Chapter Four.
On the next occasion that St. John made his appearance at the studio there was a visible constraint in his manner as there was also in Miss Erskine’s. Jill had rehearsed a grateful little speech to deliver on his entry, but when their hands met there was silence; the speech, like many another rehearsed effect, had taken to itself wings, and all she could find to say after an awkward pause was,—
“Good morning. The weather seems to have turned milder, doesn’t it?”
And St. John’s remarkably original answer was,—
“Really! Do you think so?”
And then they commenced work. Yet St. John knew that she had received his flowers, and was pleased with them before even he caught sight of them, withered and dead now, in their basket on the window ledge; and she was equally aware that he understood all that she felt and yet had failed to express in words. The words came later when the sudden fit of embarrassment had worn off, and the lesson was nearing its termination, and there was no doubt as to the genuineness of her pleasure when she did thank him. She was sitting in his seat correcting his work, and he was standing over her with his hands on the back of the chair. When she said.
“It was more than kind of you, Mr St. John, to send me those lovely flowers,” he let his hands slip forward a little until they touched the sleeves of her gown. Jill, unconscious of the slight contact, continued gravely,—
“I can’t very well tell you how I enjoyed them because you could hardly understand how anyone loving such luxuries and yet unaccustomed to them could appreciate them. It was like a peep of sunshine on a rainy day to me.”
St. John drew himself up and stood with his hands clasped behind him. There was something about this girl, small, poorly clad, and friendless though she was, that commanded his respect, and he felt instinctively that his former lounging position had been an insult to her.
“I am glad,” he answered simply. “It gives me pleasure to know that you enjoyed them.”
When he left the Art school that morning, he carried away with him a pleasanter remembrance of it than he had ever had before, nor was he again to feel the same annoyance and resentment that he had experienced on every former occasion. Jill had let fall the mantle of reserve which at first it had pleased her to gather round her, and though she might later repent having done so she could never don it again with the same efficacy.
The next day Jill paid a visit to the dealer who bought her pictures, and, having managed to dispose of a canvas, spent the rest of the morning shopping; eventually turning her steps in the direction of home laden with sundry small and not over tidy parcels. When passing Shoolbred’s she encountered St. John in company with Miss Bolton. They met face to face, and though Jill, unhappily aware that she was looking shabby and insignificant, would have slipped by without recognising him, he saw her and raised his hat with a pleased smile. Jill returned a very slight inclination of the head and hurried on conscious only of Miss Bolton’s cold stare, and her haughty, disapproving question before even the object of her enquiry had time to get out of earshot.
“Who are you bowing to, Jack? I wish that you would remember that you are walking with me.”
Jill did not hear the answer; she had walked too fast, but her cheek burned, and she experienced the very unholy desire to upset Miss Bolton off her bike.
Having once heard of Miss Bolton it seemed fated that she should both hear and see more; the heiress appeared to cross her path at every turn, and for some reason which she could not altogether explain Jill entertained a very lively antipathy for her. Next Friday when St. John arrived at the Art School as usual her name again cropped up, and this time it was he who introduced it.
“I have found you a fresh pupil,” he said, “if you care about bothering with another almost as great a novice as myself, what do you say, eh?”
“Oh!” cried Jill, “I shall be delighted. But did you explain all the disadvantages people patronising my studio have to battle with? Did you mention the stairs?”
St. John laughed.
“Yes,” he answered. “But indeed you over-estimate the inconvenience of those stairs; they are nothing when you get accustomed to them. I am growing quite attached to them myself.”
“I am glad of that,” Jill answered smiling. “Do you know I was rather afraid at first that they would drive you away.”
“Afraid!” he repeated incredulously. “I thought you were hoping that they would.”
“Then how ungenerous of you to have kept on coming. But tell me about my new pupil,—masculine or feminine gender?—minor or adult?”
“It is my cousin Miss Bolton,” he answered, “the lady who was unfortunate enough to run you down last week.”
Jill’s face fell; he could not help seeing it though he pretended not to. “The lady who had run her down!” Yes, she had indeed “run her down” in more senses than one. She turned away to hide her disappointment, and stood looking out of the window at the dirty roofs of the opposite houses. St. John watched her in silence. At length she spoke.
“I hope Miss Bolton doesn’t think that that trifling accident which was as much my fault as hers necessitates a step of such great condescension?” she said. “I cannot look at it in any other light for a lady in her position could study under the best masters how and where she pleased; her coming here, therefore, is a great condescension and I should be sorry to think that she inconvenienced herself under the mistaken idea that she owed me some slight reparation.”
St. John worked perturbed. This small person had a way of making him feel decidedly uncomfortable at times.
“Miss Bolton’s fancy to study art is a merely temporary whim,” he answered. He did not add that the whim had been adopted at his instigation, and with a desire to please him rather than any enthusiasm on the subject, but went on gravely. “Her resolve to attend here is, I am conceited enough to believe, more on account of my doing so than any wish to obligate you. However as it has vexed you I am sorry that I mentioned the matter.”
“Not at all,” replied Jill coldly, flushing with quick annoyance; his speech for some reason or other had not pleased her. “Since Miss Bolton’s desire is not simply to benefit me I shall be only too glad to get another pupil. I am very much obliged to you for recommending my establishment.”
“Indeed!” he mentally ejaculated, “I shouldn’t have thought so.” Aloud he said,—
“Don’t mention it. I will tell Miss Bolton your decision; no doubt she will come with me next time.”
The advent of this new pupil made a good deal of difference to Jill’s simple arrangements. Hitherto two chairs had sufficed, now it was necessary to procure a third, but from where? Eventually she dragged to light an old packing case used for keeping odd papers in, and turning it on end, draped it with a piece of Turkey Twill which once a brilliant scarlet was now owing to having reached a respectable old age subdued to a more artistic shade. This erection would provide sitting accommodation for herself at any rate, and St. John could use the chair with the hole in it. This difficulty solved, Jill set to work to alter the position of the curtain, which partitioned off the end of the room, so as to include the door; thus making a small room in which to receive her pupils instead of ushering them straightway into the studio; if necessary the curtain could be drawn back afterwards to make the art school larger. The rest of the preparations were postponed until Monday, and consisted of a thorough turning out of the room, and dusting and rearranging the models. And on Tuesday morning Jill sat on her box and surveyed the scene of her labour with much inward satisfaction. There was a nice fire burning in the grate and everything was in apple pie order, even to Jill, herself, who had twisted her hair up into a loose teapot-handle arrangement at the back of her head, and had dispensed with the studio apron as too childish for so important an occasion. She wore also her best frock, and had gone to the expense of new collar and cuffs; and altogether felt thoroughly equal to receiving even the heiress to quarter of a million.
The heiress came late as was only to be expected. When St. John had turned up alone he had been generally sharp on time, but regularity was at an end now, Jill mentally supposed, as she arranged St. John’s drawing-board and copy, and sharpened a pencil for him. It doesn’t do to judge by appearances, to quote a trite truism, therefore Jill might really have been highly delighted at the prospect of an additional pupil, but she certainly did not look pleased.
It was ten o’clock before the new pupil arrived rather breathless, and clutching desperately at St. John’s arm. The latter was looking worried, and seemed greatly relieved when once inside Jill’s ante-chamber, an innovation that evidently met with his approval; for he glanced round with great satisfaction and having greeted Miss Erskine, and presented his cousin, he suddenly disappeared round the curtain into the art school, leaving the two alone.
Miss Bolton was tall, pretty, and well dressed; she was also bent on being polite, and was almost effusive in her manner to Jill, but Miss Erskine was as cold as the North polar region, and equally distant.
“I am so glad to see you again?” gushed the heiress; “I have so wanted to apologise to you for my stupidity that morning—”
“My stupidity,” corrected Jill.
“Oh, no! because there was heaps of room the other side of me, only I didn’t notice that horrid cab. Cabs and busses are a nuisance in London, aren’t they?”
“It would be a greater nuisance if London were without them,” Jill answered.
“Do you think so? Oh! I don’t—But of course, yes; I was forgetting the working classes.”
“Yes,” responded Miss Erskine in her North Pole tone; “because you don’t belong to them, I do.”
But Miss Bolton was not in the least disconcerted.
“Ah, no, you’re an artist,” she replied, “a genius; that’s heavenly, you know. Don’t you recollect that an Emperor stooped for an artist’s paint brush because ‘Titian was worthy to be served by Caesar?’”
Jill’s lip curled.
“I am not a Titian,” she answered.
“Perhaps not,” continued Miss Bolton in a I-know-better tone of voice. “Anyway Jack says that you are terribly clever. He considers your paintings superior to many of those on the line this year.”
“Mr St. John is very kind but I am afraid his criticism wouldn’t avail me much. Will you tell me how far advanced you are. Of course you have studied drawing before?”
“Oh, yes! And painting also. My friends considered it a pity for me to drop it altogether with my other studies so I thought that perhaps I would take it up again. Like music it is a very useful accomplishment ‘pour passer le temps,’ you know. I am considered fairly good at it.”
“Ah!” responded Jill with uncomplimentary vagueness. “And what do you wish to go in for? Mr St. John is studying the figure—”
Miss Bolton interrupted with a little scream.
“How horrid of him,” she cried. “Not the nude, Miss Erskine, surely?”
Jill stared.
“Well, at present,” she said, “he is drawing the human foot in outline, and it certainly hasn’t a stocking on.”
“But you don’t teach—that sort of thing, do you?”
“It is usually taught in Art Schools,” Jill answered frigidly. “So far as I am concerned I have only just commenced teaching. You do not wish to go in for the figure then?”
“Certainly not; flowers are my forte; I adore nature.”
Apparently she did not consider that the human form reckoned in this category, and certainly her own, thanks to the aid of the costumière, had deviated somewhat from the natural laws of contour; nevertheless nature is at the root of our being and no matter how we attempt to disguise and ignore the fact she will not be denied. It was on the tip of Jill’s tongue to remark that flowers alone did not constitute nature but she restrained herself, and endeavoured to check her increasing irritability.
“You are quite right not to go in for the figure,” she said; “feeling as you do about it nature becomes coarse, and artificiality—or shall we say the conventional customs of circumstances?—preferable. Will you come into the studio?”
It just flashed through her mind to wonder what this young lady whose modesty was only to be equalled by Isobel’s would say to the models when she saw them, and it must be confessed that the thought of them caused her a certain malicious satisfaction, but when she held aside the curtain for Miss Bolton to enter she perceived to her unspeakable astonishment that all the models had been carefully draped with the dust covers in which they were kept encased when not in use, and which she had herself taken off that morning, and had folded and placed on the shelf. She glanced towards St. John in wrathful indignation, but St. John was busy measuring the length of the big toe in the copy and comparing it with his own drawing, which, taking into consideration the fact that he was not supposed to be making an enlargement, was not altogether satisfactory.
“May I enquire,” asked Jill with relentless irony, “the meaning of all these preparations? Was it fear of the models taking cold that induced you to cover them so carefully or a desire to study drapery, Mr St. John?”
She paused expectantly, but St. John made no sign of having heard beyond an alarming increase of colour in the back of his neck, a mute appeal to her generosity, which she was not, however, in the mood to heed. Miss Bolton watched her in bewildered fascination, astonished at her displeasure and unable to understand the reason thereof. So entirely unprepared was she for what followed that it was probably a greater shock than if she had walked straight in amongst the models, it could not certainly have embarrassed her more. Jill, during the pause, had approached one of the figures, and now catching impatiently at the covering drew it off to the scandalised consternation of the new pupil, who, without waiting for more, burst into a very unexpected flood of tears, and fled precipitately from the room. Jill stared after her open-mouthed, and for a moment there was dead silence. Then St. John pushed back his chair and rose noisily to his feet.
“Con—excuse me,” he corrected himself, “but I think that I had better go and see after my cousin.”
He caught up his hat with marked annoyance, and Jill stood gaping now at him still too astonished for words. She watched him go in silence, and then sat down on the twill covered box and drew a long breath—a sort of letting off steam in order to prevent an explosion.
“Well of all the inconceivable, incomparable, extraordinary, and revolting imbeciles that I have ever come across that girl is the worst,” she ejaculated. “Thank heaven that my mind is not of that grovelling order which sees vulgarity in nature and coarseness where there should only be refinement. What agonies such people must endure at times; they can never go to a gallery that’s certain, and I suppose they would blush at sight of a doll. Oh! my dear saint, why ever did you bring such a person here, I wonder?”
And then she sat and stared at his empty chair and saw in retrospection the expression of vexed reproach in his eyes as he had risen to his feet, their mute enquiry.
“Could you not have spared me this? Was it necessary?”
And in equally mute response her heart made answer,—
“Not necessary perhaps; but I’m not a bit sorry that it happened all the same.”