And, to tell the truth, the money had been rather a difficult point with him now and then. To live upon two hundred a-year when you have been brought up a Renton of Renton, is a matter which requires a great deal of consideration. But Laurie, fortunately for himself, had no expensive tastes, and he painted some pictures, and, what was more remarkable, sold some; and even found himself on the line at the Academy, thus carrying out his highest dreams. But it did not give him the gratification, nor cause the stir he had once anticipated. It was a small picture, a little bit of Italian air and sunshine, and Slasher gave it a little paragraph all to itself in the ‘Sword;’ but the people whom he had once pictured to himself finding out his name in the catalogue, and calling heaven and earth to witness that Laurie Renton had done something at last, had by this time forgotten all about Laurie Renton, or he had forgotten them, which came to the same thing. And candidly in his soul, Laurie allowed, that had not old Welby been on the hanging committee, probably it never would have reached ‘the line;’ and had not Slasher been a friend of his, would never have been noticed in the ‘Sword.’ But it sold for a hundred pounds, which was always an advantage. The picture was called ‘Feliciello, on Tiberio,’ and was the picture of a dark-faced Capriote guide, on one of the highest points of his island, pointing out to a fair English girl the points in the wonderful landscape round. It was Edie Severn, who had never been there, with her golden hair streaming round her, who was the English girl. But handsome Feliciello had been studied on the spot. And Mr. Rich of Richmont,—always a great patron of the fine arts,—gave Laurie a hundred pounds for it, and thought it one of his greatest bargains. ‘This picture has a story,’ he would say to his guests; ‘it was painted by a gentleman, the son of one of my neighbours in the country, a man who had never been brought up to make his living by art. It is quite a romance; but I hear matters are settled, and that he has come into his share of the money, and will paint no more, and I think I was very lucky to secure this. My daughter, Lady Horsman, will tell you all about it.’ ‘About the picture painted by a gentleman?’ Nelly would say, on being questioned. ‘Most painters that I know are gentlemen. Papa means to infer that he is not much of a painter, I suppose.’ For Lady Horsman was not fond of the Rentons, and had never cared to cultivate their society. ‘If you get my lady on painters she’ll talk till midnight,’ Sir George said out of his moustache. He did not know the difference between a sign-post and a Titian, and thought the one quite as pretty as the other; but he was the head of one of the oldest families in Christendom, and Master of the Hounds in his county, and a great many other grandeurs; and, so far as I know, Nelly had the full value for her fifty thousand pounds.
This, however, is a digression a long way out of Fitzroy Square. Laurie went to the padrona with his story, and found her still in a state of excitement over Alice’s letter,—the second since the event,—with something in it about Dovecote, which was the last new possibility. She had just been taken to see it, and her letter was full of an enthusiastic description of its beauties. ‘Think, mamma, of a lovely little house close to Renton, with a lawn sloping to the river, and a cow, and a pony-carriage, and I don’t know what,’ the young wife wrote in her delight. ‘And Frank thinks he may afford himself a hunter, and there is the sweetest honeysuckle room for Edie and you!’ The padrona, being mother to the being upon whom this glorious prospect was opening, was more interested at first in the Dovecote than in anything Laurie had to say.
‘To think one has only to take the train and be with her in an hour,—after being so far away for,—a lifetime!’ the padrona said, with tears in her eyes.
‘Only six years,’ said Laurie; ‘but never mind; after Alice has had her turn perhaps you will think of me.’
‘When you know I always think of you!’ said Mrs. Severn, ‘it becomes you to be exigeant, Laurie! and you are not going to have a cow, and a pony-carriage, and everything that is most delightful on the face of the earth. Think of Alice having a cow! You are so terribly blasé, it does not seem to strike you. And Edie is out, the child, so that there is no one to be glad but me.’
‘It does not strike me at all,’ said Laurie. ‘If she had a dozen cows, I think I could bear it. But some day I must take you to see Dovecote, padrona, since you like it so much.’
‘I wish they had had Feliciello,’ said Mrs. Severn, ‘if one had known you were all to be so well off,—it would have pleased Frank.’
‘Frank will like some of those vile chromos just as well,’ said Laurie. ‘I’ll buy him a few, I think. And I mean to bring Ben to see you to-night; then you will know us all. Not that there will be any intense gratification in that; but you’ll like Ben. He is made of different stuff from the rest of us. There is more in him. He is not so cheeky as Frank; and he is another sort of fellow, to be sure, from a good-for-nothing like me.’
‘Laurie, there is something the matter,’ said the padrona, turning upon him with her palette in her hand. She knew all his tones like the notes in music, and heard the far-off quiver of one of his fits of despondency already vibrating in the quiet. ‘Is not this as good for you as for the rest?’
‘Oh, yes, quite as good,’ he said abruptly, with his eyes on her work. ‘You are putting too much yellow in that light.’