We studied hard in our styles,Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,For air, looked out on the tiles,For fun, watched each other's windows.R. Browning.
We studied hard in our styles,Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,For air, looked out on the tiles,For fun, watched each other's windows.R. Browning.
We studied hard in our styles,Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,For air, looked out on the tiles,For fun, watched each other's windows.R. Browning.
We studied hard in our styles,
Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
For air, looked out on the tiles,
For fun, watched each other's windows.
R. Browning.
"Mr. Frederick Devonshire, I positively refuse to minister any longer to such gross egotism! You've been cabinetted, vignetted, and carte de visited. You've been taken in a snowstorm; you've been taken looking out of window, drinking afternoon tea, and doing I don't know what else. If your vanity still remains unsatisfied, you must get another firm to gorge it for you."
"You're a nice woman of business, you are! Turning money away from the doorslike this," chuckled Fred. Lucy's simple badinage appealed to him as the raciest witticisms would probably have failed to do; it seemed to him almost on a par with the brilliant verbal coruscations of his cherishedSporting Times.
"Our business," answered Lucy demurely, "is conducted on the strictest principles. We always let a gentleman know when he has had as much as is good for him."
"Oh, I say!" Fred appeared to be completely bowled over by what he would have denominated as this "side-splitter," and gave vent to an unearthly howl of merriment.
"Whatever is the matter?" cried his sister, entering the sitting-room. She and Gertrude had just come up together from the studio, where Conny had been pouring out her soul as to the hollowness of the world, a fact she was in the habit periodically of discovering. "Fred, what a shocking noise!"
"Oh, shut up, Con, and let a fellow alone," grumbled Fred, subsiding into a chair. "Conny's been dancing every night this week—making me take her, too, byJove!—and now, if you please, she's got hot coppers."
Miss Devonshire deigned no reply to these remarks, and Phyllis, who, like all of them, was accustomed to occasional sparring between the brother and sister, threw herself into the breach.
"You're the very creature I want, Conny," she cried. "Come over here; perhaps you can enlighten me about the person who interests me more than any one in the world."
"Phyllis!" protested Fan, who understood the allusion.
"It's your man opposite," went on Phyllis, unabashed; "Lucy and I are longing to know all about him. There he is on the doorstep; why, he only went out half an hour ago!"
"That fellow," said Fred, with unutterable contempt; "that foreign-looking chap whom Conny dances half the night with?"
"Foreign-looking," said Phyllis, "I should just think he was! Why, he might have stepped straight out of a Venetian portrait; a Tintoretto, a Bordone, any one of thosemellowpeople."
"Only as regards colouring," put in Lucy, whose interest in the subjectappeared to be comparatively mild. "I don't believe those old Venetian nobles dashed about in that headlong fashion. I often wonder what his business can be that keeps him running in and out all day."
Fortunately for Constance, the fading light of the December afternoon concealed the fact that she was blushing furiously, as she replied coolly enough, "Oh, Frank Jermyn? he's an artist; works chiefly in black and white for the illustrated papers, I think. He and another man have a studio in York Place together."
"Is he an Englishman?"
"Yes; his people are Cornish clergymen."
"All of them? 'What, all his pretty ones?'" cried Phyllis; "but you are very interesting, Conny, to-day. Poor fellow, he looks a little lonely sometimes; although he has a great many oddly-assorted pals."
"By the bye," went on Conny, still maintaining her severely neutral tone, "he mentioned the photographic studio, and wanted to know all about 'G. and L. Lorimer.'"
"Did you tell him," answered Phyllis, "that if you lived opposite four beautiful,fallen princesses, who kept a photographer's shop, you would at least call and be photographed."
"It is so much nicer of him that he does not," said Lucy, with decision.
Phyllis struck an attitude:
"It might have been, once only,We lodged in a street together ..."
"It might have been, once only,We lodged in a street together ..."
"It might have been, once only,We lodged in a street together ..."
"It might have been, once only,
We lodged in a street together ..."
she began, then stopped short suddenly.
"What a thundering row!" said Fred.
A curious, scuffling sound, coming from the room below, was distinctly audible.
"Mdlle. Stéphanie appears to be giving an afternoon dance," said Lucy.
"I will go and see if anything is the matter," remarked Gertrude, rising.
As a matter of fact she snatched eagerly at this opportunity for separating herself from this group of idle chatterers. She was tired, dispirited, beset with a hundred anxieties; weighed down by a cruel sense of responsibility.
How was it all to end? she asked herself, as, oblivious of Mdlle. Stéphanie's performance, she lingered on the little dusky landing. That first wave of business, born of the good-natured impulse of their friends andacquaintance, had spent itself, and matters were looking very serious indeed for the firm of G. and L. Lorimer.
"We couldn't go on taking Fred's guineas for ever," she thought, a strange laugh rising in her throat. "Perhaps, though, it was wrong of me to refuse to be interviewed byThe Waterloo Place Gazette. But we are photographers, not mountebanks!" she added, in self-justification.
In a few minutes she had succeeded in suppressing all outward marks of her troubles, and had rejoined the people in the sitting-room.
"Mrs. Maryon says there is nothing the matter," she cried, with her delightful smile, "and that there is no accounting for these foreigners."
Laughter greeted her words, then Conny, rising and shaking out her splendid skirts, declared that it was time to go.
"Aren't you ever coming to see us?" she said, giving Gertrude a great hug. "Mama is positively offended, and as for papa—disconsolate is not the word."
"You must make them understand how really difficult it is for any of us to come," answered Gertrude, who had a naturaldislike to entering on explanations in which such sordid matters as shabby clothes and the comparative dearness of railway tickets would have had to figure largely. "But we are coming one day, of course."
"I'll tell you what it is," cried Fred, as they emerged into the street, and stood looking round for a hansom; "Gertrude may be the cleverest, and Phyllis the prettiest, but Lucy is far and away the nicest of the Lorimer girls."
"Gerty is worth ten of her,Ithink," answered Conny, crossly. She was absorbed in furtive contemplation of a light that glimmered in a window above the auctioneer's shop opposite.
As the girls were sitting at supper, later on, they were startled by the renewal of those sounds below which had disturbed them in the afternoon.
They waited a few minutes, attentive; but this time, instead of dying away, the noise rapidly gathered volume, and in addition to the scuffling, their ears were assailed by the sound of shrill cries, and what appeared to be a perfect volley of objurgations. Evidently a contest was going on in which other weapons than vocal or verbal ones wereemployed, for the floor and windows of the little sitting-room shook and rattled in a most alarming manner.
Suddenly, to the general horror, Fanny burst into tears.
"Girls," she cried, rushing wildly to the window, "you may say what you like; but I am not going to stay and see us all murdered without lifting a hand. Help! Murder!" she shrieked, leaning half her body over the window-sill.
"For goodness' sake, Fanny, stop that!" cried Lucy, in dismay, trying to draw her back into the room. But her protest was drowned by a series of ear-piercing yells issuing from the room below.
"I will go and see what is the matter," said Gertrude, pale herself to the lips; for the whole thing was sufficiently blood-curdling.
"You'd better stay where you are," answered Lucy, in her most matter-of-fact tones, as she led the terrified Fan to an arm-chair.
Phyllis stood among them silent, gazing from one to the other, with that strange, bright look in her eyes, which with her betokened excitement; the unimpassioned, impersonal excitement of a spectator at a thrilling play.
"Certainly I shall go," said Gertrude, as a door banged violently below, to the accompaniment of a volley of polyglot curses.
"I will not stay in this awful house another hour," panted Fanny, from her arm-chair. "Gertrude, Gertrude, if you leave this room I shall die!"
With a sickening of the heart, for she knew not what horror she was about to encounter, Gertrude made her way downstairs, the cries and sounds of struggling growing louder at each step. At the bottom of the first flight she paused.
"Go back, Phyllis."
"It's no good, Gerty, I'm not going back."
"I am going to the shop; and if the Maryons are not there we must call a policeman."
Swiftly they went down the next flight, past the horrible doors, on the other side of which the battle was raging, still downwards, till they reached the little narrow hall. Here they drew up suddenly before a figure which barred the way.
Long afterwards Gertrude could recall the moment when she first saw Frank Jermyn under their roof; could rememberdistinctly—though all at the time seemed chaos—the sudden sensation of security that came over her at the sight of the kind, eager young face, the brilliant, steadfast eyes; at the sound of the manly, cheery voice.
There were no explanations; no apologies.
"There seems to be a shocking row going on," he said, lifting his hat; "I only hope that it does not concern any of you ladies."
In a few hurried words Gertrude told him what she knew of the state of affairs. Meanwhile the noise had in some degree subsided.
"Great heavens!" cried Frank; "there may be murder going on at this instant." And in less time than it takes to tell he had sprung past her, and was hammering with all his might at the closed door.
The girls followed timidly, and were in time to see the door fly open in response to the well-directed blows, and Mrs. Maryon herself come forward, pale but calm. Within the room all was now dark and silent.
Mrs. Maryon and the new comer exchanged a few hurried words, and the latter turned to the girls, who clung together a few paces off.
"There is no cause for alarm," he said."Pray do not wait here. I will explain everything in a few minutes, if I may."
"Now please, Miss Lorimer, go back upstairs; there's nothing to be frightened at," chimed in Mrs. Maryon, with some asperity.
A few minutes afterwards Frank Jermyn knocked at the door of the Lorimers' sitting-room, and on being admitted, found himself well within the fire of four questioning pairs of feminine eyes.
"Pray sit down, sir," said Fan, who had been prepared for his arrival. "How are we ever to thank you?"
"There is nothing to thank me for, as your sisters can tell you," he said, bluntly. He looked a modest, pleasant little person enough as he sat there in his light overcoat and dress clothes, all the fierceness gone out of him. "I have merely come to tell you that nothing terrible has happened. It seems that the poor Frenchwoman below has been in money difficulties, and has been trying to put an end to herself. The Maryons discovered this in time, and it has been as much as they could do to prevent her from carrying out her plan. Hence these tears," he added, with a smile.
When once you had seen Frank Jermyn smile, you believed in him from that moment.
The girls were full of horror and pity at the tale.
"We have had a great shock," said Fan, wiping her eyes, with dignity. "Such a terrible noise. But you heard it for yourself."
A pause; the young fellow looked round rather wistfully, as though doubtful of what footing he stood on among them.
"We must not keep you," went on Fan, whose tongue was loosened by excitement; "no doubt (glancing at his clothes) you are going out to dinner."
She spoke in the manner of a fallen queen who alludes to the ceremony of coronation.
Frank rose.
"By the by," he said, looking down, "I have often wished—I have never ventured"—then looking up and smiling brightly, "I have often wondered if you included photographing at artists' studios in your work."
Lucy assured him that they did, and the young man asked permission to call on them the next day at the studio. Then he added—
"My name is Jermyn, and I live at Number 19, opposite."
"I think," said Lucy, in the candid, friendly fashion which always set people at their ease, "that we have an acquaintance in common, Miss Devonshire."
Jermyn acknowledged that such was the case; a few remarks on the subject were exchanged, then Frank went off to his dinner-party, having first shaken hands with each of the girls in all cordiality and frankness.
Mrs. Maryon came up in the course of the evening, to express her regret that the ladies had been frightened and disturbed; setting aside with cynical good-humour their anxious expressions of pity and sympathy for the heroine of the affair.
"It isn't for such as you to trouble yourselves about such as her," she said, "although I'm sorry enough for Steffany myself—and never a penny of last quarter's rent paid!"
"Poor woman," answered Lucy, "she must have been in a desperate condition."
"You see, miss," said Mrs. Maryon circumstantially, "she had been going on owing money for ever so long, thoughweknew nothing about it; and at last she wasthreatened with the bailiffs. Then what must she do but go down to the shop and make off with some of Maryon's bottles while we were at dinner. He found it out, and took one away from her this afternoon when you complained of the noise. Later he missed the second bottle, and went up to Steffany, who was uncorking it and sniffing it, and making believe she wanted to do away with herself."
"How unutterably horrible!" Gertrude shuddered.
"You heard how she went on when he tried to take it from her. Such strength as she has, too—it was as much as me and Maryon and the girl could do between us to hold her down."
"Where has she gone to now?" said Lucy.
"Oh, she don't sleep here, you know, miss. She's gone home with Maryon as meek as a lamb; took her bit of supper with us, quite cheerfully."
"What will she do, I wonder?"
"Ah," said Mrs. Maryon, thoughtfully; "there's no saying what she and many other poor creatures like her have to do. There'd be no rest for any of us if we was to think of that."
Gertrude lay awake that night for many hours; the events of the day had curiously shaken her. The story of the miserable Frenchwoman, with its element of grim humour, made her sick at heart.
Fenced in as she had hitherto been from the grosser realities of life, she was only beginning to realise the meaning of life. Only a plank—a plank between them and the pitiless, fathomless ocean on which they had set out with such unknowing fearlessness; into whose boiling depths hundreds sank daily and disappeared, never to rise again.
* * * * *
Mademoiselle Stéphanie actually put in an appearance the next morning, and made quite a cheerful bustle over the business of setting her house in order, preparatory to the final flitting.
Gertrude passed her on the stairs on her way to the studio, but feigned not to notice the other's morning greeting, delivered with its usual crispness. The woman's mincing, sallow face, with its unabashed smiles, sickened her.
Phyllis, who was with her, laughed softly."She does not seem in the least put out by the little affair of yesterday," she said.
"Hush, Phyllis. Ah, there is the studio bell already. No doubt it is Mr. Jermyn," and she unconsciously assumed her most business-like air.
A day or two later Mademoiselle Stéphanie vanished for ever; and not long afterwards her place was occupied by a serious-looking umbrella-maker, who displayed no hankering for Mr. Maryon's bottles.
Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,Interchange of service the law and condition of Beauty.A. H. Clough.
Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,Interchange of service the law and condition of Beauty.A. H. Clough.
Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,Interchange of service the law and condition of Beauty.A. H. Clough.
Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,
Interchange of service the law and condition of Beauty.
A. H. Clough.
Frank Jermyn, whom we have left ringing at the bell, followed Gertrude down the Virginia-cork passage into the waiting-room.
The curtains between this apartment and the studio were drawn aside, displaying a charming picture—Lucy, in her black gown and holland pinafore, her fair, smooth head bent over the re-touching frame; Phyllis, at an ornamental table, engaged in trimming prints, with great deftness and grace of manipulation.
Neither of the girls looked up from her work, and Frank took possession of one of the red-legged chairs, duly impressed with the business-like nature of the occasion; although, indeed, it must be confessed that his glance strayed furtively now and then in the direction of the studio and its pleasant prospect.
Gertrude explained that they were quite prepared to undertake studio work. Frank briefly stated the precise nature of the work he had ready for them, and then ensued a pause.
It was humiliating, it was ridiculous, but it was none the less true, that neither of these business-like young people liked first to make a definite suggestion for the inevitable visit to Frank's studio.
At last Gertrude said, "You would wish it done to-day?"
"Yes, please; if it be possible."
She reflected a moment. "It must be this morning. There is no relying on the afternoon light. I cannot arrange to go myself, but my sister can, I think. Lucy!"
Lucy came across to them, alert and serene.
"Lucy, would you take number threecamera to Mr. Jermyn's studio in York Place?"
"Yes, certainly."
"I have some studies of drapery I should wish to be photographed," added Frank, with his air of steadfast modesty.
"I will come at once, if you like," answered Lucy, calmly.
"You will, of course, allow me to carry the apparatus, Miss Lorimer."
"Thank you," said Lucy, after the least possible hesitation.
Every one was immensely serious; and a few minutes afterwards Mrs. Maryon, looking out from the dressmaker's window, saw a solemn young man and a sober young woman emerge together from the house, laden with tripod-stand and camera, and a box of slides, respectively.
"I wish I could have gone myself," said Gertrude, in a worried tone; "but I promised Mrs. Staines to be in for her."
"Yes, heisa nice young man," answered Phyllis, unblushingly, looking up from her prints.
"Oh Phyllis, Phyllis, don't talk like a housemaid."
"I say, Gerty, all this is delightfully unchaperoned, isn't it?"
"Phyllis, how can you?" cried Gertrude, vexed.
The question of propriety was one which she always thought best left to itself, which she hated, above all things, to discuss. Yet even her own unconventional sense of fitness was a little shocked at seeing her sister walk out of the house with an unknown young man, both of them being bound for the studio of the latter.
She was quite relieved when, an hour later, Lucy appeared in the waiting-room, fresh and radiant from her little walk.
"Mrs. Staines has been and gone," said Gertrude. "She worried dreadfully. But what have you done with 'number three?'"
"Oh, I left the camera at York Place. I am going again to-morrow to do some work for Mr. Oakley, who shares Mr. Jermyn's studio."
"Grist for our mill with a vengeance. But come here and talk seriously, Lucy."
Phyllis, be it observed, who never remained long in the workshop, had gone out for a walk with Fan.
"Well?" said Lucy, balancing herselfagainst a five-barred gate, Fred Devonshire's latest gift, aptly christened by Phyllis the White Elephant. "Well, Miss Lorimer?"
"I'm going to say something unpleasant. Do you realise that this latest development of our business is likely to excite remark?"
"'That people will talk,' as Fan says? Oh, yes, I realise that."
"Don't look so contemptuous, Lucy. It is unconventional, you know."
"Of course it is; and so are we. It is a little late in the day to quarrel with our bread-and-butter on that ground."
"It is a mere matter of convention, is it not?" cried Gertrude, more anxious to persuade herself than her sister. "Whether a man walks into your studio and introduces himself, or whether your hostess introduces him at a party, it comes to much the same thing. In both cases you must use your judgment about him."
"And whether he walks down the street with you, or puts his arm round your waist, and waltzes off with you to some distant conservatory, makes very little difference. In either case the chances are one knows nothing about him. I am sure half the men one met at dances might have beenhaberdashers or professional thieves for all their hostesses knew. And, as a matter of fact, we happen to know something about Mr. Jermyn."
"Oh, I have nothing to say against Mr. Jermyn, personally. I am sure he is nice. It was rather that my vivid imagination saw vistas of studio-work looming in the distance. It was quite different with Mr. Lawrence, you know," said Gertrude, whom her own arguments struck as plausible rather than sound. "One thing may lead to another."
"Yes, it is sure to," cried Lucy, who saw an opportunity for escaping from the detested propriety topic. "To-day, for instance, with Mr. Oakley. He is middle-aged, by the bye, Gerty, and married, for I saw his wife."
They both laughed; they could, indeed, afford to laugh, for, regarded from a financial point of view, the morning had been an unusually satisfactory one.
Gertrude's prophetic vision of vistas of studio work proved, for the next few days at least, to have been no baseless fabric of the fancy. The two artists at York Place kept them so busy over models, sketches, and arrangements of drapery, that the girls'hands were full from morning till night. Of course this did not last, but Frank was so full of suggestions for them, so genuinely struck with the quality of their work, so anxious to recommend them to his comrades in art, that their spirits rose high, and hope, which for a time had almost failed them, arose, like a giant refreshed, in their breasts.
In all simplicity and respect, the young Cornishman took a deep and unconcealed interest in the photographic firm, and expected, on his part, a certain amount of interest to be taken in his own work.
Frank, as Conny had said, worked chiefly in black and white. He was engaged, at present, in illustrating a serial story forThe Woodcut, but he had time on his hands for a great deal more work, time which he employed in painting pictures which the public refused to buy, although the committees were often willing to exhibit them.
"If they would only send me out to that wretched little war," he said. "There is nothing like having been a special artist for getting a man on with the pictorial editors."
There is nothing like the salt of healthy objective interests for keeping the moral nature sound. Before the sense of mutual honesty, the little barriers of prudishness which both sides had thought fit in the first instance to raise, fell silently between the young people, never again to be lifted up.
For good or evil, these waifs on the great stream of London life had drifted together; how long the current should continue thus to bear them side by side—how long, indeed, they should float on the surface of the stream at all, was a question with which, for the time being, they did not very much trouble themselves.
No one quite knew how it came about, but before a month had gone by, it became the most natural thing in the world for Frank to drop in upon them at unexpected hours, to share their simple meals, to ask and give advice about their respective work.
Fanny had accepted the situation with astonishing calmness. Prudish to the verge of insanity with regard to herself, she had grown to look upon her strong-minded sisters as creatures emancipated from the ordinary conventions of their sex, as farremoved from the advantages and disadvantages of gallantry as the withered hag who swept the crossing near Baker Street Station.
Perhaps, too, she found life at this period a little dull, and welcomed, on her own account, a new and pleasant social element in the person of Frank Jermyn; however it may be, Fanny gave no trouble, and Gertrude's lurking scruples slept in peace.
One bright morning towards the end of January, Gertrude came careering up the street on the summit of a tall, green omnibus, her hair blowing gaily in the breeze, her ill-gloved hands clasped about a bulky note-book. Frank, passing by in painting-coat and sombrero, plucked the latter from his head and waved it in exaggerated salute, an action which evoked a responsive smile from the person for whom it was intended, but acted with quite a different effect on another person who chanced to witness it, and for whom it was certainly not intended. This was no other than Aunt Caroline Pratt, who, to Gertrude's dismay, came dashing past in an open carriage, a look of speechless horror on her handsome, horselike countenance.
Now it is impossible to be dignified on the top of an omnibus, and Gertrude received her aunt's frozen stare of non-recognition with a humiliating consciousness of the disadvantages of her own position.
With a sinking heart she crept down from her elevation, when the omnibus stopped at the corner, and walked in a crestfallen manner to Number 20B, before the door of which the carriage, emptied of its freight, was standing.
Aunt Caroline did not trouble them much in these days, and rather wondering what had brought her, Gertrude made her way to the sitting-room, where the visitor was already established.
"How do you do, Aunt Caroline?"
"How do you do, Gertrude? And where have you been this morning?"
"To the British Museum."
Gertrude felt all the old opposition rising within her, in the jarring presence; an opposition which she assured herself was unreasonable. What did it matter what Aunt Caroline said, at this time of day? It had been different when they had been little girls; different, too, in that first moment of sorrow and anxiety, when shehad laid her coarse touch on their quivering sensibilities.
Yet, when all was said, Mrs. Pratt's was not a presence to be in any way passed over.
"It is half-past one," said Aunt Caroline, consulting her watch; "are you not going to have your luncheon?"
"It is laid in the kitchen," explained Lucy; "but if you will stay we can have it in here."
"In the kitchen! Is it necessary to give up the habits of ladies because you are poor?"
"A kitchen without a cook," put in Phyllis, "is the most ladylike place in the world."
Mrs. Pratt vouchsafed no answer to this exclamation, but turned to Lucy.
"No luncheon, thank you. I may as well say at once that I have come here with a purpose; solely, in fact, from motives of duty. Gertrude, perhaps your conscience can tell you what brings me."
"Indeed, Aunt Caroline, I am at a loss——"
"I have come," continued Mrs. Pratt, "prepared to put up with anything you may say. Gertrude, it is to you I addressmyself, although, from Fanny's age, she is the one to have prevented this scandal."
"I do not in the least understand you," said Gertrude, with self-restraint.
Mrs. Pratt elevated her gloved forefinger, with the air of a well-seasoned counsel.
"Is it, or is it not true, that you have scraped acquaintance with a young man who lodges opposite you; that he is in and out of your rooms at all hours; that you follow him about to his studio?"
"Yes," said Gertrude, slowly, flushing deeply, "if you choose to put it that way; it is true."
"That you go about to public places with him," continued Aunt Caroline; "that you have been seen, two of you and this person, in the upper boxes of a theatre?"
"Yes, it is true," answered Gertrude; and Lucy, mindful of a coming storm, would have taken up the word, but Gertrude interrupted her.
"Let me speak, Lucy; perhaps, after all, we do owe Aunt Caroline some explanation. Aunt, how shall I say it for you to understand? We have taken life up from a different standpoint, begun it on different bases. We are poor people, and we arelearning to find out the pleasures of the poor, to approach happiness from another side. We have none of the conventional social opportunities for instance, but are we therefore to sacrifice all social enjoyment? You say we 'follow Mr. Jermyn to his studio;' we have our living to earn, no less than our lives to live, and in neither case can we afford to be the slaves of custom. Our friends must trust us or leave us; must rely on our self-respect and our judgment. Convention apart, are not judgment and self-respect what we most of us do rely on in our relations with people, under any circumstances whatever?"
It was only the fact that Aunt Caroline was speechless with rage that prevented her from breaking in at an earlier stage on poor Gertrude's heroics; but at this point she found her voice. Sitting very still, and looking hard at her niece with a remarkably unpleasant expression in her cold eye, she said in tones of concentrated fury:
"Fanny is a fool, and the others are children; but don'tyou, Gertrude, know what is meant by a lost reputation?"
This was too much for Gertrude; she sprang to her feet.
"Aunt Caroline," she cried, "you are right; Lucy and Phyllis are very young. It is not fit that they should hear such conversation. If you wish to continue it, I will ask them to go away."
A pause; the two combatants standing pale and breathless, facing one another. Then Lucy went over to her sister and took her hand; Fanny sobbed; Phyllis glanced from one to the other with her bright eyes.
Now, Gertrude's conduct had been distinctly injudicious; open defiance, no less than servile acquiescence, was understood and appreciated by Mrs. Pratt; but Gertrude, as Lucy, who secretly admired her sister's eloquence, at once perceived, had spoken a tongue not understanded of Aunt Caroline.
As soon, in these non-miraculous days, strike the rock for water, as appeal to Aunt Caroline's finer feelings or imaginative perceptions.
"If you will not listen to me," she said, suddenly assuming an air of weariness and physical delicacy, "it must be seen whether your uncle can influence you. I am not equal to prolonging the discussion."
Pointedly ignoring Gertrude, she shook hands with the other girls; angry as she was, their shabby clothes and shabby furniture smote her for the moment with compassion. Poverty seemed to her the greatest of human calamities; she pitied even more than she despised it.
To Lucy, indeed, who escorted her downstairs, she assumed quite a gay and benevolent manner; only pausing to ask on the threshold, with a good deal of fine, healthy curiosity underlying the elaborate archness of her tones:
"Now, how much money have you naughty girls been making lately?"
Lucy stoutly and laughingly evaded the question, and Aunt Caroline drove off smiling, refusing, like the stalwart warrior that she was, to acknowledge herself defeated. But it was many a long day before she attempted again to interfere in the affairs of the Lorimers.
Perhaps she would have been more ready to renew the attack, had she known how really distressed and disturbed Gertrude had been by her words.
" . . .I can give no reason, nor I will not;More than have a lodged hate and a certain loathingI bear Antonio."Merchant of Venice.
" . . .I can give no reason, nor I will not;More than have a lodged hate and a certain loathingI bear Antonio."Merchant of Venice.
" . . .I can give no reason, nor I will not;More than have a lodged hate and a certain loathingI bear Antonio."Merchant of Venice.
" . . .I can give no reason, nor I will not;
More than have a lodged hate and a certain loathing
I bear Antonio."
Merchant of Venice.
One morning, towards the middle of March, the sisters were much excited at receiving a letter containing an order to photograph a picture in a studio at St. John's Wood.
It was written in a small legible handwriting, was dated from The Sycamores, and signed, Sidney Darrell.
"I wonder how he came to hear of us?" said Lucy, who cherished a particular admiration for the works of this artist.
"Perhaps Mr. Jermyn knows him," answered Gertrude.
"He would probably have spoken of him to us, if he did."
"Here," said Gertrude, "is Mr. Jermyn to answer for himself."
Frank, who had been admitted by Matilda, came into the waiting-room, where the sisters stood, a look as of the dawning spring-time in his vivid face and shining eyes.
"I have brought the proofs fromThe Woodcut," he said, drawing a damp bundle from his painting-coat. The Lorimers always read the slips of the story he was illustrating, and then a general council was held to decide on the best incident for illustration.
Lucy took the bundle and handed him the letter.
"Aren't you tremendously pleased?" he said.
"Do you know anything about this?" asked Lucy.
"How?"
"I mean, did you recommend us to him?"
"Not I. This letter is simply the reward of well-earned fame."
"Thank you, Mr. Jermyn; I really think you must be right. Do you know Sidney Darrell?"
"I have met him. But he is a great swell, you know, Miss Lucy, and he is almost always abroad."
"Yes," put in Gertrude; "his exquisite Venetian pictures!"
"Oh, Darrell is a clever fellow. Too fond of the French school, perhaps, for my taste. And the curious thing is, that, though his work is every bit as solid as it is brilliant, there is something rather sensational about his reputation."
"All this," cried Gertrude, "sounds exciting."
"I think that must be owing to the man himself," went on Frank. "Oakley knows him fairly well; says you may meet him one night at dinner, and he will ask you up to his studio. The first thing next morning you get a note putting you off; he is very sorry, but he is starting that day for India."
"Does he paint Indian pictures?"
"No, but is bitten at times with the 'big game' craze; shoots tigers and sticks pigs, and so on. I believe his studio is quite a museum of trophies of the chase."
"By the by, Lucy, which of us is to go to The Sycamores to-morrow morning?"
"You must go, Gerty; I can't trust any one else to finish off those prints of little Jack Oakley, and they have been promised so long."
Gertrude consulted the letter.
"I shall have to take the big camera, which involves a cab."
"I wish I could have walked up with you," said Frank; "but, strange to say, I am very busy this week."
"I wish we were busy," answered Gertrude; "things are a little better, but it is slow work."
"I consider this letter of Darrell's a distinct move forward," cried hopeful Frank; "hewill be able to recommend you to artists who are not a lot of out-at-elbow fellows," he added, holding out his hand in farewell, with a bright smile that belied the rueful words. "Now, please don't forget you are all coming to tea with Oakley and me on Sunday afternoon. And Miss Devonshire—you gave her my invitation?"
"Yes," said Lucy, promptly; then addedafter a pause: "May her brother come too; he says he would like to?"
Frank scanned her quickly with his bright eyes.
"Certainly, if you like; he is not a bad sort of cub."
And then he departed abruptly.
"That was quite rude, for Mr. Jermyn," said Gertrude.
Lucy turned away with a slight flush on her fair face.
"It would be quite rude for anybody," she said, and went over to the studio.
Phyllis was spending the day at the Devonshires, but came back for the evening meal, by which time her sisters' excitement on the subject of Darrell's letter had subsided; and no mention was made of it while they were at table.
After the meal, Phyllis went over to the window, drew up the blind, and amused herself, as was her frequent custom, by looking into the street.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," said Lucy; "any one can see right into the room."
"Why do you waste your breath, Lucy? You know it is never any good telling me not to do things, when I want to."
Gertrude, who had herself a secret, childish love for the gas-lit street, for the sight of the hurrying people, the lamps, the hansom cabs, flickering in and out the yellow haze, like so many fire-flies, took no part in the dispute, but set to work at repairing an old skirt of Phyllis's, which was sadly torn.
Meanwhile the spoilt child at the window continued her observations, which seemed to afford her considerable amusement.
"There is a light in Frank Jermyn's window—the top one," she cried; "I suppose he is dressing. He told me he had an early dance in Harley Street. I wishIwere going to a dance."
There was a look of mischief in Phyllis's eyes as she looked round at Lucy, who was buried in the proof-sheets fromThe Woodcut.
"Phyllis, you are coughing terribly. Do come away from that draughty place," cried Gertrude, with real anxiety.
"Oh, I'm all right, Gerty. Ah, there goes Master Frank. It is wet underfoot, and he has turned up his trousers, and his pumps are bulging from his coat-pocket. I wonder how many miles a week he walks on his way to dances?"
"It is quite delightful to see a person with such an enjoyment of every phase of existence," said Gertrude, half to herself.
"You poor, dearblaséething. Itisa pretty sight to see the young people enjoying themselves, as the little boy said inPunch, is it not? I wonder if Mr. Jermyn is going to walk all the way? Perhaps he will take the omnibus at the corner. He never 'soars higher than a 'bus,' as he expresses it."
Wearying suddenly of the sport, Phyllis dropped the blind, and, coming over to Gertrude, knelt on the floor at her feet.
"It is a little dull, ain't it, Gerty, to look at life from a top-floor window?"
A curious pang went through Gertrude, as she tenderly stroked the nut-brown head.
"You haven't heard our news," she said, irrelevantly. "There, read that." And taking Mr. Darrell's note from her pocket, she handed it to Phyllis.
The latter read it through rather languidly.
"Yes, I suppose it is a good thing to be employed by such a person," she remarked. "Sidney Darrell?—Didn't I tell you I methim last week at the Oakleys, the day I went to tea?"
* * * * *
The Sycamores was divided from the road by a high grey wall, beyond which stretched a neglected-looking garden of some size, and, on the March morning of which I write, this latter presented a singularly melancholy appearance.
The house itself looked melancholy also, as houses will which are very little lived in, and appeared to consist almost entirely of a large studio, built out like a disproportionate wing from the main structure.
Gertrude was led at once to the studio by a serious-looking manservant, who announced that his master would join her in a few minutes.
The apartment in which Gertrude found herself was of vast size, and bore none of the signs of neglect and disuse which marked the house and garden.
It was fitted up with all the chaotic splendour which distinguishes the studio of the modern fashionable artist; the spoils of many climes, fruits of many wanderings, being heaped, with more regard topicturesqueness than fitness, in every available nook.
Going up to the carved fire-place, Gertrude proceeded to warm her hands at the comfortable wood-fire, a position badly adapted for taking stock of the great man's possessions, of which, as she afterwards confessed, she only carried away a prevailing impression of tiger-skins and Venetian lanterns.
The fire-light played about her slim figure and about the faded richness of a big screen of old Spanish leather, which fenced in the little bit of territory in the immediate neighbourhood of the fire-place; a spot in which had been gathered the most luxurious lounges and the choicest ornaments of the whole collection; and where, at the present moment, the air was heavy with the scent of tuberose, several sprays of which stood on a small table in a costly jar of Venetian glass.
In a few minutes the sound of footsteps outside, and of the rich, deep notes of a man's voice were audible.