Olive's mind seemed wandering from the conversation, and from her employment, too; for the mignonette-bed she was weeding lost quite as many flowers as weeds. At last she said—
“Miss Meliora, do people ever grow rich as artists?”
“Michael has not done so,” answered her friend (at which Olive began to blush for what seemed a thoughtless question). “But Michael has peculiar notions. However, I feel sure he will be a rich man yet—like Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, and many more.”
Olive began to muse again. Then she said timidly, “I wonder why, with all your love for Art, you yourself did not become an artist?”
“Bless you, my dear, I should never think of such a thing. I have no genius at all for anything—Michael always said so. I an artist!—a poor little woman like me!”
“Yet some women have been painters.”
“Oh, yes, plenty. There was Angelica Kauffman, and Properzia Rossi, and Elizabetta Sirani. In our day, there is Mrs. A—— and Miss B——, and the two C——s. And if you read about the old Italian masters, you will find that many of them had wives, or daughters, or sisters, who helped them a great deal. I wish I had been such an one! Depend upon it, my dear girl,” said Meliora, waxing quite oracular in her enthusiasm, “there is no profession in the world that brings fame, and riches, and happiness, like that of an artist.”
Olive only half believed in the innocent optimism of her companion. Still Miss Vanbrugh's words impressed themselves strongly on her mind, wherein was now a chaos of anxious thought. From the day when Mr. Gwynne's letter came, she had positively writhed under the burden of this heavy debt, which it would take years to discharge, unless a great deduction were made from their slender income. And how could she propose that—how bear to see her delicate and often-ailing mother deprived of the small luxuries which had become necessary comforts? To their letter no answer had come—the creditor was then a patient one; but this thought the more stimulated Olive to defray the debt. Night and day it weighed her down; plan after plan she formed, chiefly in secret, for the mention of this painful circumstance was more than her mother could bear. Among other schemes, the thought of entering on that last resource of helpless womanhood, the dreary life of a daily governess; but her desultory education, she well knew, unfitted her for the duty; and no sooner did she venture to propose the plan, than Mrs. Rothesay's lamentations and entreaties rendered it impracticable.
But Miss Vanbrugh's conversation now awakened a new scheme, by which in time she might be able to redeem her father's memory, and to save her mother from any sacrifice entailed by this debt. And so—though this confession may somewhat lessen the romance of her character—it was from no yearning after fame, no genius-led ambition, but from the mere desire of earning money, that Olive Rothesay first conceived the thought of becoming an artist.
Very faint it was at first—so faint that she did not even breathe it to her mother. But it stimulated her to labour incessantly at her drawing; silently to try and gain information from Miss Meliora; to haunt the painter's studio, until she had become familiar with many of its mysteries. She had crept into Vanbrugh's good graces, and he made her useful in a thousand ways.