Delphi complete works of.., p.551
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells, page 551
“And does she know about it?”
“I mentioned it to her.”
“It would be a great thing for her if she could get her picture in — and sell it.”
“Yes,” Ludlow dryly admitted. He wished he had never told Mrs. Westley how Cornelia had earned the money for her studies at the Synthesis; he resented the implication of her need, and Mrs. Westley vaguely felt that she had somehow gone wrong. She made haste to retrieve her error by suggesting, “Perhaps Miss Maybough would object, though.”
“That’s hardly thinkable.” said Ludlow lightly. He would have gone away without making Mrs. Westley due return for the trouble she had taken for him with Mrs. Maybough, and she was so far vexed that she would have let him go without telling him that she was going to have his protégée pour tea for her; she had fancied that this would have pleased him.
But by one of those sudden flashes that seem to come from somewhere without, he saw himself in the odious light in which she must see him, and he turned in time. “Mrs. Westley, I think you have taken a great deal more pains for me than I’m worth. It’s difficult to care what such a poor little Philistine as Mrs. Maybough — the mere figment of somebody else’s misgotten money — thinks of me. But she is to be regarded, and I know that you have looked after her in my interest; and it’s very kind of you, and very good — it’s like you. If you’ve done it, though, with the notion of my keeping on in portraits, or getting more portraits to paint, I’m sorry, for I shall not try to do any. I’m not fit for that kind of work. I don’t say it because I despise the work, but because I despise myself. I should always let some wretched preoccupation of my own — some fancy, some whim — come between me and what I see my sitter to be, and paint that.”
“That is, you have some imagination,” she began, in defence of him against himself.
“No, no! There’s scope for the greatest imagination, the most intense feeling, in portraits. But I can’t do that kind of thing, and I must stick to my little sophistical fantasies, or my bald reports of nature. But Miss Saunders, if she were not a woman — excuse me! — —”
“Oh, I understand!”
“She could do it, and she will, if she keeps on. She could have a career; she could be a painter of women’s portraits. A man’s idea of a woman, it’s interesting, of course, but it’s never quite just; it’s never quite true; it can’t be. Every woman knows that, but you go on accepting men’s notions of women, in literature and in art, as if they were essentially, or anything but superficially, like women. I couldn’t get a picture of Miss Maybough because I was always making more or less than there really was of her. You were speaking the other night at Wetmore’s, of the uncertain quality of her beauty, and the danger of getting something else in,” said Ludlow, suddenly grappling with the fact, “and I was always doing that, or else leaving everything out. Her beauty has no fixed impression. It ranges from something exquisite to something grotesque; just as she ranges in character from the noblest generosity to the most inconceivable absurdity. You never can know how she will look or how she will behave. At least, I couldn’t. I was always guessing at her; but Miss Saunders seemed to understand her. All her studies of her are alike; the last might be taken for the first, except that the handling is better. It’s invariably the very person, without being in the least photographic, as people call it, because it is one woman’s unclouded perception of another. The only question is whether Miss Saunders can keep that saving simplicity. It may be trained out of her, or she may be taught to put other things before it. Wetmore felt the danger of that, when we looked at her sketches. I’m not saying they’re not full of faults; the technique is bad enough; sometimes it’s almost childish; but the root of the matter is there. She knows what she sees, and she tells.”
“Really?” said Mrs. Westley. “It is hard for a woman to believe much in women; we don’t expect anything of each other yet. Should you like her to paint me?”
“I?”
“I mean, do you think she could do it?”
“Not yet. She doesn’t know enough of life, even if she knew enough of art. She merely painted another girl.”
“That is true,” said Mrs. Westley with a sigh. She added impersonally; “But if people only kept to what they knew, and didn’t do what they divined, there would be very little art or literature left, it seems to me.”
“Well, perhaps the less the better.” said Ludlow, with a smile for the absurdity he was reduced to. “What was left would certainty be the best.”
He felt as if his praise of Cornelia were somehow retrieval; as if it would avail where he seemed otherwise so helpless, and would bring them together on the old terms again. There was, indeed, nothing explicit in their alienation, and when he saw Cornelia at Mrs. Westley’s first Thursday, he made his way to her at once, and asked her if she would give him some tea, with the effect of having had a cup from her the day before. He did not know whether to be pleased or not that she treated their meeting as something uneventful, too, and made a little joke about remembering that he liked his tea without sugar.
“I wasn’t aware that you knew that,” he said.
“Oh, yes; that is the way Charmian always made it for you; and sometimes I made it.”
“To be sure. It seems a great while ago. How are you getting on with your picture?”
“I’m not getting on,” said Cornelia, and she turned aside to make a cup of tea for an old gentleman, who confessed that he liked a spoonful of rum in his. General Westley had brought him up and presented him, and he remained chatting with Cornelia, apparently in the fatuity that if he talked trivially to her he would be the same as a young man. Ludlow stayed, too, and when the old gentleman got away, he said, the same as if there had been no interruption, “Why aren’t you getting on?”
“Because I’m not doing anything to it.”
“You ought to. I told you what Wetmore said of it.”
“Yes; but I don’t know how,” said Cornelia, with a laugh that he liked; it seemed an effect of pleasure in his presence at her elbow; though from time to time she ignored him, and talked with other people who came for tea. He noticed that she had begun to have a little society manner of her own; he did not know whether he liked it or not. She wore a very pretty dress, too; one he had not seen before.
“Will you let me show you how — as well as I can?”
“After I’ve asked you? Thank you!”
“I offered, once, before you asked.”
“Oh!” said Cornelia, with her face aslant from him over her tea-cups. “I thought you had forgotten that.”
He winced, but he knew that he deserved the little scratch. He did not try to exculpate himself, but he asked, “May I talk with Miss Maybough about it?”
Cornelia returned gayly, “It’s a free country.”
He rose from the chair which he had been keeping at her elbow, and looked about over the room. It was very full, and the first of Mrs. Westley’s Thursdays was successful beyond question. With the roving eye, which he would not suffer to be intercepted, he saw the distinguished people whom she had hitherto affected in their usual number, and in rather unusual number the society people who had probably come to satisfy an amiable curiosity; he made his reflection that Mrs. Westley’s evolution was proceeding in the inevitable direction, and that in another winter the swells would come so increasingly that there would be no celebrities for them to see. His glance rested upon Mrs. Maybough, who stood in a little desolation of her own, trying to look as if she were not there, and he had the inspiration to go and speak to her instead of her daughter; there were people enough speaking to Charmian, or seeming to speak to her, which serves much the same purpose on such occasions. She was looking her most mysterious, and he praised her peculiar charm to Mrs. Maybough.
“It’s no wonder I failed with that portrait.”
Mrs. Maybough said, “You must try again, Mr. Ludlow.”
“No, I won’t abuse your patience again, but I will tell you: I should like to come and look now and then at the picture Miss Saunders has begun of her, and that I want her to keep on with.”
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Maybough in the softest assent. She would not listen to the injuries which Ludlow heaped upon himself in proof of his unworthiness to cross her threshold.
He went back to Cornelia, and said, “Well, it’s arranged. I’ve spoken with Mrs. Maybough, and we can begin again whenever you like.”
“With Mrs. Maybough? You said you were going to speak to Charmian!”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Yes. I — I don’t know yet as I want to go on with the picture. I hadn’t thought — —”
“Oh!” said Ludlow, with marked politeness. “Then I misunderstood. But don’t let it annoy you. It doesn’t matter, of course. There’s no sort of appointment.”
He found Mrs. Westley in a moment of disoccupation before he went, and used a friend’s right to recognize the brilliancy of her Thursday. She refused all merit for it and asked him if he had ever seen any thing like the contrast of Charmian at the chocolate with Cornelia at the tea. “Did you notice the gown Miss Saunders had on? It’s one that her mother has just sent her from home. She says her mother made it, and she came to ask me, the other day, if it would do to pour tea in. Wasn’t it delightful? I’m going to have her spend a week with me in Lent. The general has taken a great fancy to her. I think I begin to appreciate her fascination; it’s her courage and her candor together. Most girls are so uncertain and capricious. It’s delightful to meet such a straightforward and downright creature.”
“Oh, yes,” said Ludlow.
XXVIII.
Cornelia knew that Ludlow was offended. She had not meant to hurt or offend him; though she thought he had behaved very queerly ever since he gave up painting Charmian. She had really not had time to think of his offer before he went off to speak with Charmian, as she supposed. The moment he was gone she saw that it would not do; that she could not have him coming to look at her work; she did not feel that she could ever touch it again. She wondered at him, and now if he had spoken to Mrs. Maybough instead of Charmian, it was not her fault, certainly. She did not wish to revenge herself, but she remembered how much she had been left to account for as she could, or painfully to ignore. If he was mystified and puzzled now, it was no more than she had been before.
There was nothing that Cornelia hated so much as to be made a fool of, and this was the grievance which she was willing fate should retaliate upon him, though she had not meant it at all. She ought to have been satisfied, and she ought to have been happy, but she was not.
She wished to escape from herself, and she eagerly accepted an invitation to go with Mrs. Montgomery to the theatre that night. The manager had got two places and given them to the landlady.
Cornelia had a passion for the theatre, and in the excitement of the play, which worked strongly in her ingenuous fancy, she forgot herself for the time, or dimly remembered the real world and her lot in it, as if it were a subordinate action of the piece. At the end of the fourth act she heard a voice which she knew, saying, “Well, well! Is this the way the folks at Pymantoning expect you to spend your evenings?” She looked up and around, and saw Mr. Dickerson in the seat behind her. He put forward two hands over her shoulder — one for her to shake, and one for Mrs. Montgomery.
“Why, Mr. Dickerson!” said the landlady, “where did you spring from? You been sitting here behind us all the time?”
“I wish I had,” said Dickerson. “But this seat is ‘another’s,’ as they say on the stage; he’s gone out ‘to see a man,’ and I’m keeping it for him. Just caught sight of you before the curtain fell. Couldn’t hardly believe my eyes.”
“But where are you? Why haven’t you been round to the house?”
“Well, I’m only here for a day,” said Dickerson, with a note of self-denial in his voice that Cornelia knew was meant for her, “and I thought I wouldn’t disturb you. No use making so many bites of a cherry. I got in so late last night I had to go to a hotel anyway.”
Mrs. Montgomery began some hospitable expostulations, but be waived them with, “Yes; that’s all right. I’ll remember it next time, Mrs. Montgomery,” and then he began to speak of the play, and he was so funny about some things in it that he made Cornelia laugh. He took leave of them when the owner of the seat came back. He told Mrs. Montgomery he should not see her again this time; but at the end of the play they found him waiting for them at the outer door of the theatre. He skipped lightly into step with them. “Thought I might as well see you home, as they say in Pymantoning. Do’ know as I shall be back for quite a while, this next trip, and we don’t see much ladies’ society on the road; at least, I don’t. I’m not so easy to make acquaintance as I used to be. I suppose it was being married so long. I can’t manage to help a pretty girl raise a car-window, or put her grip into the rack, the way I could once. Fact is, there don’t seem to be so many pretty girls as there were, or else I’m gettin’ old-sighted, and can’t see ‘em.”
He spoke to Mrs. Montgomery, but Cornelia knew he was talking at her. Now he leaned forward and addressed her across Mrs. Montgomery: “Do’ know as I told you that I saw your mother in Lakeland day before yesterday, Miss Saunders.”
“Oh, did you?” Cornelia eagerly besought him. The apparition of her mother rose before her; it was almost like having her actually there, to meet some one who had seen her so lately. “Was she looking well? The last letter she wrote she hadn’t been very — —”
“Well, I guess she’s all right, now. You know I think your mother is about the finest woman in this world, Miss Nelie, and the prettiest-looking. I’ve never told you about Mrs. Saunders, have I, Mrs. Montgomery? Well, you wouldn’t know but her and Miss Nelie were sisters. She looks like a girl, a little way off; and she is a girl, in her feelings. She’s got the kindest heart, and she’s the best person I ever saw. I tell you, it would be a different sort of a world if everybody was like Mrs. Saunders, and I should ha’ been a different sort of a man if I’d always appreciated her goodness. Well, so it goes,” he said, with a sigh of indefinite regret, which availed with Cornelia because it was mixed with praise of her mother; it made her feel safer with him and more tolerant. He leaned forward again, and said across Mrs. Montgomery, as before: “She was gettin’ off the train from Pymantoning, and I was just takin’ my train West, but I knew it was her as soon as I saw her walk. I was half a mind to stop and speak to her, and let my train go.”
Cornelia could see her mother, just how she would look, wandering sweetly and vaguely away from her train, and the vision was so delightful to her, that it made her laugh. “I guess you’re mother’s girl,” Mrs. Montgomery interpreted, and Mr. Dickerson said:
“Well, I guess she’s got a good right to be. I wasn’t certain whether it was her or Miss Saunders first when I saw her, the other day.”
At her door Mrs. Montgomery invited him to come in, and he said he did not know but he would for a minute, and Cornelia’s gratitude for his praise of her mother kept her from leaving them at once. In the dining-room, where Mrs. Montgomery set out a lunch for him, he began to tell stories.
Cornelia had no grudge against him for the past. She was only too glad that it had all fallen out as it did; and though she still knew that he was a shameless little wretch, she did not feel so personally disgraced by him, as she had at first, when she was not sure she could make him keep his distance. He was a respite from her own thoughts, and she lingered and lingered, and listened and listened, remotely aware that it was wrong, but somehow bewildered and constrained.
Mrs. Montgomery went down to the kitchen a moment, for something more to add to the lunch, and he seized the chance to say, “I know how you feel about me, Miss Saunders, and I don’t blame you. You needn’t be afraid; I ain’t going to trouble you. I might, if you was a different kind of girl; but I’ve thought it all over since I saw you, and I respect you. I hope you won’t give me away to Mrs. Montgomery, but if you do, I shall respect you all the same, and I sha’n’t blame you, even then.” The landlady returned, and he went on, “I was just tellin’ Miss Saunders about my friend Bob Whiteley’s railroad accident. But you’ve heard it so often.”
“Oh, well, do go on!” said Mrs. Montgomery, setting down the plate of cold chicken she had brought back with her.
It was midnight before he rose. “I declare I could listen all night,” said Mrs. Montgomery.
Cornelia could have done so, too, but she did not say it. While the talk lasted, she had a pleasure in the apt slang, and sinister wit and low wisdom, which made everything higher and nobler seem ridiculous. She tried helplessly to rise above the delight she found in it, and while she listened, she was miserably aware that she was unworthy even of the cheap respect which this amusing little wretch made a show of paying her before Mrs. Montgomery.
She loathed him, and yet she hated to have him go; for then she would be left to herself and her own thoughts. As she crept up the long stairs to her room, she asked herself if she could be the same girl who had poured tea at Mrs. Westley’s, and talked to all those refined people, who seemed to admire her and make much of her, as if she were one of them. Before, she had escaped from the toils of that folly of the past by disowning it; but now, she had voluntarily made it hers. She had wilfully entangled herself in its toils; they seemed to trip her steps, and make her stumble on the stairs as if they were tangible things. She had knowingly suffered such a man as that, whose commonness of soul she had always instinctively felt, to come back into her life, and she could never banish him again. She could never even tell any one; she was the captive of her shabby secret till he should come again and openly claim her. He would come again; there could be no doubt of that.
On the bureau before her glass lay a letter. It was from Ludlow, and it delicately expressed the hope that there had been nothing in his manner of offering to help her with her picture which made it impossible for her to accept. “I need not tell you that I think you have talent, for I have told you that before. I have flattered myself that I had a personal interest in it, because I saw it long ago, and I have been rather proud of thinking that you were making use of me. I wish you would think the matter over, and decide to go on with your picture of Miss Maybough. I promise to reduce my criticism to a minimum, for I think it is more important that you should keep on in your own way, even if you go a little wrong in it, now and then, than that you should go perfectly right in some one’s else. Do let me hear from you, and say that I may come Saturday to Miss Maybough’s studio, and silently see what you are doing.”
