The Three Brothers; vol. 2/3

by Mrs. Oliphant

The padrona was not given to the writing of notes, nor indeed had she much occasion so far as Laurie was concerned, who seldom was absent from the Square for an entire day. But he had felt, without knowing how, a certain difference in his reception since the day on which he wrote his paper at Mrs. Severn’s writing-table. Not that she was less kind or less interested in him;—perhaps it was, though the young man did not think of that, that there was always somebody there, and that the third person, instead of keeping in the background, was brought into the conversation, and spoiled it. Perhaps Mrs. Severn, too, thought the interloper spoiled it. Talk is pleasant, a quattr’ occhi; but then the interloper was needful. This depressed Laurie’s spirits in spite of himself. There was not much that was exhilarating in his prospects generally. Nothing more had come of his literary ambition after that one paper, and his work as an artist went on by fits and starts, with no particular aim in it to spur him on; and his friends, who were all in the heat and fervour of their work for the exhibition, naturally felt that a man who was not preparing for the Academy, who had no share in their white heat of excitement as to the decision of the Hanging Committee, was still something of an outsider. And a cloud had risen on his intercourse with the Square. Laurie was low, and felt despondent about affairs in general. And the chilly spring and the east winds affected his—temper, he said. Probably it was something else besides his temper that was affected. He had begun to say to himself that he was a useless wretch, and not good for much, and that it was ridiculous to hope that he could ever make any mark in the world; and would come home from seeing his friends of nights, who were all so busy, with a certain sensation of misery. The padrona’s pictures had been put into their frames, though she was still working at that one for Mr. Rich, and her studio was beginning to get freshened up and decorated in preparation for the private view, which every painter affords to his or her friends and patrons. Even old Welby had taken down the white canvas and the Angelichino, and placed two of his own pictures to have the final touches given to them and to be exhibited before they went to the Academy. As for Suffolk, he was working with a kind of passion at the big picture which had been so unsparingly criticised; the canvas was as big as that one of Laurie’s, on which the chalk outlines still lingered,—and there were but two figures in it. The maid in the low arched doorway, in her white kirtle, was dismissing her lover with an inexorable sweetness and sadness; the young man was resisting, and refusing to be dismissed, his dark face glowing with love, and trouble, and angry protest against fate. They were the representatives of two races, hostile, yet fated to mingle; and there was in the picture, moreover, a deeper issue,—that struggle of love and duty which it is sometimes best for the world should not be decided on duty’s side. Laurie would stand and look at it, and wonder why he could not have done it as well. Sometimes a vision of the Edith of his imagination, with a still deeper force of expression in her face, would flit across this canvas; but he had discrimination enough to know that Suffolk, in his place, would have painted that Edith had all the world been against him. After all, it was his own fault, but that was no particular consolation; and he felt himself left outside, out of their calculations, almost out of their sympathy, at this particular crisis of fate, when everybody was too much excited about his own luck, and his neighbour’s, to have leisure to think of the rest of the world. The moment for sending in to the Academy was like the eve of a great battle in Fitzroy Square and its environs; and Laurie, who was not even a volunteer to come in the mêlée, could not but find himself sometimes out of place among those excited groups, with their one subject. He was interested in their fate; but he was not himself putting his own to the touch—and he was a little low in consequence, and heartily wished the crisis over, and things going on again in their usual way. Let who would object, Laurie said to himself, with a kind of desperate resolution, he would have something to send next year.

It was while he was full of these melancholy thoughts that the padrona’s little note came to him. He had been there the night before, and Miss Hadley had been present,—even in the studio, to which, in former times, she never dreamt of penetrating. To be sure, there was a kind of a reason for that now in the renovation that everything was undergoing; but still it was rather hard never to be able to say a word to one’s friend, never to receive an expression of her opinion or of her kindness, without Miss Hadley’s keen eyes upon one’s face. And Laurie had grown almost angry at this perpetual intrusion. He was idling over one of his school studies when Mrs. Severn’s note was brought to him. It was the briefest little note,—but at least Miss Hadley had not interfered with that.

‘Come,’ it said, ‘and lunch with us at two, and meet the Riches. They have just sent me word they are coming to see my pictures. They are my great patrons, and they may be of use to you. I will tell them who you are,—a Grand Seigneur turned painter,—and they will be immensely interested. Don’t laugh at them; they are such good souls.

‘You were a little cross, do you know, the other day? and I cannot have you cross. We are all so busy there is no time for talk.

‘M. S.’

This was the note, and there was not much in it. It was the padrona’s soft heart which had made her add that last little coaxing, half-apologetic sentence, and perhaps it was foolish of her. But then, though it was certainly necessary that Laurie should be cured,—and that without mercy,—of any foolish notions that might have stolen into his foolish young head, still for one moment, once in a way, it was a comfort to be free of Miss Hadley; and she had said nothing that his mother might not have said. But perhaps Mrs. Severn would not have been so sure of the perfect judiciousness of her words had she seen how Laurie lighted up under them, and expanded into content. It was eleven then, and his invitation was for two; but yet he decided it was best to send a note in return. It is a species of communication which is very attractive sometimes. Laurie jumped at it with an exhilaration for which he did not attempt to account. It was a different thing altogether from those other little notes conveying mamma’s messages, which he still preserved somewhere; but not, it must be confessed, with such lively feeling as he once did. Quite a different matter! It was his friend who had written to him now,—only a dozen words, and yet herself was in them,—herself, always full of kind thought, of that gracious interest in him, wanting to help him on though he was so unsatisfactory, finding fault with him in that soft, caressing way, which was sweeter than praise. Laurie,—foolish fellow,—put away his work, and spent half-an-hour of the short time that was to elapse before he should see her in writing the following note. It could have been written in five minutes; but there was, it cannot be denied, a certain pleasure in lingering over it, and a certain skill was required to put a great deal of meaning into few words. He did not think he had succeeded, after all, when it was written. But here it is:—

‘I will never be cross any more, padrona mia. I have been thinking you meant to cast me off. But you don’t? I will go and meet the Riches or the Poors, or anybody else you like, and thank them for the chance. You I never could thank,—not half or quarter enough. So silence shall speak for me.

‘Yr—— ‘L. R.’

It is not to be supposed that Laurie wrote ‘your’ in plain letters. He made a hieroglyphic of it. It might have been only ‘&c.;’ in short, it was as like that as anything else. He was beguiled into the use of the pronoun, he did not quite know how, as he hung over it with his pen in his hand like a pencil, anxious to add just a touch somewhere, as might have been done in the line of the lip or the droop of an eyelid, to express what he was feeling. It was of purpose and intention that he made it undecipherable. Perhaps she would find it out; and if not, still at least he had expressed himself, which was always something. He was not thinking of any result, or anything that might come of it, as Miss Hadley did. At the present stage such an idea would have been simple profanity. He did not think of it at all. He was her disciple, her servant, her subject. That she should reverse the position and be his, and subject to him, was an idea which had never entered Laurie’s mind. It would indeed, as we have said, have appeared sheer profanity to him. Such delicacies of feeling do not come within the range of the Miss Hadleys of life. And so Laurie made his hieroglyphic, expressive of the deepest devotion, and felt his heart and his face expand with a delicious softness, and put on his hat, and himself gave the note to the maid-servant in the Square. It was but a few steps round the corner; and when he was out, he went a few steps farther and got himself a lily of the valley to put in his coat. It was still early, and the flower cost him as much as a meal; but when a young man’s heart gives a sudden jump in his bosom, reasonably or unreasonably, it would be hard if he could not give utterance to his satisfaction with himself and the universe in general by so simple an expedient as a flower in his coat. And at the same time he ordered some pots of the same lilies to be sent to the Square, not for that day, but for to-morrow, on which Mrs. Severn was to exhibit her pictures to her friends before sending them to the Academy. This little matter occupied the morning until it was time to present himself at the Square. A very fine carriage stood before No. 375 when he reached the door, with a gorgeous coat-of-arms on the panel, and liveries and hammer-cloth, which looked like a duke’s at least. The big footman stared superciliously at Laurie as he went up the steps. He was but ‘a poor hartis’ it was evident to that splendid apparition. The patron had arrived with all the pomp which ought to attend such a celestial visitor, and naturally the house from top to bottom bore evidence of a certain excitement. Forrester, in his best coat, opened the door to Laurie, his face beaming with cordiality and smiles. ‘I can’t say as he knows much, Mr. Renton,’ said Forrester, ‘but he’s a stunning one to buy; and I wouldn’t take no notice, sir, if I was you, of his little ways,—nor the lady’s neither, sir,’ said the old man. Laurie laughed and nodded in answer to this advice, without any distinct idea what Mr. Rich’s little ways might be; and so walked into the great drawing-room, which it was strange to see by daylight, full of the grey spring atmosphere, out of which an east wind had taken all the colour. The white curtains hung over the long windows; the fire burned with a little cheerful noise; and the padrona, in her black dress, sat on a sofa beside a rich, rustling, luxurious woman, fifteen or twenty years older than herself. Mrs. Severn’s figure had filled out into the gracious fulness of matronhood. She was not a sylph, like her child; but she looked something like a sylph beside the vast form on the sofa. And in front of her stood a little man, very plump and rosy, with a double-eyeglass in his hand. The padrona looked a little flushed and a little excited. Perhaps it is not in human nature to receive unmoved a visit from a patron.

‘This is Mr. Renton,’ she said, as Laurie came in. ‘Mr. Laurence Renton, Mrs. Rich;’ and, to Laurie’s great surprise, the large lady got up from the sofa to shake hands with him, which was a great deal more than the padrona did. Mrs. Rich was very large and very wealthy, and looked as if she might be rather oppressive; but, nevertheless, she had been smiling very benignly on the padrona, and Laurie consequently saw some good in her face.