On an evening some time after the reported accident to her son, Mrs. Weekes sat in the midst of a little company, for several men had dropped in on various errands.
Her kitchen reeked with tobacco-smoke. Philip and Mr. Huggins were side by side on a settle by the fire; Mr. Churchward occupied a chair near the table, and Mrs. Weekes herself sat beside it darning stockings. A bottle of sloe gin stood on a tray near her.
The schoolmaster thought more highly of Hephzibah than did she of him; but since Jarratt had chosen his daughter, she was always civil.
The talk ran on Adam's son.
"He has succeeded in getting a pictorial effort hung at a public exhibition in Plymouth," said Mr. Churchward. "They are holding a picture show there—all West Country artists; and I confess I am gratified to hear that William has been chosen. I think of taking Mary down to see it presently. Perhaps, if we selected the market-day, you would join us, Mrs. Weekes?"
"Likely!" she answered. "Me trapsing about looking at pictures, and my stall——there, you men! Guy Fawkes and good angels! And you go about saying you've got all the sense! I could wish your son might find something better to do, I'm sure, for there's no money to it, and never will be."
"The art of photography will be a serious stroke to the painters of pictures, no doubt," admitted Mr. Churchward. "Yet such things have not the colours of nature which the artist's brush produces—nor have they the life."
"As to life," she answered, "there's a proper painted picture down to Plymouth in a shop near the market—the best picture as ever I see in all my days. Two mice gnawing a bit of Stilton cheese. Life! Why, 'tis life. You can pretty near smell the cheese. And only two pound ten, for the ticket's on it. If you want life, there you are; but it have been in that window a year to my certain knowledge. Nobody wants it, and nobody wants your son's daubs. He'd much better give over and burn all his trash."
"He can't, my dear woman. 'Tis in his blood—he must be painting, like I must be teaching and you must be selling. We're built on a pattern, Mrs. Weekes, and that pattern we must work out against all odds. William is a lusus naturæ as one may say—a freak of nature."
"I'm sorry for you," answered she. "There's nought to be proud of, anyhow. Where's the cleverness in fashioning things that ban't worth more in open market than the dirt pies the childer make in the road? Better paint houses, and get paid, than paint pictures and get nought."