Book: In Luck at Last

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"Oh, no, not despised. But it seems such a pity--"

"There is another kind of life, Iris, which you do not know. You must
let me teach you. It is the life of Art. If you would only condescend
to show the least curiosity about me, Iris, I would try to show you
something of the Art life."

"How can I show curiosity about you, Arnold? I feel none."

"No; that is just the thing which shames me. I have felt the most
lively curiosity about you, and I have asked you thousands of
impertinent questions."

"Not impertinent, Arnold. If you want to ask any more, pray do. I dare
say you cannot understand my simple life."

"And you ask me nothing at all about myself. It isn't fair, Iris."

"Why should I? I know you already."

"You know nothing at all about me."

"Oh, yes, I know you very well indeed. I knew you before you came
here. You showed me yourself in your letters. You are exactly like the
portrait I drew of you. I never thought, for instance, that you were
an old gentleman, as you thought me." He laughed. It was a new thing
to see Iris using, even gently, the dainty weapons of satire.

"But you do not know what I am, or what is my profession, or anything
at all about me."

"No; I do not care to know. All that is not part of yourself. It is
outside you."

"And because you thought you knew me from those letters, you suffer me
to come here and be your disciple still? Yet you gave me back my
letters?"

"That was because they were written to me under a wrong impression."

"Will you have them back again?"

She shook her head.

"I know them all by heart," she said simply.

There was not the slightest sign of coquetry or flattery in her voice,
or in her eyes, which met his look with clear and steady gaze.

"I cannot ask you to read my portrait to me as you drew it from those
pictures."

"Why not?" She began to read him his portrait as readily as if she
were stating the conclusion of a problem. "I saw that you were young
and full of generous thoughts; sometimes you were indignant with
things as they are, but generally you laughed at them and accepted
them. It is, it seems, the nature of your friends to laugh a great
deal at things which they ought to remedy if they could; not laugh at
them. I thought that you wanted some strong stimulus to work; anybody
could see that you were a man of kindly nature and good-breeding. You
were careful not to offend by anything that you wrote, and I was
certain that you were a man of honor. I trusted you, Arnold, before I
saw your face, because I knew your soul."

"Trust me still, Iris," he said in rather a husky voice.

"Of course I did not know, and never thought, what sort of a man you
were to look at. Yet I ought to have known that you were handsome. I
should have guessed that from the very tone of your letters. A
hunchback or a cripple could not have written in so light-hearted a
strain, and I should have discovered, if I had thought of such a
thing, that you were very well satisfied with your personal
appearance. Young men should always be that, at least, if only to give
them confidence."

"Oh, Iris--oh! Do you really think me conceited?"

"I did not say that. I only said that you were satisfied with
yourself. That, I understand now, was clear, from many little natural
touches in your letters."

"What else did you learn?"

"Oh, a great deal--much more than I can tell you. I knew that you go
into society, and I learned from you what society means; and though
you tried to be sarcastic, I understood easily that you liked social
pleasure."

"Was I sarcastic?"

"Was it not sarcastic to tell me how the fine ladies, who affect so
much enthusiasm for art, go to see the galleries on the private-view
day, and are never seen in them again? Was it not sarcastic--"

"Spare me, Iris. I will never do it again. And knowing so much, do you
not desire to know more?"

"No, Arnold. I am not interested in anything else."

"But my position, my profession, my people--are you not curious to
know them?"

"No. They are not you. They are accidents of yourself."

"Philosopher! But you must know more about me. I told you I was an
artist. But you have never inquired whether I was a great artist or a
little one."

"You are still a little artist," she said. "I know that, without being
told. But perhaps you may become great when you learn to work
seriously."

"I have been lazy," he replied with something like a blush, "but that
is all over now. I am going to work. I will give up society. I will
take my profession seriously, if only you will encourage me."

Did he mean what he said? When he came away he used at this period to
ask himself that question, and was astonished at the length he had
gone. With any other girl in the world, he would have been taken at
his word, and either encouraged to go on, or snubbed on the spot. But
Iris received these advances as if they were a confession of weakness.

"Why do you want me to encourage you?" she asked. "I know nothing
about Art. Can't you encourage yourself, Arnold?"

"Iris, I must tell you something more about myself. Will you listen
for a moment? Well, I am the son of a clergyman who now holds a
colonial appointment. I have got the usual number of brothers and
sisters, who are doing the usual things. I will not bore you with
details about them."

"No," said Iris, "please do not."

"I am the adopted son, or ward, or whatever you please, of a certain
cousin. She is a single lady with a great income, which she promises
to bequeath to me in the future. In the meantime, I am to have
whatever I want. Do you understand the position, Iris?"

"Yes, I think so. It is interesting, because it shows why you will
never be a great artist. But it is very sad."

"A man may rise above his conditions, Iris," said Arnold meekly.

"No," she went on; "it is only the poor men who do anything good. Lala
Roy says so."

"I will pretend to be poor--indeed, I am poor. I have nothing. If it
were not for my cousin, I could not even profess to follow Art."

"What a pity," she said, "that you are rich! Lala Roy was rich once."

Arnold repressed an inclination to desire that Lala Roy might be kept
out of the conversation.

"But he gave up all his wealth and has been happy, and a philosopher,
ever since."

"I can't give up my wealth, Iris, because I haven't got any--I owe my
cousin everything. But for her, I should never even have known you."

He watched her at her work in the morning when she sat patiently
answering questions, working out problems, and making papers. She
showed him the letters of her pupils, exacting, excusing,
petulant--sometimes dissatisfied and even ill-tempered, he watched her
in the afternoon while she sewed or read. In the evening he sat with
her while the two old men played their game of chess. Regularly every
evening at half-past nine the Bengalee checkmated Mr. Emblem. Up to
that hour he amused himself with his opponent, formed ingenious
combinations, watched openings, and gradually cleared the board until
he found himself as the hour of half-past nine drew near, able to
propose a simple problem to his own mind, such as, "White moves first,
to mate in three, four, or five moves," and then he proceeded to solve
that problem, and checkmated his adversary.

No one, not even Iris, knew how Lala Roy lived, or what he did in the
daytime. It was rumored that he had been seen at Simpson's in the
Strand, but this report wanted confirmation. He had lived in Mr.
Emblem's second floor for twenty years; he always paid his bills with
regularity, and his long spare figure and white mustache and fez were
as well known in Chelsea as any red-coated lounger among the old
veterans of the Hospital.

"It is quiet for you in the evenings," said Arnold.

"I play to them sometimes. They like to hear me play during the game.
Look at them."

She sat down and played. She had a delicate touch, and played soft
music, such as soothes, not excites the soul. Arnold watched her, not
the old men. How was it that refinement, grave, self-possession,
manners, and the culture of a lady, could be found in one who knew no
ladies? But then Arnold did not know Lala Roy, nor did he understand
the old bookseller.

"You are always wondering about me," she said, talking while she
played; "I see it in your eyes. Can you not take me as I am, without
thinking why I am different from other girls? Of course I am
different, because I know none of them."

"I wish they were all like you," he said.

"No; that would be a great pity. You want girls who understand your
own life, and can enter into your pursuits--you want companions who
can talk to you; go back to them, Arnold, as soon as you are tired of
coming here."

And yet his instinct was right which told him that the girl was not a
coquette. She had no thought--not the least thought--as yet that
anything was possible beyond the existing friendship. It was pleasant,
but Arnold would get tired of her, and go back to his own people. Then
he would remain in her memory as a study of character. This she did
not exactly formulate, but she had that feeling. Every woman makes a
study of character about every man in whom she becomes ever so little
interested. But we must not get conceited, my brothers, over this
fact. The converse, unhappily, does not hold true. Very few men ever
study the character of a woman at all. Either they fall in love with
her before they have had time to make more than a sketch, and do not
afterward pursue the subject, or they do not fall in love with her at
all; and in the latter case it hardly seems worth while to follow up a
first rough draft.

"Checkmate," said Lala Roy.

The game was finished and the evening over. "Would you like," he
said, another evening, "to see my studio, or do you consider my studio
outside myself?"

"I should very much like to see an artist's studio," she replied with
her usual frankness, leaving it an open question whether she would not
be equally pleased to see any other studio.

She came, however, accompanied by Lala Roy, who had never been in a
studio before, and indeed had never looked at a picture, except with
the contemptuous glance which the philosopher bestows upon the follies
of mankind. Yet he came, because Iris asked him. Arnold's studio is
one of the smallest of those in Tite Street. Of course it is built of
red brick, and of course it has a noble staircase and a beautiful
painting-room or studio proper all set about with bits of tapestry,
armor, pictures, and china, besides the tools and properties of the
craft. He had portfolios full of sketches; against the wall stood
pictures, finished and unfinished; on an easel was a half-painted
picture representing a group taken from a modern novel. Most painters
only draw scenes from two novels--the "Vicar of Wakefield" and "Don
Quixote;" but Arnold knew more. The central figure was a girl, quite
unfinished--in fact, barely sketched in.

Iris looked at everything with the interest which belongs to the new
and unexpected.

Arnold began to show the pictures in the portfolios. There were
sketches of peasant life in Norway and on the Continent; there were
landscapes, quaint old houses, and castles; there were ships and
ports; and there were heads--hundreds of heads.

"I said you might be a great artist," said Iris. "I am sure now that
you will be if you choose."

"Thank you, Iris. It is the greatest compliment you could pay me."

"And what is this?" she was before the easel on which stood the
unfinished picture.

"It is a scene from a novel. But I cannot get the principal face. None
of the models are half good enough. I want a sweet face, a serious
face, a face with deep, beautiful eyes. Iris"--it was a sudden
impulse, an inspiration--"let me put your face there. Give me my first
commission."

She blushed deeply. All these drawings, the multitudinous faces and
heads and figures in the portfolio were a revelation to her. And just
at the very moment when she discovered that Arnold was one of those
who worship beauty--a thing she had never before understood--he told
her that her face was so beautiful that he must put in his picture.

"Oh, Arnold," she said, "my face would be out of place in that
picture."

"Would it? Please sit down, and let me make a sketch."

He seized his crayons and began rapidly.

"What do you say, Lala Roy?" he asked by way of diversion.

"The gifts of the understanding," said the Sage, "are the treasures of
the Lord; and He appointeth to every one his portion."

"Thank you," replied Arnold. "Very true and very apt, I'm sure. Iris,
please, your face turned just a little. So. Ah, if I can but do some
measure of justice to your eyes!"

When Iris went away, there was for the first time the least touch of
restraint or self-consciousness in her. Arnold felt it. She showed it
in her eyes and in the touch of her fingers when he took her hand at
parting. It was then for the first time also that Arnold discovered a
truth of overwhelming importance. Every new fact--everything which
cannot be disputed or denied, is, we all know, of the most enormous
importance. He discovered no less a truth than that he was in love
with Iris. So important is this truth to a young man that it reduces
the countless myriads of the world to a single pair--himself and
another; it converts the most arid waste of streets into an Eden; and
it blinds the eyes to ambition, riches, and success. Arnold sat down
and reasoned out this truth. He said coldly and "squarely:"

"This is a girl whom I have known only a fortnight or so; she lives
over a second-hand bookshop; she is a teacher by profession; she knows
none of the ways of society; she would doubtless be guilty of all
kinds of queer things, if she were suddenly introduced to good people;
probably, she would never learn our manners," with more to the same
effect, which may be reasonably omitted. Then his Conscience woke up,
and said quite simply: "Arnold, you are a liar." Conscience does
sometimes call hard names. She is feminine, and therefore privileged
to call hard names. Else we would sometimes kick and belabor
Conscience. "Arnold, don't tell more lies. You have been gradually
learning to know Iris, through the wisest and sweetest letters that
were ever written, for a whole year. You gradually began to know her,
in fact, when you first began to interlard your letters with conceited
revelations about yourself. You knew her to be sympathetic, quick, and
of a most kind and tender heart. You are quite sure, though you try to
disguise the fact, that she is as honest as the day, and as true as
steel. As for her not being a lady, you ought to be ashamed of
yourself for even thinking such a thing. Has she not been tenderly
brought up by two old men who are full of honor, and truth, and all
the simple virtues? Does she not look, move, and speak like the most
gracious lady in the land?" "Like a goddess," Arnold confessed. "As
for the ways and talk of society, what are these worth? and cannot
they be acquired? And what are her manners save those of the most
perfect refinement and purity?" Thus far Conscience. Then Arnold, or
Arnold's secret _advocatus diaboli_, began upon another and quite
different line. "She must have schemed at the outset to get me into
her net; she is a siren; she assumes the disguise of innocence and
ignorance the better to beguile and to deceive. She has gone home
to-day elated because she thinks she has landed a gentleman."

Conscience said nothing; there are some things to which Conscience has
no reply in words to offer; yet Conscience pointed to the portrait of
the girl, and bade the most unworthy of all lovers look upon even his
own poor and meager representation of her eyes and face, and ask
whether such blasphemies could ever be forgiven.

After a self abasement, which for shame's sake we must pass over, the
young man felt happier.

Henry the Second felt much the same satisfaction the morning after
his scourging at the hands of the monks, who were as muscular as they
were vindictive.




CHAPTER VI.

COUSIN CLARA.


That man who spends his days in painting a girl's portrait, in talking
to her, and in gazing upon the unfinished portrait when she is not
with him, and occupies his thoughts during the watches of the night in
thinking about her, is perilously near to taking the last and fatal
step. Flight for such a man is the only thing left, and he so seldom
thinks of flight until it is too late.

Arnold was at this point.

"I am possessed by this girl," he might have said had he put his
thoughts into words. "I am haunted by her eyes; her voice lingers on
my ears; I dream of her face, the touch of her fingers is like the
touch of an electric battery." What symptoms are these, so common that
one is almost ashamed to write them down, but the infallible symptoms
of love? And yet he hesitated, not because he doubted himself any
longer, but because he was not independent, and such an engagement
might deprive him at one stroke of all that he possessed. Might? It
certainly would. Yes, the new and beautiful studio, all the things in
it, all his prospects for the future, would have to be given up. "She
is worth more than that," said Arnold, "and I should find work
somehow. But yet, to plunge her into poverty--and to make Clara the
most unhappy of women!"

The reason why Clara would be made the most unhappy of women, was that
Clara was his cousin and his benefactor, to whom he owed everything.
She was the kindest of patrons, and she liked nothing so much as the
lavishing upon her ward everything that he could desire. But she also,
unfortunately, illustrated the truth of Chaucer's teaching, in that
she loved power more than anything else, and had already mapped out
Arnold's life for him.

It was his custom to call upon her daily, to use her house as his own.
When they were separated, they wrote to each other every day; the
relations between them were of the most intimate and affectionate
kind. He advised in all her affairs, while she directed his; it was
understood that he was her heir, and though she was not more than five
and forty or so, and had, apparently, a long life still before her, so
that the succession was distant, the prospect gave him importance. She
had been out of town, and perhaps the fact of a new acquaintance with
so obscure a person as a simple tutor by correspondence, seemed to
Arnold not worth mentioning. At all events, he had not mentioned it in
his daily letters.

And now she was coming home; she was actually arrived; he would see
her that evening. Her last letter was lying before him.

"I parted from dear Stella yesterday. She goes to stay with
the Essex Mainwarings for a month; after that, I hope that
she will give me a long visit. I do not know where one could
find a sweeter girl, or one more eminently calculated to
make a man happy. Beautiful, strictly speaking, she is not,
perhaps, but of excellent connections, not without a
portion, young, clever, and ambitious. With such a wife, my
dear Arnold, a man may aspire to anything."

"To anything!" repeated Arnold; "what is her notion of anything? She
has arrived by this time." He looked at his watch and found it was
past five. "I ought to have been at the station to meet her. I must go
round and see her, and I must dine with her to-night." He sighed
heavily. "It would be much pleasanter to spend the evening with Iris."

Then a carriage stopped at his door. It was his cousin, and the next
minute he was receiving and giving the kiss of welcome. For his own
part, he felt guilty, because he could put so little heart into that
kiss, compared with all previous embraces. She was a stout, hearty
little woman, who could never have been in the least beautiful, even
when she was young. Now on the middle line, between forty and fifty,
she looked as if her face had been chopped out of the marble by a rude
but determined artist, one who knew what he wanted and would tolerate
no conventional work. So that her face, at all events, was, if not
unique, at least unlike any other face one had ever seen. Most faces,
we know, can be reduced to certain general types--even Iris's face
might be classified--while of yours, my brother, there are, no doubt,
multitudes. Miss Holland, however, had good eyes--bright, clear
gray--the eyes of a woman who knows what she wants and means to get it
if she can.

"Well, my dear," she said, taking the one comfortable chair in the
studio, "I am back again, and I have enjoyed my journey very much; we
will have all the travels this evening. You are looking splendid,
Arnold!"

"I am very well indeed. And you, Clara? But I need not ask."

"No, I am always well. I told you about dear Stella, did I not? I
never had a more delightful companion."

"So glad you liked her."

"If only, Arnold, you would like her too. But I know"--for Arnold
changed color--"I know one must not interfere in these matters. But
surely one may go so far with a young man one loves as to say, 'Here
is a girl of a million.' There is not, Arnold, I declare, her equal
anywhere; a clearer head I never met, or a better educated girl, or
one who knows what a man can do, and how he can be helped to do it."

"Thank you, Clara," Arnold said coldly; "I dare say I shall discover
the young lady's perfections in time."

"Not, I think, without some help. She is not an ordinary girl. You
must draw her out, my dear boy."

"I will," he said listlessly. "I will try to draw her out, if you
like."

"We talked a great deal of you, Arnold," Clara went on. "I confided to
her some of my hopes and ambitions for you; and I am free to confess
to you that she has greatly modified all my plans and calculations."

"Oh!" Arnold was interested in this "But, my dear Clara, I have my
profession. I must follow my profession."

"Surely--surely! Listen, Arnold, patiently. Anybody can become an
artist--anybody, of course, who has the genius. And all kinds of
people, gutter people, have the genius."

"The sun," said Arnold, just as if he had been Lala Roy, "shines on
all alike."

"Quite so; and there is an immense enthusiasm for art everywhere; but
there is no art leader. There is no one man recognized as the man most
competent to speak on art of every kind. Think of that. It is Stella's
idea entirely. This man, when he is found, will sway enormous
authority; he will become, if he has a wife able to assist him, an
immense social power."

"And you want me to become that man?"

"Yes, Arnold. I do not see why you should not become that man. Cease
to think of becoming President of the Royal Academy, yet go on
painting; prove your genius, so as to command respect; cultivate the
art of public speaking; and look about for a wife who will be your
right hand. Think of this seriously. This is only a rough sketch, we
can fill in the details afterward. But think of it. Oh, my dear boy!
if I were only a man, and five-and-twenty, with such a chance before
me! What a glorious career is yours, if you choose! But of course you
will choose. Good gracious, Arnold! who is that?"

She pointed to the canvas on the easel, where Iris's face was like the
tale of Cambuscan, half told.

"It is no one you know, Clara."

"One of your models?" She rose and examined it more closely through
her glasses. "The eyes are wonderful, Arnold. They are eyes I know. As
if I could ever forget them! They are the same eyes, exactly the same
eyes. I have never met with any like them before. They are the eyes of
my poor, lost, betrayed Claude Deseret. Where did you pick up this
girl, Arnold? Is she a common model?"

"Not at all. She is not a model. She is a young lady who teaches by
correspondence. She is my tutor--of course I have so often talked to
you about her--who taught me the science of Heraldry, and wrote me
such charming letters."

"Your tutor! You said your tutor was an old gentleman."

"So I thought, Clara. But I was wrong. My tutor is a young lady, and
this is her portrait, half-finished. It does not do her any kind of
justice."

"A young lady!" She looked suspiciously at Arnold, whose telltale
cheek flushed. "A young lady! Indeed! And you have made her
acquaintance."

"As you see, Clara; and she does me the honor to let me paint her
portrait."

"What is her name, Arnold?"

"She is a Miss Aglen."

"Strange. The Deserets once intermarried with the Aglens. I wonder if
she is any connection. They were Warwickshire Aglens. But it is
impossible--a teacher by correspondence, a mere private governess! Who
are her people?"

"She lives with her grandfather. I think her father was a tutor or
journalist of some kind, but he is dead; and her grandfather keeps a
second-hand bookshop in the King's Road close by."

"A bookshop! But you said, Arnold, that she was a young lady."

"So she is, Clara," he replied simply.

"Arnold!" for the first time in his life Arnold saw his cousin angry
with him. She was constantly being angry with other people, but never
before had she been angry with him. "Arnold, spare me this nonsense.
If you have been playing with this shop-girl I cannot help it, and I
beg that you will tell me no more about it, and do not, to my face,
speak of her as a lady."

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