Noel Chetwynd's Fall. A novel

Front matter

_Frcntis^iecct oA t^ovel BY Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL AUTHOR OF " LUCIA, HUGH, AND ANOTHER j" " THE STORY OF PHILIP METHUEN," &C. EDINBURGH OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. ITKINTBD BV FRANK MURRAY FOR OLIPHANT, ANDERSON, & FERRIER, EDINBURGH LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. CONTENTS. PAGE Frontispiece .......... 2 CHAP. I. A Nineteenth-Century Studio .... 7 n. Noel Chetwynd 26 in. Provocations 47 iv. The Portrait 59 v. Felix Kynaston at Home 76 vi. Eleanor Dalzell 91 vn. A Brave Man's Surrender 106 vm. Inside St. George's 120 ix. A Dangerous Bargain 138 x. Get Thee behind Me, Satan! 153 xi. A Golden Opportunity 165 xn. The Downward Slope 180 xin. Fuel to the Flame 193 xiv. Light become Darkness 202 xv. Renunciation 214 xvi. The Duchess to the Rescue 229 xvn. A Caprice of Fortune 245 xvm.

A Breath of Suspicion 255 xix. The Exhibition of the Cartoons .... 266 xx. A Game Won and Lost 276 xxi. The Balance of Judgment 283 xxii. No Room for Atonement 291 xxm. What we mend we mar 302 xxiv. Nunc Dimittis

Chapter I

A NINETEENTH-CENTURY STUDIO. There are few things, perhaps, which show more fully the minute and pervading influence of modern luxury and æstheticism, than the studios of our painters. Thirty years ago a room of modest propor tions, with a good north light and no superfluous furniture to impede the artist's movements (backing obliquely from the canvas on the easel), or to dispute the space with a lay figure or two ; the rough platform on which the model sat or stood, and perhaps a dilapidated suit of armour of doubtful antiquity, besides the few other im perative accessories of the profession, were held adequate for the purposes of a workshop. Now7, the resources of wealth and culture — almost of imagination itself — are taxed, till some of the chambers where our great painters ply their vocation resemble the realisation of an Arabian Night's tale.

It was not under such conditions that thc Fighting Temeraire wras tugged to her last berth, or that Dido laid the foundations of her capital ; nor, indeed, that Isabella first stood in her divine austerity to exhort Claudio, or the Huguenot lover put gently from him the temptation which involved more of the bitterness of death than the death which threatened him. But it is to a studio of the modern advanced type to which we wish to introduce the reader. A line of carriages stands outside the house in Eaton Square, for it wants but three weeks to the opening of the Royal Academy, and the public — or at least that very small section of the public whose balance at their bankers justifies the idea of entering into competition for high priced wrorks of art — are flocking to see Noel Chetwynd's new picture, now on view.

The studio, a room of magnificent dimensions, with the centre and angles of the ceiling painted with scenes from the Odyssey, had the middle of the floor covered by a superb carpet, which had been veritably woven in a Persian loom long before the fair dawn of Christianity broke over England. It was so priceless a possession that many of the influential women who formed part of Noel Chetwynd's society, expostulated with him for reducing to everyday use a thing that ought to have been hung against a wall and exhibited only as an object of art; but the young man would answer with a smile, that he had done his best to drape his walls and windows in such a fashion as showed the value he set upon his treasure ; and for the rest, it was virtually in destructible, and might as well charm their eyes and receive the pressure of their dainty feet as do the same for an unborn generation.

The hangings to which he alluded were tapestries woven to order at the Gobelin factories, in which the colours and designs of the carpet were felici tously harmonised and reproduced. The room was, in short, a magnificent shell for the reception of the art-treasures it contained. Statues gleamed with the softened tone produced by the lapse of ages, which had been not long since the pride of certain Roman and Florentine galleries, whose possessors had been unable to resist the prodigi ous bribes offered for their exchange. Cabinets, inlaid with the matchless skill of Venetian art, and tables, elaborate with the carving of the Renaissance, stood amidst chairs and couches of modern ease and completeness, veiled under æsthetic forms and coverings. In one corner was placed an exquisite httle grand piano of Erard's, with the sides and open lid charmingly painted with the story of Orpheus, and in an other an antique bookcase filled with the literature of many tongues and many ages.

Slender cupboards with open shelves were crowded with a costly litter of bronzes, pottery, gems, and intaglios, such as a rich and much travelled man gathers around him almost insen sibly. Classic bowls and huge Etruscan vases had been turned into jardinieres full of perfumed plants or graceful exotic ferns, and a pleasant warmth was shed, as well as a brisk ventilation kept up, by the pine logs blazing on the low brass andirons of the tiled hearth. The only objects which denoted the specific character of the room were the wfndows and skylights at the upper end, with their careful adaptation of blinds and canvas for the regulation of the light, an open Venetian coffer such as the great ladies of the Republic used as repositories for their wedding-clothes, in which lay a hetero geneous mass of loose drawings and portfolios, and a slab of malachite supported on trestles and covered with the implements of the painter's craft.

Also the opposite wall had been stripped of its hangings, and was carefully scraped and plastered as if in preparation for some work in fresco. A large easel stood in the light of the windows and supported the picture on view, while several smaller ones, each with its more or less valuable deposit, were dotted about the floor and challenged the inspection of the guests. A tender April sunshine lent its charm to the scene, and shone upon a mixed group of men and women, who were, for the most part, ringing changes up and down the gamut of amateur criticism. The painting on view was a large canvas, representing a scene from a well-known modern story — the recovery of the body of Zenobia in the " Blithedale Romance." The artist had chosen the moment when the three men had just deposited their terrible burden upon the ground beneath a tree, and were still bowed in instinctive contemplation of it.

The postures and faces were finely discriminated ; the direct investigation of the stout, grizzled yeoman, the tear in whose eye did not blind him to the instant discovery of the wound in the dead woman's breast ; the veiled but concen trated anguish of her secret lover, Hollingsworth, whose powerful and massive head was drawn with admirable spirit, and whose reluctant and half-averted gaze at once loathed and devoured the object which it shunned ; and the impersonal horror, struggling with physiological curiosity, of Coverdale's refined and beautiful face. In one point, however, the painter had missed the fine dramatic spirit of the writer, or rather his instinct was absolutely opposed to it. He could not, or would not, paint the dead woman with the relentless reahsm with which Hawthorne describes her.

The Zenobia of Noel Chetwynd's picture lay supine on the moon lighted ground, with her drenched garments clinging to limbs straight and composed, and her livid face serene and fair. A buzz of animated controversy filled the room. "It is quite too dreadful, Mr. Chetwynd!" said one lady, smoothing her long Suede gloves so as to define more perfectly the contour of her pretty wrists ; " but why did you choose such a ghastly object ? I am afraid I shall dream of it. I have seen death for the first time to-day." Chetwynd smiled, well-pleased. "Without meaning it," he said, "Lady Barbara Neville has paid me a compliment beyond my deserts." " I don't know about that, Chetwynd," cried a gentleman, who was shifting his position contin ually in front of the easel, and viewing the picture with his long, thin hand, shading his eyes as if to aid and concentrate his vision ; " there is some thing in the fore-shortening of the drowned woman's left arm better, excuse me, than anything I remember you to have done before.

The flesh tints of the four faces are really marvellously discriminated, and you know as well as I do that there are only two men besides yourself — and like you they don't write R.A. after their name — who can paint living flesh and blood. All the rest give us wax, or porcelain, marble, or, shall we say parchment ? " " Gifts vary," said Chetwynd, with his pleasant smile. " I believe I have some little notion of colour, but I would barter that for the power to draw as some men can," and he glanced towards the fireplace, where one of his guests was standing with his back to the company, stretching out his hands toward the warmth, and seemingly lost in contemplation of the bowls and plates above his head. "Ah," returned the other, with a slight shrug and protrusion of the under hp, " success makes a man generous !

It is no bad gauge of our position when we begin to stretch out a helping hand to our weaker brethren." The colour deepened a little in Chetwynd's handsome, vivid face. " You make a mistake," he said. " I spoke of a man who was, and still is, my master — of Felix Kynaston." "Never heard of him!" laughed the other. " Who is he, and where are the proofs ?" But Chetwynd's attention was evidently diverted. A young lady wdio had not yet spoken — a well known figure in society, being an heiress of con siderable distinction, and a beauty of two seasons' standing — here turned her thoughtful, steadfast gaze from the canvas she had been studying to the young painter's face. Her expression, which was a trifle too grave and reserved, softened as she did so, and a smile came into her eyes and lightly touched the lovely curves of her lips.

" I think," she said, and her full, deep voice had a faultless purity of articulation, " that I remember a picture of Mr. Kynaston's in last year's Academy. It was badly hung, but, so far as one was able to judge, it fully justified what Mr. Chetwynd says, or at least I mean it was a very clever picture — we make allowance for the generous warmth of the praise." Her eyes suddenly drooped beneath the un conscious ardour of the young man's gaze, and she made haste to add, " I am not a responsible critic, but to this day I have an unsatisfied desire to have seen that picture closer." Her clear voice had reached Kynaston's ears, and he turned round from the fire to answer her, showing a dark, strongly-marked physiognomy, which might have been pronounced grand or forbidding according to the bias of the speaker, but which left no doubt on the mind of any one present as to where young Chetwynd had gone for his study of Hollingsworth's head.

"It is a desire that may be gratified without any difficulty," he said, "if you are willing to honour my poor studio with a visit. In which case Miss Dalzell will discover that I am always left in undisputed possession of whatever I attempt — or achieve." He added the last words as an after-thought, and as if to his own ear only, and there w7as not a touch of bitterness or mortification in his manner. If the habitual expression of his coun tenance were a little stern and depressed, it was at least animated and pleasant enough now as he looked up and met the light in her beautiful face. " Do you mean you have never had a success ?" she asked. "Never!" he said, quietly; "that is, if this means success." He glanced towards Chetwynd, who was at that moment bowing low over the hand of a new arrival, a certain plethoric old Duchess, and assisting her to make her way to the front of his canvas.

There was a momentary hush in the room while this movement was being effected, for impediments were considerable and the lady infirm ; also the Duchess of Hillshire was held to be no mean connoisseur, and was always liberally disposed to add to the ducal collection whenever her trained faculty permitted her to encourage native talent. As she now sank into a chair in full front of the picture, and surveyed it deliberately through her delicately-poised eye-glasses, the silence deepened, and a flush came into Chetwynd's face. Probably the interval of suspense did not exceed two minutes, but seconds count double where the tension of expectation is great, and it seemed a considerably longer time before the Duchess dropped her glasses slowly into her lap and faced round upon the painter who was stand ing near her chair.

"You don't like it, Duchess?" he asked, with a smile wThich cost him a little, and a careful air of deference in his manner. He was so afraid of betraying his disappointment that his courtesy became a trifle exaggerated. The delicate smile on Eleanor Dalzell's lips deepened a little. "I don't like it a bit, Noel Chetwynd!" was the prompt rejoinder. " The three men are not bad, but they are done from the life, and you are a born portrait painter. Still let us own that you have put more into them this time than I had given you credit to possess — pardon the B brutal frankness of an old woman ! But the drowned woman — oh, Lord !" and the Duchess took up her glasses again. " She is not ghastly enough to win your Grace's favour?" asked Chetwynd, in the same tone as before, and this time the Duchess looked him sharply in the face.

" She is not dead enough for me, Noel Chet wynd, and for certain what measure of deathliness she has she never got, poor soul, by drowning ! That tidy, limp, pleasantly composed corpse probably slept away her life under an extra dose of chloral. You should have run over to Paris and taken your sketch-book to the Morgue !" Chetwynd bit his lip with annoyance. "Besides," continued the critic, "I have more fault to find than that. Even if you had worked up the horror to the necessary point, why should you — a happy over-prosperous young fellow — choose such a subject at all? Is that the sort of thing we wish our eyes to fall upon in the resting moments of worry and work ? My experience is deeper than yours, and I tell you that life and this big-little world of ours are full of. dignity, and beauty, and pathos, if you will only look straight.

I, for one, don't want the plague-spots perpetuated. A great artist like Nat Hawthorne may paint the repulsive if he likes, and even then I only forgive him on the score of perfection." " But even Hawthorne's art fails sometimes, and there is much in Chetwynd's picture which goes very near perfection." The speaker was Felix Kynaston, and the Duchess, a little surprised, turned her glasses in the direction of the voice. " Oh, Mr. Hollings worth, I perceive !" she said, with a rich, sincere, ringing laugh, which was well-nigh irresistible. " You are only properly grateful, for he has taken your portrait admirably. That is his forte, and he should stick to it — which reminds me. Eleanor Dalzell, why did you not come and speak to me before ? I have only just discovered you ! Your good aunt has been teasing me to name a painter worthy to paint your picture.

The great triumvirate being overworked or disinclined, leaves me at liberty to name Noel Chetwynd. I owe him an amende — let me, please, make you the vehicle !" She drew the girl's fair face towards her and kissed her. " My aunt will be proud to take her orders from your lips, Duchess," whispered Eleanor, archly, "only I had a notion" — she stopped, coloured a httle, and looked towards Kynaston. " Does Hollingsworth paint ? " asked the Duchess, following the direction of her eyes. " If I were a cynic I should say I was sur prised, recalling the rebuff he administered to me just now; but I am not a cynic, my dear, as you know ; and if I want to hear a fair, ay, and even a generous judgment of a man, I go to his fellow-w7orkers. But introduce me to your protege ! " The girl named Kynaston, with the perfect aplomb which comes from a sense of social distinction, and then said to him wdth a pretty touch of embarrassment she rarely exhibited — "Would you think I was taking a liberty if I asked you to paint my picture ?

I mean you would quite understand that I felt the favour to be all on one side ? " " I quite understand," he said, with a beam ing look which expressed a warm moral approval rather than any tribute to her beauty and grace, " but — I don't paint portraits. The picture you were so kind as to remember was a landscape." " It was ; but I think I have seen some figure drawings of yours in the white and black room that seemed to me full of power and originality." She hesitated and smiled, seeing the look of pleasure in his eyes. At this moment Mrs. Dalzell, obeying the Duchess's beckoning finger, approached, trailing her long skirts over the impediments in her passage, and signified with languid haughtiness that she was prepared to do as her Grace wished. " But, my dear," said the Duchess, hurriedly, "you must quite understand this is not a question of patronage, but of mutual complais ance.

Noel Chetwynd is no end of a swell, and is much better off than you or I. You must ask him down to Richmond, and pet him hke the lion that he is." Mrs. Dalzell slightly raised her eyebrows. Any man who worked hard in any profession was, to her mind, so much the less a gentle man. " Noel Chetwynd always adds to his reputation every time man or woman sits to him," pursued the eager old Duchess, "and he will make a lovely picture of your niece." Then, summoning the young painter to her, she said — " Come ! I have bought absolution, and given you a worthy task to do ! If you will suffer a suggestion from an ungracious old woman who does too much justice to your talents to flatter you, you will paint Ellen Dalzell in the open air. I should like to see her stepping forth like Aurora at break of day, hfe and movement flowing through every hmb, and with the dehcious promise of spring in her face.

Mind, I shall be hard to satisfy." Chetwynd once more bowed over the hand she graciously extended, in order that he might help her to rise from her seat and take her to her carriage. His face was alight "with pleasure, and he had managed to whisper a word to Eleanor, which had brought a touch of the same brightness into hers. " I do not deserve your kindness, Duchess ; I behaved badly just now, but you put your finger on the sore place, and I was coward enough to wince. Had it been Kynaston, now — " "Oh, aye!" she interrupted, laughing, "hon ourable men pay their debts, and you owe him one for contradicting me in your behalf. But who is Kynaston 'now'?" " The cleverest man in London, and the most unpractical, or he would not have missed fame and fortune as he has done. The best teaching I got from any man was during the two years I worked in his studio at Rome.

Nature had put tools into my hands, but Kynaston taught me how to use them." The young man spoke with generous warmth, and his fine face sparkled and glowed. The Duchess slightly touched his cheek with her glove — it was like the caress of a mother. "Good boy!" she said, "I like your temper. Keep it of that turn and you will do well, for good art never came out of a mean mind. There is a chance, if you take proper pains with Nell Dalzell, that one day I shall ask you to do my portrait ! But you must be content to wait a bit. I am too old for beauty, and not quite hideous enough for the aged crone. When my eyes are bleared with the rheum of eld, and I have ten thousand wrinkles on my skin, I shall be almost as hopeful a subject as a young beauty." She paused, partly for breath, partly to look at the plastered surface of the wall they had reached by this time.

" You are trying your hand at fresco painting?" she aske^ " I am going in for the Westminster com petition," he answered, " and so is Kynaston. Wish me success, Duchess, even though I must gain it at the expense of my best friend." " With all my heart ! There is nothing to be said against carrying an open fight to the bitter end, and you are honest as well as clever. But, somehow, I should feel disposed to lay odds on the friend." The carriage was reached by this time, and Chetwynd's good-nature stimulated his civility in helping to get his ponderous burden comfortably seated, and her numerous cushions and wraps duly distributed. " Good boy !" she said again, " go in and win, and pour contempt on my presentiments. Do you know you are handsomer than ever ! I will send you a card for my Saturday afternoons.

Come often. I shall want to hear about the pro gress of the picture." He waited till her carriage was out of sight, standing bare-headed in the doorway, and bowino in acknowledgment of her little friendly signals of farewell, then walked slowly back towards the studio. The brightness of his face was overcast — a dim foreboding seemed to fill his mind. "Dear old Kynaston!" he said to himself, " but he would be a trifle less dear if he were the winner instead of the loser in the game of life. My friendship would not stand the tests that have only strengthened his." He smiled again, recalling his triumphs ; then opened the door, and went in to renew them.

Chapter II. Noel Chetwynd

Noel Chetwynd, as may be concluded by the sagacious reader, did not rent a house in Eaton Square, and furnish his studio en prince out of the proceeds of his profession, rising artist and popular favourite as he w7as. He was the only child of a man of good birth, who, finding himself the penniless cadet of a numerous family, had dechned the army and the Church, and taken to commerce as a shorter road to fortune. For that matter, it is not so much the road as the racer which counts ; soundness of the bodily organs, and untiring energy of brain and will, bringing most men to the wfnning post ; and Noel Chetwynd, senior, possessed these faculties in abundance. At fifty he was a merchant prince, with ships :6 in most English ports, which means in two-thirds of the harbours of the civilised world ; and his wealth was going on increasing with an accelera tion proportioned to the ever-widening base of his enterprises.

He was equally successful in domestic life. He had married the woman of his choice, a beautiful girl without a sixpence, but whose family was as good as his own. One son had blessed their happy and prosperous union. An involuntary wonder at times seizes the mind in looking round the world as to where, in some cases, the law of compensation comes in. The success of the career of some men and some women is like an unbroken glittering chain, without flaw or overstrain. If they are financiers, all that they touch turns to gold — they have an unerring instinct of loss and gain ; if writers, the poem or the novel drops like a seed into prepared and fertile soil, bringing forth fruit a hundredfold. Sickness does not touch them ; those they love they keep. They reap in the years of their maturity the ambitions and hopes of their youth.

Only, perhaps, the balance lies here — that hfe is so much worth having that it must be very hard to let it go. Mr. and Mrs. Chetwynd, as they reached middle age, could scarcely have asked of Heaven one gift more than they possessed. Their son, whom under ordinary circumstances they would naturally have adored, was in truth adorable. Nature seemed to have pleased her self in heaping gifts and graces on the youth ; all the fairy godmothers, without one disastrous omission, had been at his christening. He was beautiful, affectionate, and clever, with an extraordinary talent for the brush and the pencil, and with enough of his father's independence to deter mine to follow the bent of his genius. " Were I twice as rich," said the boy, in answer to some expostulations on the ground of his future position, " I would be a painter !

As fine a painter as you like, but not a sham one. I shall work as hard as if for daily bread ;" and his father, recog nising his own temper, did not thwart him. Young Noel did work very hard indeed. As he was sent to Eton and to Balliol, to preserve the traditions of an English gentleman, and to form friendships suitable to his age and rank, he was only able to follow the bent of his mind in the vacation times. But during those frequent and lengthy intervals he had at command all the resources of love and money and a fresh enthusiasm. He was taken abroad so continually, sometimes by his devoted parents, sometimes under the care of a capable tutor, that he learned to know all the capitals of middle and southern Europe almost better than his own, and to stimulate his budding genius with the magnificent pro vocations of Florence and Rome.

Also, wherever he went he seized upon and appropriated the best art teaching at command. He submitted with charming docility to the restrictions and limitations thus imposed by a judicious father, on the understanding that, as soon as he had taken his degree at Oxford, he should be at liberty to carry out his art education on the broadest hnes, if still of the same mind. The young man took his degree and was of the same mind, or rather his mind was braced by abstinence to an increased determination. His father was as good as his word, though he could not help sighing a little when the Master of Balliol told him that the highest honours had been within Noel's reach, if only his son had pos sessed the ambition to win them. But Mr. Chetwynd had not long to wait for his reward. In the second year of the young man's studentlife (which had been more zealous and sincere than his fond parents suspected) he sent a picture to the Royal Academy — the inevitable Roman Girl at the Fountain — which was not only accepted, but hung only just above the Line.

In truth, the picture was charming, with a marvellous atmosphere, as the critics decided, and an unerring eye for colour. If the drawing were a thought defective — well, the same thing might be justly said of many of his masters and betters. It was certainly much in young Noel Chet wynd's favour that he walked so straight in the golden path set for his feet. With practically unlimited resources at his command, and every inducement to a life of idleness and pleasure, he was simple in his personal habits and strenuous in his industry. He was as honestly bent on qualifying himself to be a good painter as if he had his daily bread to earn by it, and the fine ambition kept his whole hfe sweet and wholesome. Moreover, he had a noble example by his side. He had been recommended by a competent adviser to put himself for a time under the in struction of Felix Kynaston, who had the reputation of being the best anatomical draughts man in Rome, and he did so, being sharply aware, with his constitutional brightness of per ception, that in this direction lay the fundamental weakness in his own powers.

The two men became friends by force of contrast. Kynaston had had a hard hfe from childhood upwards, struggling to educate himself as an artist against the combined drawbacks of poverty, opposition, and family selfishness. It was only because the flame of his genius was so strong that it had not been smothered by difficulty. He was twenty-five when his father died. Mr. Kynaston had been a Chancery barrister, and was accredited with a good income ; but he lived expensively, had married a second wife, and had a large young family. At any rate, his widow was advised that the condition of affairs on in vestigation simply meant insolvency. Felix, the only child by Mr. Kynaston's first marriage, had long been cast off by his family and left to his own resources, on the plea that he defied prudence and parental authority by obstinately sticking to his choice of a beggarly profession.