire, that he scarcely knew how to make both ends meet in the most cruelly expensive metropolis of all the world.
For the first time, when approached by Thorne, he had dared name a price for his work which might give him a decent profit when the last brush stroke was laid on; and, while Thorne’s big new house slowly rose, stone on stone, overlooking the Park, he had worked on the frieze of life-size figures — two hundred in all — which was to complete the golden ballroom with an exquisite, springlike garland of youth and loveliness.
He had accepted Thorne’s cut-throat, cast-iron contract with the deadly time clause; he had used up every second of time, shirking nothing, sparing no expense; making life-size study after study, scintillating with a cleverness that would not only have satisfied but turned the heads of ninety-nine painters in a hundred. But he was the hundredth.
He had given himself just time to complete his work and say: “I can do no better. I have done all that was in me.” But, though he had foreseen trouble and delay from models, and the dozens of vexations artists fall heir to, he could not have foreseen that a young girl he never heard of should, at a critical moment, bring out a side of Thorne’s character he did not suspect existed in him — the sharp, ugly brutality of wounded arrogance, which vents itself where opportunity offers; the fiercely sullen desire to hurt, to stamp its power upon those who have no defense.
And now, with the entire frieze all but completed, the man had suddenly snarled at him — for no reason on earth save a willingness to crush and dominate. There was not a day of grace named in the contract; there was no grace to be expected from Thorne, who cared no more for the frieze that hid part of his golden-lacquered paneling than for the gilded sconces below. If one or the other did not suit him, he’d tear them out without a word and cover the raw space with ten thousand dollars’ worth of hothouse roses for his housewarming. Leeds understood that. He was beginning to appreciate the man. He must try to beat him.
He stood there confronting his defaced picture, examining it as keenly as a physician might inspect an interesting phase of human misfortune, pondering the remedy. And, as he stood, silent, preoccupied, his telephone bell rang, and he stepped to the receiver.
“Hello! Is this the Models’ League?”
* * * *
“Yes, James Leeds. Yes, I wanted a model with red hair, if possible, and good limbs.”
* * * *
“Well, that can’t be helped. Send any model as close to Miss Clancey’s type as you can. Send her now. She’s to take a cab. I’m in a desperate hurry.”
* * * *
“Yes, Miss Clancey is ill. — I want a girl of her type, but don’t waste time — hunting. Send me somebody at once.”
* * * *
“All right.... Good-by!”
He hung up the receiver, walked back to his canvas, and began to set a huge ivory-faced palette table, squeezing out tube after tube of color, rainbow fashion, ending in a curly mass of silver white. Then he uncorked a jar of turpentine, filled a bowl with it, and began searching among twisted tubes and scrapers for an ivory palette knife, whistling thoughtfully the while.
A slight sound behind one of the great screens attracted his attention, and he glanced up. Nothing stirred. He sorted some paint rags, and picked up a bottle of drying medium. As he held it to the light, again a sudden sound came from the screen; he turned squarely, surprised, and the same instant a girl stepped out and raised a pair of very lovely and frightened eyes to his.
“Do you want a model?” she asked sweetly, but unsteadily. “Because, if you do—”
“Good Heavens!” he said, exasperated. “Have you been behind that screen all this time while I’ve been telephoning for a model?”
“Ye-s. I — I came in. I heard you.”
“But why didn’t you come out? Why on earth—”
“I think I was a trifle frightened.”
“Oh!... I see... you have never before posed?”
“Never. I — I really have not made up my mind to pose now. I suppose I had better do — do something. I’ve — the fact is, I’ve got to do something to earn my living.”
She was red-haired, white-skinned, blue-eyed, shod and gloved to perfection, and plainly scared. He looked at her from head to foot.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, delighted, “you are a sort of God-sent miracle. Whether you mean to pose or not for a living, I want you to pose for me to-day. Don’t be frightened; sit down here in this chair. I’m in desperate need of somebody. Won’t you help me?”
She looked at him in breathless silence.
“Won’t you please sit here — just a moment?” he said.
She bent her head a trifle, and moved forward to the offered chair with a grace that claimed his instant and serious attention. But he had no time to wonder or speculate on the reasons ‘for such a woman with such a presence being in his studio to seek employment; he took a chair opposite, scrutinizing her fresh young beauty with frank approval. Indeed, he heartily approved of everything about her — the masses of red-gold hair, the lovely azure-tinted eyes, the wonderfully paintable white skin.
“Your coloring — your figure — your hands are beautiful,” he said slowly. “I can give you all day to-day, and I’ll take all the time you can give me to-morrow. You see, that canvas must be finished to-day, be dry by to-morrow, and be delivered Thursday. Tell me, is it only head and shoulders and costume, or will you pose without drapery for—”
A bright flush stained her face. “I — I am not a model!” she stammered.
“Not a model,” he repeated blankly. “Oh, no, of course not — I forgot.”
“Did you — do I look like—” Words failed her; she glanced appalled at the canvas, then straight at him, self-possessed again, but paler.
“I can’t help what you think of me,” she said. “I am perfectly aware of my indiscretion — but your door was open and this — this is my hour of need.”
“Certainly,” he said, soothingly, “I see—”
“No, you don’t see! I came in here to — to hide! By and by I shall go out.” She sat up very straight. “I am determined,” she said, “to remain concealed here until I can leave this building without annoyance. May I?” She ended so sweetly, so piteously, that Leeds caught his breath in astonishment.
“So — may I stay here for a while?”
“Well, there’s a model coming to pose for that figure — if you refuse to pose—”
“Which figure?” demanded the girl.
“That one on the left — the one that is scraped down.”
“You mean that I couldn’t stay here while you painted?”
“I don’t believe you would care to. You wouldn’t bother me, but I don’t think you’d care to.”
“Why?” The blue eyes met his so purely, so fearlessly, that he gave her a frank and gentle answer.
“Oh! Then — then hadn’t you better dismiss your model for the day?” she said, “because I’ve got to stay.”
“But I can’t. The paint on that canvas is exactly in the right condition, neither too wet nor too dry. I’ve simply got to use a drier, and paint on it now. That picture must be dry to-morrow.”
“Must it — truly?”
“It certainly must!”
The girl rose, stood for a moment nervously twisting her veil up over her hat; then: “But I can’t go! You don’t understand. I’ve — I’ve run away!”
“Run away! From whom?”
“Somebody,” she said vaguely, looking about the room. Suddenly he remembered the story McManus told. And he spoke of it, watching her curiously.
“Exactly,” she said, nodding her pretty head, while the tint of excitement deepened on her cheeks, “I ran away from him! You know who I am, don’t you? You know my sister, anyhow.”
She hesitated, searching his face; then impulsively: “I usually decide all matters very quickly!” She made an impatient little gesture and seated herself, looking up at him with bright eyes and heightened color: “For three months I’ve stood it—”
“Stood what?”
“Being engaged. I had not really thought much about it — we’re usually indifferent and obedient in my family — and no doubt I’d have gone on and married just as my sisters have — if something had not happened.” She dropped her head, looking thoughtfully at the floor. Then: “I simply could not stand him, Mr. Leeds; I woke up this morning, understanding that I couldn’t marry him. I was so excited — and dreadfully afraid of telling him — and I was so sorry for my mother, but I couldn’t do it; I knew that, and it was time he knew, too.
“So I told my mother, and there was trouble, and I went out and found a cab and drove here as fast as I could, and I said: ‘Mr. Thorne, I cannot do it!’ You know what I said. That Irishman told you Leeds nodded.
“So that’s all; I simply ran away from him; and I won’t go home and live on my mother, because we are as poor as mice and rabbits, and if I don’t marry Mr. Thorne my mother will probably expire of mortification, and if I don’t marry at all by Monday next, I’ll lose what my grandfather left me in a horrid will, which forces me to marry before I’m twenty-one — and that’s next Monday. All my sisters did it — Mrs. Egerton, and Mrs. Clay-Dwyning, and another you don’t know. But I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! And my mother will probably starve unless I earn our living, so I’d better begin at once.”
“I think you had, too,” said Leeds gravely.
“Oh, I thought of that when I was running away from Mr. Thorne; and when he came up in one elevator, I came down; and when he came down I went up, and I turned into the first corridor I saw, and entered somebody’s office and shut the door.
“A man came to ask me what I wanted. And I asked him if he required a stenographer, and he said he did — very offensively — so I marched out and walked about the hallways trying to find my way out. Then I heard Mr. Thorne’s voice on the stairs, and I opened your door and hid. And before I had courage to leave, you came and talked and talked with that Irishman. And now what am I to do? You know who I am, and you know my sisters — or you did once, before you went abroad to study — for they’ve told me they knew you at Narragansett when you were a boy of twelve.”
