The Judgment Books

"I think I'll come to the Fortescues', after all, this afternoon," said Frank, as they turned homeward.

"Why, of course you will."

"There's no 'of course' about it, dear," said Frank; "but I feel as if I couldn't paint to-day."

"How dreadfully lazy you are!" said Margery, inconsistently. "You'd never do anything if it wasn't for me. But you must promise to work very hard and sensibly to-morrow and next day, and when I come back I shall expect to see it more than half finished."

"Sensibly!" said Frank, impatiently; "there is no such thing. All good work is done in a sort of madness or somnambulism – I don't know which. Everything worth doing is done by men possessed of demons."

"The demon of crossness seems to have haunted you this morning," said Margery. "But you needn't make yourself crosser than is consistent with truth."

"But supposing I can't paint it in any other way than what you saw this morning?" asked Frank. "What am I to do, then?"

"There! Now you are asking my advice," said Margery, triumphantly, "although you always insist that I know nothing about art. Why, of course, you must paint it as you see it. You are forever saying that yourself."

"Well, you won't like it," said Frank.

"If you'll promise to eat your breakfast at nine and your lunch at two, and not work more than seven hours a day and go out not less than three, I will chance it. Mr. Armitage was so right when he said that good digestion was half the artistic sense."

"And the other half is bad dreams," said Frank.

"No; if you have good digestion, you don't have bad dreams."

Frank walked on in silence.

"If I only knew what was the matter with it," he said, at length, "I could correct it. But I don't, and I think it must be right. It's very odd."

"It's not a bit odd; it's only because you didn't eat your breakfast. And now you've got to eat your lunch."

Frank smoked a cigarette in his studio afterwards while Margery was getting ready. Soon he heard her calling, and got up to go. He stood for a moment in front of the portrait before leaving the room, and a momentary spasm of uncontrollable fear seized him.

"My God!" he said, "she goes away to-morrow; and I – I shall be left alone with this!"

CHAPTER V

Frank got through his tennis-party without discredit. Margery's presence seemed to have exorcised – for the time being, at any rate – the demon which he said possessed him, and there was no apparent similarity between his nature and Mr. Fortescue's. Ease of manner and a certain picturesqueness were natural to him, and Margery found herself forgetting the slightly disturbing events of the last twenty-four hours.

Mr. and Mrs. Greenock, who dined with them that evening, were gifted with oppressive personalities. Frank once said that he always felt as if Raphael's clouds had descended on him when he talked to this gentleman. Raphael's clouds, he maintained, were very likely big with blessing, but were somewhat solid in texture, and resembled benedictory feather-beds rather than benedictory clouds. The environment of benediction was possibly good for one in the long-run, but he himself considered it rather suffocating at the time. Mrs. Greenock, on the other hand, was an example of what Americans perhaps mean by a "very bright woman." She was oppressively bright. She had bright blue eyes, which suggested buttons covered with shiny American cloth, and a nose like a ship's prow, which seemed to cut the air when she moved. She asked artists questions about their art and musicians about their music, and if she had met a crossing-sweeper she would certainly have asked him questions about his crossing. This, she was persuaded, was the best way of improving an already superior intellect, as hers admittedly was. There is a great deal to be said for her view – there always was a great deal to be said for her views, and she usually said most of it herself. She always made a point of saying that she could remember anything you happened to tell her, in order to give Tom, or Harry, or Jane a really professional opinion in case they should happen to ask her questions on the subject in hand. She may, in fact, be described as a lioness-woman, who bore away all possible scraps to feed her whelps. Her methods of obtaining the scraps, however, as Frank had suggested, reminded one of a ferret at work. She had the same bright, cruel way of peering restlessly about.

Mr. and Mrs. Greenock were loudly and insistently punctual, and when Frank came into the drawing-room that evening he found his guests already there. Mrs. Greenock was snapping up pieces of information from Margery, and Mr. Greenock's attitude gave the beholder to understand that the blessing of the Church hovered over this instructive intercourse.

Mrs. Greenock instantly annexed Frank, as being able to give her more professional, and therefore more nutritive, scraps of intellectual food than his wife. She had a rich barytone voice and an impressive delivery.

"I'm sure you'll think me dreadfully ignorant," she said; "but when dear Kate asked me when Leonardo died I was unable to tell her within ten years. Now, what was the date?"

"I really could not say for certain," said Frank; "I forget the exact year, if I ever knew it."

Mrs. Greenock heaved a sigh of relief.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Trevor," she said. "Then may I tell dear Kate that even you don't know for certain, and so it cannot have been an epoch-making year? When one knows so little and wants to know so much, it is always worth while remembering that there is something one need not know. Now, which would you say was the most epoch-making year in the history of Art?"

Frank felt helpless with the bright, cruel eyes of the ferret fastened on his face, and he shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

"It would be hard to say that any one year was epoch-making," he replied; "but I should say that the Italian Renaissance generally was the greatest epoch. May I take you in to dinner?"

Mrs. Greenock turned her eyes up to the ceiling as if in a sudden spasm of gratitude.

"Thank you so much for telling me that. Algernon dear, did you hear what Mr. Trevor said about the Italian Renaissance? He agrees with us."

Mrs. Greenock unfolded her napkin as if she were in expectation of finding the manna of professional opinion wrapped up in it, and was a little disappointed on discovering only a piece of ordinary bread.

"And what, Mr. Trevor, if I may ask you this – what is the subject of your next picture? Naturally I wish to know exactly all that is going on round me. That is the only way, is it not, of being able to trace the tendencies of Art? Historical, romantic, realistic – what?"

"I've just begun a portrait of myself," said Frank.

Mrs. Greenock laid down the spoonful of soup she was raising to her lips, as if the mental food she was receiving was more suited to supply her needs than potage à la bonne femme.

"Thank you so much," she ejaculated. "Algernon dear, Mr. Trevor is doing a portrait of himself. Remind me to tell Harry that as soon as we get home. Ah, what a revelation it will be! An artist's portrait of himself – the portrait of you by yourself. That is the only true way for artists to teach us, to show us theirselves – what they are, not only what they look like."

Frank crumbled his bread with subdued violence.

"You have hit the nail on the head," he replied. "That is exactly what I mean to do."

Mrs. Greenock was delighted. This was a sort of testimonial to the superiority of her intellect, written in the hand of a professional.

"Please tell me more," she said, rejecting an entrée.

"There is nothing to tell," he said; "you have got to the root of the matter. A portrait should be, as you say, the man himself, not what he looks like. We are often very different to what we look like, and a gallery of real portraits would be a very startling thing. So many portraits are merely colored photographs. My endeavor is that this shall be something more than that."

"Yes!" said Mrs. Greenock, eagerly.

"You shall see it if you wish," said Frank, "but it will not be finished for a couple of days yet. My wife goes away to-morrow for a night, and as I shall be alone I shall work very hard at it. It – "

Frank was speaking in his lowest audible tones, but he stopped suddenly. He was afraid for a moment that he would actually lose all control over himself. As he spoke all his strange dreams and fancies surged back over his mind, and he could hardly prevent himself from crying aloud. He looked up and caught Margery's eye, and she, seeing that something was wrong, referred a point which she or Mr. Greenock had been discussing to his wife. Meantime Frank pulled himself together, but registered a solemn vow that never till the crack of doom should Mrs. Greenock set foot in his house again. He and Margery had had a small tussle over the necessity of asking the vicar to dinner, but Margery had insisted that every one always asked the vicar to dine, and Frank, of weaker will than she, had acquiesced. Poor Mrs. Greenock had unconsciously launched herself on very thin ice, and Frank inwardly absolved himself from all responsibility if she tried the experiment again.

When the two ladies left the room Mr. Greenock's feather-bed descents began in earnest. It was trying, but he was less likely to go in dangerous places than his predatory wife. He would not drink any more wine, and he would not smoke; but when Frank proposed that they should join the ladies, he said:

"It so seldom happens, in this secluded corner of the world, that I can converse with men who have lived their lives in a sphere so different to mine, that I confess I should much enjoy a little longer talk with you."

"Yes, I suppose you get few visitors here," said Frank.

"The visitors we get here," said Mr. Greenock, "are chiefly tourists who are not inclined for an interchange of thought and experience. Sometimes I see them in our little church-yard where so many men of note are buried, but they do not stop. Indeed, it would indicate a morbid tendency if they did."

"I have often noticed how many names one knows are on the graves in your church-yard," said Frank.

"It is a solemn thought," said Mr. Greenock, "that in our little church-yard lies all that is mortal of so many brilliant intellects and exceptional abilities. 'Green grows the grass on their graves,' as my wife beautifully expressed it the other day in a little lyric."

"Dear me, I did not know that Mrs. Greenock wrote poetry," said Frank.