Mr. Welby was standing before his picture when Laurie went in, looking at it with that intense inspection of the cultivated eye, which no uneducated critic can give. He held out his hand to his visitor, but did not change his attitude. Welby, R.A., had his anxieties about the Academy’s Exhibition as well as another. True, his picture was sure of a place on ‘the line,’ and every advantage a benign Hanging Committee could give it; but there were other dangers before the face of the Academician from which the younger men were safe. Mr. Welby knew that if there was a faltering line in his canvas, or one neglected detail, even the critics who were his friends would say he was growing old. ‘It would ill become us, who are indebted to Mr. Welby for so many noble pictures, to be eager to mark the indications of approaching decadence; but, alas! no man can remain of primitive strength for ever,’ would be the philosophical comment of the ‘Looker-on.’ And the ‘Sword’ would be still sharper in its judgment. Such words as these were echoing in the old painter’s ear as he looked at his picture. He was aware he was old, and life had no such charm to him that he should cling to it unduly,—but such criticisms were hard to bear. He was going over the picture himself, criticising its every detail, and he held up his hand with an unspoken warning to Laurie, who understood, as he had a faculty of doing, and waited behind till the inspection was over.
‘I think that will do,’ said Mr. Welby at last, with a long and deeply-drawn sigh. ‘Come here, Renton, and give me your opinion.’ Laurie was full of the natural instinct of admiring and believing in the work of the old man,—who was leader and patriarch, as it were, of his own special party;—and, besides, it was a fine picture, and he thought it so, though very different no doubt from Suffolk’s ‘Saxon Maiden,’ or from the lovely children in the padrona’s pictures upstairs. Art, to be the everlasting thing it is, is as yet as much bound by fashion as any silly woman. The fashion of the day had changed; but yet old Welby’s picture was a fine picture still.
‘I don’t want those fellows to be picking holes in my coat,’ said the R.A., ‘though of course they will do it all the same.’
‘I don’t see what holes there are to pick,’ said Laurie, strong in his esprit de corps, and ready to swear to the excellence of his master in contradiction of all the critics in the world. ‘We have just sold Suffolk’s picture,’ he added suddenly, glad to deliver himself of the wonderful news, which had been burning holes, as it were, for want of utterance, in his heart.
‘Sold Suffolk’s picture!’ the Academician said with a start. It was the most wonderful piece of news that had been heard in the artists’ quarter for many a year. For no man had gone so consistently in the face of popular opinion as Suffolk, or held so obstinately by his own style. Laurie, nothing loth, told the whole story, with excitement and a natural satisfaction; and how it was old Rich, the City man, who was well known to be the padrona’s special property. And as he told it he looked down upon the bit of cobweb, by this time gone to the merest speck,—the sign in that particular matter, of his close partnership with the padrona,—which was still on his coat.
‘So she sent him her own patron?’ said Mr. Welby; ‘that was good of her, Renton,—that was very good of her. To be sure, he had just given her a commission. I suppose you heard of that. A private patron is a great institution, my dear fellow,—there is more satisfaction in it than in dealers. He has given her a commission to fill one room with pictures. There are to be twelve of them I think, and the subjects from the fairy tales. She’ll do it very well. She has wonderful invention, you know, in her way, and Cinderella and little Red Riding Hood, and all the rest will just suit her; and there is a year’s living secured at once. I am sorry for that woman, Renton. I am more sorry for her than I can tell,’ cried the R.A., with unquestionable emotion in his voice.
‘Sorry for—the padrona?’ cried Laurie, half laughing, half angry. He would have liked to have knocked down the man who presumed,—and yet to be sorry for that hopeful, dauntless woman, so full of life, and strength, and energy, seemed too good a joke.
‘Yes, sorry for her,’ said Mr. Welby, severely, ‘though you don’t know what I mean, of course. She is at her best now, and I suppose she is making a good deal of money; but look at her principles, sir. Her principles are,—you need not contradict me, I know her better than you do,—never to shut her heart nor her purse against anybody she can help. What kind of an idea is that, I ask you, for this world? Of course, she can’t lay by a penny; and when the fellows in the newspapers begin to say of her as they say already of me——’
‘But you!’ cried Laurie, ‘you——’ and then he stopped, not knowing how to end his sentence.
‘I am old, that is what you were going to say,’ said Mr. Welby. ‘I am two-and-twenty years older than she is,—just two-and-twenty years. It’s almost as long as you have been in the world, my dear fellow, and you think it’s centuries; but two-and-twenty years pass very quickly after thirty-five. And she’ll age sooner than I did,—never having been, you know, so thoroughly trained a painter. Her quick eye will fail her, and her fine touch, and she will not have knowledge and experience to fall back upon; and the public will tire of those pretty pictures. Her genius will pall, and then her courage will fail, though she has pluck at present for anything. Do you think I’ve never seen such things happen? If she has ten years more of success it will be all she can hope for; and the boys will scarcely be doing for themselves by that time; and she will have to reduce her living, which will go sadly against the grain, and struggle with all sorts of anxieties. When I look at that woman, sir, my heart bleeds. It’s all very pleasant just now,—plenty of work and plenty of strength, and a light heart, and her friends round her, and her children; and she feels she is up to her work,—knows she is up to her work. But when they come to say of her what they are beginning to say of me——’