Miss Timby-Hucks simpered outright. “You do say such droll things!” she remarked, somewhat obscurely. “Mamma always declares that you remind her of the Sydney Bulletin.”
“Whom do you take to the Academy Show Sunday?—or perhaps I oughtn’t to ask,” came from Ermyntrude.
“No, we have no right to inquire,” said Mrs Albert; and I turned to the window and the enshrouded lawn once more.
All at once the fog lifted. The bonnets were produced again. Nearly three hours of daylight remained to us. Tidings that the horse was too lame to be taken out only staggered Mrs Albert for the briefest fraction of time. There were still four-wheelers in Gilead. Besides, if the driver happened to be sober, he would know the streets so much better than their stupid coachman. This would be of advantage, because time was so limited. We should have to just run in, say “How-d’ye-do,” take a flying look round, and scamper out again, Mrs Albert said. By firmly adhering to this rule, she estimated that we might do sixteen or seventeen studios.
Heaven alone knows how many we did “do.” Nor have I any clear recollections of what we saw. A confused vision remains to me of long hall-ways lined with frames and packing-cases; half-an-acre, more or less, of painted canvas, out of which only here and there a pair of bright eyes, a glowing field of poppies, or the sheen from a satin gown, fixed itself disconnectedly on the memory; hordes and hordes of tall young women helping themselves to tea and cakes; and always the pathetic figure of the artist’s wife, or sister, tired to very death, standing by the door with a wearied smile on her lips, and the polite falsehood, “So good of you to come!” on her tongue. I wondered, I remember, if she never forgot herself and said instead, “So kind of you to go!” But under Mrs Albert’s system there was no time to wait and see.
Once, indeed, we dallied over our task. Mrs Albert encountered a lady from Wormwood Scrubs of her acquaintance, who was indiscreet enough to mention that she had been asked to stop here for supper. The news spread through the petticoated portion of my group as by magic. Miss Timby-Hucks came over and asked me, so audibly that the artist-host had to blush and turn away, if I didn’t think it would be a deliciously romantic experience to sup in one of these lofty studios, with the gaslight on the armour, and the great, solemnly silent pictures looking down upon us as we ate. Mrs Albert lingered for some time looking at this artist’s work with her head on one side, and eyes filled with rapt, dreamy enjoyment—but nothing came of it.
It was after we had been back in Fern-bank for an hour or more—our own cold repast nearly over—that Mrs Albert thought of something. She laid down her fork with a gesture of annoyance. “It has just occurred to me,” she said; “we never went to that Mr Whistler’s, whose pictures are on exhibition in Bond Street. Everybody’s talking about him, and I did so want not to miss his studio.”
“I don’t think he has a Show Sunday,” I said. “I never heard of it, if he has.”
“O no, it is only these last few weeks that anybody has heard of him,”
Mrs Albert replied. “I read the first announcement about his beautiful pictures in The Daily Tarradiddle only the other day.”