Kitabı oku: «A Top-Floor Idyl», sayfa 6

Frances was waiting for me on her door-sill.

"Paul is all right. Nothing has happened," she confided to me. "Good night, Mr. Cole, and thank you ever so much."

She smiled at me, and I was pleased that I had been able to divert her thoughts for a few moments. How glad I should be if I could render more permanent that little look of happiness she showed for an instant!

On my desk I found a message from Gordon, asking me to come to the studio next day, which was a Sunday, for lunch.

I kept the appointment, walking all the way up. As I passed Bryant Park, I noticed that the leaves were becoming slightly yellow. It was evident that the summer was giving a hint of impending departure. I reached the big building, just before noon, knowing that I should be somewhat ahead of time, but glad to have a chat with Gordon.

"I know you've been dying to see that canvas," he told me. "That young woman's a wonder. A clever and intelligent woman's the one to really understand what a fellow's after and help him out. I really think she took some interest in the thing. If she isn't otherwise occupied when I return from Southampton, I might possibly make use of her for another week or two. And there's Spinelli, the sculptor, who has a commission for a big group of sirens, for a fountain. He was in here and looked at the picture. Asked about her, he did, but I told him I didn't think she'd pose that way."

"I should think not," I declared.

"You needn't get mad," he retorted. "I've been looking around to see if I could get her something to do. Come in the front room and light your pipe, if you want to. Windows are open. I'm expecting a couple of women in to lunch. Glad you came in early. Yumasa's juggling in the kitchenette; the chap's an artist, when it comes to playing tunes on a chafing-dish. Well, how does it strike you?"

The picture stood before me. It was practically finished. I sank down on the cushioned bench that ran beneath the broad window facing the north and stared at the canvas.

"Great Heavens, Gordon!" I exclaimed.

"It hits right out from the shoulder, doesn't it," he said. "Ever see anything much more alive than this?"

"She's going to lift her eyes from the baby," I answered. "She's going to indulge in that little half-timid and half-boastful look of the young mother challenging the whole world to say that her infant isn't perfection in flesh and blood!"

Gordon made no answer. He was standing before the canvas, his left arm crossed over his breast with the right elbow resting upon it and the square bluish chin in the grasp of long thin fingers.

"You've evidently stuck to the model a great deal," I commented further, "but you've also idealized, made poetry of her."

"And you're talking like a donkey," my friend told me, rather impatiently. "I simply have better eyes than you. Of course, I suppose you've seen a lot of her, for she seems to think the sun rises and sets on you, but you haven't studied every bit of her face as I've done. I've idealized nothing at all, but my own appreciation of her, and perhaps a trick or two, have caught you. The light came right through this open window, naturally, and caused that glint of the fluffy ends of hair, like powdered sunlight dusted over the dark chestnut. It also threw those strong high lights over the edges of the features. Then, I stuck those roses between her and the window and they gave the reflected tints. It's just a portrait, you old idiot, and nothing else, except perhaps for the fancy shawl. Of course, everything that wasn't directly illumined was in subdued tones, which account for the softness. You may think it's rather ideal, but that's only because I saw her right and got an effective pose. Hang it all, man! If I gave you a pond and a bunch of trees and blue hills back of them, you might describe them accurately, and yet make the picture an interesting one, in one of those fool stories of yours."

"She is very beautiful," I said, knowing that he expected no direct answer to his tirade.

"If she hadn't been, I shouldn't have bothered with her," he replied, in a tone that rather rasped on my feelings. "That's just what's the matter with her; she's a good-looker and you daren't change anything. If I were to use her again for anything important, fellows would ask if I intend to stick to the same old model, all my life. If I get her to pose just once more, it will be about the end of her usefulness to me, and I'd do it just for the fun of making another study of an interesting type, something to stick among the unframed things piled up against the wall and show people, after this one's sold."

He moved off to get a cigarette from the small square stool on which he keeps brushes and tubes, leaving me to stare in great desolation at the picture of Frances and her baby. So he's going to sell it! Indeed, the more I looked at it the better I realized that it was the woman herself, described by a master. He had naturally seen things I had not noticed, that was all. I think I've never had a great desire for money, but the idea was very irksome that her portrait would be sold and that it would hang on some rich man's wall, stared at only by people merely concerned with the beauty their dollars had bought.

It is, perhaps, just as well that I have some sense of humor. The idea of this wonderful thing hanging in my rather dingy room suddenly struck me as rather incongruous. As well think of a necklace of brilliants about some ragged pauper's neck. To the best of my belief I have never envied the people who can afford to possess the gauds I have sometimes admired in the windows of shops, in which only the rich can ever deal. Why this sudden obsession of a desire to have that picture of the young woman where I could look at it, daily, and delight in its perfection? I have often thought that in my den or in her own room she is as nearly out of place as her picture would be. She impresses one as being able to lend further grace to the most splendid dwelling-place.

Once more I catch myself communing with my folly. After all, Madame Dupont is just a woman; her smile gives charm to her surroundings. When she sits in my old Morris chair, she converts it into the throne of beautiful motherhood and the place into a palace of grace. Why should I care for daubs, for splashes of paint never so cleverly put on, since I can see the model from time to time and rejoice that she counts me among her friends?

"You're the grumpiest old curmudgeon I ever knew," said Gordon, interrupting my cogitations. "You haven't said a word for ten minutes. And so you like it, do you?"

"You've never done anything half so good," I affirmed.

"To tell you the truth, I've a notion I've happened to do something pretty big," he said, nodding. "But a fellow's apt to get hypnotized by his own work, sometimes. I'll have to stop looking at the thing. It'll stay here while I go off to the country for a few weeks and, when I come back, I'll have the right perspective again. But I know it's devilish good. I feel as I did once at the Salon, when I got the Mention Honorable for that codfish and lobster on a marble table. You know, the one Tilson bought. I knew it was right, as soon as I'd finished it."

Mutely, I committed him to the devil and all his fallen angels. What had this picture to do with still-life in a fishmonger's shop? Hang it, I really believe Gordon has no soul! Or can it be a part of the pose inseparable from him, of which he certainly is sometimes unconscious?

At this moment, the bell rang and Yumasa came out of some cubby and rushed to the outer door. Gordon followed him and warmly welcomed a rather stout lady of uncertain age and very youthful hair, after which he held out his hand to the original of Miss Van Rossum's portrait.

"The steamer was awfully early," explained the young lady, "but she took forever to dock. Don't you think we were awfully good to come in town on such a warm day? I could have played thirty-six holes, you know, but, of course, we hadn't seen Dad for a long time. Mamma asked him to come with us, but he said he'd have to run over to the Club. He'll join us here at three."

"Let me see, he was gone four months, wasn't he?" said Gordon.

"Yes, something like that," answered the mother, holding up a tortoise-shell lorgnette and looking at me.

"I want to introduce my friend, David Cole, Mrs. Van Rossum," hastened Gordon. "Miss Van Rossum, David is my very best pal. He's the novelist, you know."

"How very interesting!" clamored the young lady. "Gordon has given me two of your books to read. Now that I have met you, I shall certainly have to begin them. You see, there is so much to do in summer, Mr. Cole."

"Indeed there is, Miss Van Rossum," I assented. "I hardly find time even to look over the morning paper."

"Oh! Newspapers are such rubbish," she declared, airily.

"Why, Sophia!" cried Mrs. Van Rossum. "One of them had your picture last week."

"It was rotten," said Miss Sophia, with some firmness.

"Oh, my dear! Why will you use such dreadful language?" the mother reproved her.

"That's all right, Ma, every one says it now."

Miss Van Rossum, having thus established the status of her vocabulary, at least to her own satisfaction, took a few steps across the big studio and stopped before the picture.

"Oh! I say! Did you do that, Gordon?" she asked. "Isn't she a stunner? Was it her own baby or did she borrow it? Cunning little mite, isn't it?"

"A study from a model," Gordon informed her. "Yes, it is her own baby."

The older lady also came forward and inspected the painting.

"Of course, you must have flattered her a great deal," she opined. "You have such an imagination, my dear Mr. McGrath!"

"It isn't a patch on David's," he replied. "Novelists can beat painters all hollow at that sort of thing."

"I'm awfully hungry," interrupted Miss Van Rossum. "Had to get up at an unearthly hour to come down and meet Dad."

At once we went to the small table in the next room. The flowers were exquisite. The young lady crunched radishes, with enthusiasm, and spoke disparagingly of a certain hackney which, according to her, had unfairly been awarded a blue ribbon at Piping Rock, gaining a decision over her own palfrey. Also, she discussed Mrs. Pickley-Sanderson's form at tennis and spoke of the new shotgun her father had brought over for her, from England.

"What's your handicap at golf, Mr. Cole?" she asked me, graciously.

"I'm afraid David's a fossil," put in Gordon. "He's utterly ignorant of the most important things of life."

"What a pity," she sympathized. "And how do you manage to spend the time?"

"I – I don't spend it, Miss Van Rossum," I answered, inanely. "I try to save it and make it last as long as possible."

"How funny," she declared, and gave me up as hopeless, directing the remainder of her conversation at Gordon.

Finally, I took my leave, conscious that I had been asinine in my remarks and had made a deplorable impression. Upon the picture I cast one more look before leaving. Those wonderful eyes of Frances were directed towards the baby, of course, but for an instant I felt that she was about to raise them and smile at me. At any rate she doesn't consider me as a useless incumbrance of the earth because I can't play golf or shoot birds. She is restful and gentle, whereas Miss Van Rossum appears to me to have the soothing qualities of a healthy bass drum. But then, I may be mistaken.

CHAPTER VIII
WE TAKE AN EXCURSION

The day was a hot one. In Gordon's studio a slight breeze had blown in and mingled with the scent of the flowers with which his table was adorned, and the behavior of my collar had been of the best. The ladies, secure in the absence of starched things such as we men throttle ourselves with, had been pictures of comfortable coolness. But in the street I plunged in an atmosphere of sodden heat and refused to obey the instinct that usually leads me to walk whenever I am not pressed for time. This happens often, for the productive hours of a writer are few, leaving many to be employed in alleged thoughts. Of these the most harrowing lie in the fact that a laborer can dig for eight hours a day, whereas helplessness comes to me after writing a few pages.

I took the car, turning in my mind the observations I had made in the studio. Several times I had heard Miss Van Rossum call my friend by his first name, and the mother had manifested no surprise. They are probably old acquaintances. I think he once told me that he had first met them in Paris. For aught I know, however, he may have dandled her on his knees when she was a child. The process now would be lacking in comfort, for she outweighs him by a good thirty pounds. Her forearms seem larger and just as hard as those of Frieda's pugilistic model. And then, Gordon is a misogynist and considers the feminine form divine from a chilly, artistic standpoint. From this I judged that Miss Van Rossum is a young lady who calls every man she meets two or three times by his first name. Gordon certainly doesn't mind it, but then, he got five thousand for the portrait, a sum that excuses some lack of formality.

The young woman's looks are undeniable. She's an utterly handsome creature and, as far as I have been able to see, accepts the fact as she does the family fortune. It is something due to a Van Rossum, and she is too ladylike to boast of such advantages. This serves to make her very simple and natural. Like many of the mortals built on a generous scale she is good tempered. I wondered that she had asked so few questions in regard to the model of the picture she had seen. Practically, she had come, looked and turned away to the contemplation of scrambled eggs with truffles, followed by squabs. True, she had inquired whether the baby belonged to the model. To Pygmalion his sculptured beauty came to life, but from the young lady's standpoint I think that the purchased beauty that is to be changed into limned or chiselled grace must be already considered to have turned to paint or stone. If I had declared that a model was probably a thing of pulsing blood and quivering nerves, it is likely that she would have opened her fine blue eyes in surprise. But then, most of us, subconsciously, are apt to feel that those we deem beneath us in position or talent or virtue can really possess but the outward semblance of humanity.

The foregoing platitudes came to me, I think, because I actually resented the scanty attention they had paid to Frances. They had looked at the "Mother and Child," and approved. The signature made it a valuable work of art and, as such, had awakened a polite interest. But then, after all, it was worth but a few thousand dollars, and a Van Rossum couldn't very well go into ecstasies over an article of such moderate worth.

Poor Frances! She has come down to the rank of the women who stand behind counters till ready to drop; of those who toil in spite of aching heads and weary limbs. It is appalling to think of men by the million considered as food for cannon, but it seems just as cruel on the part of fate to designate women in equal numbers as carriers of burdens, destined for most of their lives to bear pain and weariness and the constant effort to smile in spite of these.

And then, Frances is further punished on account of that little child. It hangs about her neck, a heavy treasure. She has fulfilled the most glorious purpose of womanhood, and, for the time being, her reward lies in the fact that she can scarce find an occupation that will keep body and soul together. There is no room for sprouting manhood in workrooms, in offices, in any of the places wherein only the ripe are of avail to be squeezed into the vintage of the prosperity destined to a few. Her gift of voice and her inheritance of beauty have served but to bring bitterness. Had she possessed a shrill voice and ordinary looks, there would have been no going abroad, no love for a kindred artistic soul, no tiny infant to weep over. By this time she might have been a nice schoolmarm, conscious of superiority over the small flock in her care and tranquil in the expectation of a modest salary. Also, there might have been dreams of a plush-covered parlor in a little home, some day, when honest John or Joe should at last decide to let her teach little pupils of her own providing. I suppose that such dreams must come to all. Even the little cripple in the library, the other day, who was looking at the fine girl who never noticed him, indulges in them, and who shall say that they do not brighten some of his hours even if, at other times, they deepen his darkness.

Gordon seems to me like the only exception I know to the rule I have just formulated. He has the brain of an artist, but the soul of an actuary, and, sometimes, I wish I were not so fond of him. The way he speaks of Frances actually revolts me. For another week or two he may, perhaps, make use of her, forsooth! But he must not indulge such weakness too long, for fear he may be considered as a man of one model. He has plucked the flower of her beauty and spread it on canvas, destined to bring forth admiration and dollars. But now, like squeezed out paint tubes and worn out brushes she may be discarded. He has obliged me, and made a good speculation. Next week he will be playing golf and cultivating damsels and dowagers who may desire immortality in paint. On the putting-green he may obtain commissions, and in the tennis court inveigle some white-flanneled banker into leaving his facial characteristics to posterity. I could have forgiven him, if he had shown a little real enthusiasm in his model and deplored his inability to employ her further. After all, she has inspired him to great accomplishment and he is a cold-blooded opportunist, in spite of our mutual fondness. The last word I heard from him as he saw me to the door was a whispered one, as he jerked his head towards the studio, where we had left the ladies.

"I'm going to do the old girl this fall," he said.

The man has put all of his art and wonderful taste into his picture of Frances. Just as hard he will toil over the fat face of the good lady he thus disrespectfully alluded to. It may, perhaps, pay him better. The man's temperature, if my young friend Porter took it, would probably turn out to be that of a fish.

My thoughts made me forget the heat, but I arrived home in a dilapidated state of moisture and with a face thoroughly crimsoned. As soon as I reached my room I changed my stiff shirt and collar for a softer and lighter garment of alleged silk, purchased at a bargain sale. When I came out, Frances's door was opened and I looked in. She was sitting in the armchair, with the baby in her lap, and the smile she greeted me with could do little to conceal the fact that she had been a prey to unhappy thoughts.

"Isn't it hot?" I observed, with scant originality.

"It is dreadful," she answered, "and – and I wonder if Baby suffers from it. Do you think he is looking pale?"

At once, I inwardly decided that he was. The idea would probably not have entered my head without her suggestion, but an uneasy feeling came over me, born probably of reading something in the paper about infant mortality. I took a blessed refuge in prevarication.

"He is looking splendidly," I told her. "But they take sick babies and give them long jaunts out on the bay, with nurses and doctors. If that sort of thing can cure an ailing infant, it must make a healthy one feel like a fighting-cock. Get ready, and we'll take the boat to Coney Island and spend a couple of hours at sea. It will put better color in the little man's cheeks and do no harm to your own. I'm craving for the trip, come along and hurry up!"

She began the usual objections, to which I refused any attentions. I suspect I have a little of the bully in my nature. At any rate we sallied forth, soon afterwards, and went to the Battery, where we percolated through the crowd into a couple of folding seats on the upper deck.

"Oh! It is such a blessed relief," she said, after the boat had started and made a breeze for us, since, on the water, none but the tiniest flaws rippled the surface. I called her attention to the remarkable sight of Manhattan fading away behind us in a haze that softened the lines, till they appeared to be washed in with palest lavenders and pinks.

"The insolence of wealth and the garishness of its marts are disappearing," I told her. "Our moist summer air, so worthless to breathe and cruel to ailing babes, is gilding a pill otherwise often hard to swallow. All about us are people, most of whom live away from the splendors we behold. Some of them, like ourselves, burrow in semi-forgotten streets and some dwell on the boundary where humanity rather festers than thrives. They are giving themselves up to the enjoyment of a coolness which, an hour ago, appeared like an unrealizable dream. Let us do likewise."

Frances smiled at me, indulgently. Like all really good women, she has an inexhaustible patience with the vagaries and empty remarks of a mere man. Women are more concerned with the practicalities of life. About us the fairer sex was apparently in the majority and the discussions carried on around us concerned garments, the price of victuals and the evil ways of certain husbands. Young ladies, provided with male escorts, sprinkled poetry, or at least doggerel, over the conversation of more staid matrons. Their remarks and exclamations seldom soared to lofty heights, but in them there was always the undertone of present pleasure and anticipated joys. One thin little thing, who had mentioned a ribbon-counter, looked up with something akin to awe at a broad-faced and pimply youth, who spoke hungrily of a potential feast of Frankfurter sausages. I have no doubt that to her he represented some sort of Prince Charming. Close to her a buxom maiden addressed a timid-looking giant, all arms and legs, and described the bliss of shooting the chutes. It was evident that he aspired to the dignity and emoluments of a gay suitor, but was woefully new or incompetent at the game. She was helping him to the best of her ability, with a perseverance and courage entitling her to my respect. In her companion she must have discerned the makings of a possible husband or, at least, the opportunity to practise a talent of fascination she thinks ought not to lie fallow.

"And how is Baby Paul enjoying himself?" I asked my companion.

"For the time being, he is asleep," she answered, "and so, I suppose, is having an excellent time. He's an exceedingly intelligent child and of the happiest disposition. I'm sure he is aware that he has a mother to love him, and that's enough to keep him contented."

"Of course," I assented. "That somewhere there is a good woman to love him is all that a baby or a grown man needs to know in order to enjoy perfect bliss. Those who are fortunate enough to reach such a consummation are the elect of the world."

She looked at me with a smile, and I saw a question hanging on her lips. It was probably one I had heard very often. Frieda and some others, when hard put to it for a subject of conversation, are apt to ask me why I don't get married. I tell them that the only proof of the pudding is the eating and that, strangely enough, all the good wives I know are already wedded. Moreover, I know that very few women would deign to look with favor upon me. I have always deemed myself a predestined bachelor, a lover of other people's children and a most timid venturer among spinsters.

Frances, however, permitted the question to go unasked, which showed much cleverness on her part. She recognized the obviousness of the situation. As we went on, she gazed with admiration upon the yachts, many of which were lying becalmed, but picturesque. The big tramps at anchor awakened in her the wonder we all feel at the idea of sailing for faraway shores where grow strange men and exotic fruits. Then, when the steamer had turned around the great point of the island and her eyes caught the big open sea, I saw them filling, gradually. She was thinking of the gallant lad who had fallen for his first and greatest mother. Recollections came to her of sailing away with him, with hopes and ambitions rosier than the illumined shores before us, that were kissed by the sun under a thin covering veil of mist. She remembered the days of her toil, rewarded at last by the ripening of her divine gift, and the days of love crowned by the little treasure on her lap. But now, all that had been very beautiful in her life was gone, saving the tiny one to whom she could not even sing a lullaby and whose very livelihood was precarious.

I knew that when she was in this mood it was better to say nothing or even appear to take no notice. Suddenly, a child running along the deck fell down, a dear little girl I ran to and lifted in my arms. Confidingly, she wept upon my collar which, fortunately, was a soft one. A broad shouldered youth made his way towards me.

"Hand her over, Mister," he said, pleasantly, "she's one o' mine."

He took the child from me, tenderly, and I looked at him, somewhat puzzled, but instant recognition came to him.

"Say," he declared, breezily, "you's the guy I seen th' other day when I wuz havin' me picture took."

He extended a grateful hand, which I shook cordially, for he was no less a personage than Kid Sullivan, who would have been champion, but for his defeat. On my last call upon Frieda at her studio I had seen him in the lighter garb of Orion, with a gold fillet about his brow, surmounted by a gilt star. I bade him come with me, but a couple of steps away, to where Frances sat, and I had left a small provision of chocolate drops.

"This," I said, "is my friend Mr. Sullivan. The child belongs to him, and I have come to see whether I cannot find consolation for her in the box of candy."

Frances bowed pleasantly to him, and he removed his cap, civilly.

"Glad to meet ye, ma'am," he said. "Thought I'd take the wife and kids over to the Island. The painter-lady found me a job last week. It's only a coal wagon, but it's one o' them five-ton ones with three horses. They're them big French dappled gray ones."

I looked at Frances, fearing that this mention of his steeds might bring back to her the big Percherons of Paris, the omnibuses climbing the Montmartre hill or rattling through the Place St. Michel, that is the throbbing heart of the Latin Quarter. But she is a woman, as I may have mentioned a hundred times before this. Her interest went out to the child, and she bent over to one side and took a little hand within hers.

"I hope you were not hurt," she said, tenderly.

At the recollection of the injury the little mouth puckered up for an instant. Diplomatically, I advanced a chocolate and the crisis was averted.

"She's a darling, Mr. Sullivan," ventured Frances.

"Yes'm, that's what me and Loo thinks," he assented. "But you'd oughter see Buster. Wait a minute!"

About ten seconds later he returned with a slightly bashful and very girlish little wife, who struggled under the weight of a ponderous infant.

"Mr. Cole, Loo," the Kid introduced me, "and – and I guess Mrs. Cole."

"No," I objected, firmly. "There is no Mrs. Cole. I beg to make you acquainted with Mrs. Dupont. Please take my chair, Mrs. Sullivan, you will find it very comfortable. My young friend, may I offer you a cigar?"

"I'm agreeable, sir," said the young man, graciously. "I've give up the ring now, so I don't train no more."

The two of us leaned against the rail, while the women entered upon a pleasant conversation. At first, Frances was merely courteous and kindly to the girl with the two babies, but in a few minutes she was interested. From a fund of vast personal experience little Mrs. Sullivan, who looked rather younger than most of the taller girls one sees coming out of the public schools, bestowed invaluable information in regard to teething. Later, she touched upon her experience in a millinery shop.

"I seen you was a lady, soon as I peeped at yer hat," she declared, in a high-pitched, yet agreeable, voice. "There's no use talking, it ain't the feathers, not even them egrets and paradises, as make a real hat. It's the head it goes on to."

As she made this remark, I stared at the youthful mother. She was unconscious of being a deep and learned philosopher. She had stated a deduction most true, an impression decidedly profound. The hat was the black one bought in Division Street, where the saleswomen come out on the sidewalk and grab possible customers by the arm, so Frieda told me.

Frances smiled at her. In her poor, husky voice she used terms of endearment to Mrs. Sullivan's baby. It was eleven months and two weeks old, we were informed, and, therefore, a hoary-headed veteran as compared to Baby Paul. Had they been of the same age, there might have been comparisons, and possibly some trace of envy, but in the present case there could be nothing but mutual admiration.

"Is you folks going ashore?" asked the Kid.

"We were thinking of remaining on the boat," I told him.

"Say, what's the matter with goin' on the pier and sittin' down for a while? 'Tain't as cool as the boat, but it's better'n town, and the later ye gets back, the cooler it'll be."

Mrs. Sullivan confirmed her husband's statements. I looked enquiringly at Frances, who listened willingly to the words of experience. In a few minutes we landed and found a comfortable seat.

Suddenly, as we were chatting pleasantly, there passed before us Mr. O'Flaherty, of the second floor back. He wore a cap surmounted by goggles and an ample gray duster, and with him walked several other large and florid-looking gentlemen. His eyes fell on Frances and then upon me. I thanked goodness that her head was turned so that she could not possibly have seen the odious wink and the leer he bestowed upon me.

"Say," whispered Mr. Sullivan, in my ear. "D'ye see that big guy look at ye? Made ye mad, didn't he? For two cents I'd have handed him one."

"My good friend," I whispered back, "none of us are beyond reach of the coarse natured."