Miss Angel

Front matter

MISS ANGEL Froniispiet Then, before she could prevent him, he fell upon his knee MISS ANGEL BY MISS THACKEEAY WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIOSS LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1875 [All rights reserved] TO MRS. HERBERT DUCKWORTH. WILL YOU TAKE WHAT IS MINE TO DEDICATE TO YOU IN THIS LITTLE BOOK, OF WHICH SO MUCH IS YOURS ALREADY Hotel St. Eomain, Paris: May 4, 1875. CONTENTS. CHAPTER , PAGE I. A Print of Sis Joshua's . . . . .1 II. In a Shrine . . . . . . 7 III. Gondolas ....... 20 IV. Palaces . . . . . . 31 V. Gold and Silver Fish . . . . .40 VI. Angel and her Frdinds . . . . . 48 VII. The Armenian Content . . . . .59 VIII. Arcadia . . . . . . 69 IX. The 'Annual Register' for 1766 . . .81 X. Penello Volantb . . . . 89 XI. Fiori ....... 99 XII. 'Hamlet' . . . . . . 108 XIII. Take of this Grain which in my Garden Grows . 114 XIV.

Put out the Light . . . . . 123 XV. In her Home . . . . . .135 XVI. Through Winter-Time to Spring . . . . 147 XVH. A Game of Cards . . . - .155 CONTENTS. CHAPTER pagk XVIII. Be the Fire Ashes . . . . . . 160 XIX. In Golden Square . . . . .167 XX. A Count . . . . . . . 178 XXI. 'Musicians waiting; enter Servants ' . .190 XXII. 'I might Forget my Weaker Lot' . . . 203 XXIII. Sign 213 XXIV. The Pleiades . . . . . . 222 XXV. Ave Cæsar . . . . . .234 XXVI. Fouree Fantaisie . . . . . . 242 XXVII. Now from the Capitol Steps .... 253 XXVIII. I knew the Right, and did it . . . 259 XXIX. Sorrow's Keenest Wind .... 271 XXX. In Patience Possess ye your Souls . . . 282 XXXI. At Lowdenham Manor ..... 293 XXXII. To Show False Art what Beauty was of Yore . 299 XXXIII. And so Farewell ... . 308 XXXIV. In the Church of S. Andrea Delle Frate, at Eome LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Then, before she could prevent him, he fell upon his knees ....... Frontispiece Antonio could see her as he stood upon the marble step ....... To face p. 12 Mr. Reynolds was in full dress. He wore his red velvet court suit and his sword. He came up carrying the flowers he had ordered in the morning, and presented them with a little com pliment full of bonhomie and grace . . ,, 104 she had wandered off into this day-dream, and al MOST FORGOTTEN Mr. REYNOLDS HIMSELF, WHO WAS STANDING PATIENTLY WATCHING THE BRIGHT EXPRES SION OF THAT SMILING FACE . . . . „ 118 'Are you already married? Am not I your wife?' „ 266 HE PUT HIS ARM ROUND HER AS HE SPOKE, AND SHE LET HER HAND FALL INTO HIS . . . ■ . „

Chapter I

A PEINT OF SIR JOSHUA'S. Truth needs no colour with her colour fixed. Yesterday, at Mr. Colnaghi's, I saw a print lying on the table, the engraving of one of Sir Joshua's portraits. It was the picture of a lady some five or six and twenty years of age. The face is peculiar, sprightly, tender, a little ob stinate. The eyes are very charming and intelligent. The features are broadly marked ; there is something at once homely and dignified in their expression. The little head is charmingly set upon its frame. A few pearls are mixed with the heavy loops of hair ; two great curls fall upon the sloping shoulders ; the slim figure is draped in light folds fastened by jewelled bands, such as those which people then wore. A loose scarf is tied round the waist. Being B cold, perhaps, sitting in Sir Joshua's great studio, the lady has partly wrapped herself in a great fur cloak.

The whole effect is very good, nor is it an inconvenient dress to sit still and be painted in. How people lived habitually in such clothes I cannot understand. But although garments may represent one phase after another of fashion ; loop, writhe, sweep, flounce, wriggle themselves into strange forms, and into shapes prim or romantic or practical as the case may be, faces tell another story. They scarcely alter even in expression from one generation to another ; the familiar looks come travelling down to us in all sorts of ways and vehicles ; by paint, by marble, by words, by the music the musician left behind him, by inherited instincts. There is some secret understanding transmitted, I do believe, from one set of human beings to another, from year to year, from age to age, ever since Eve herself first opened her shining eyes upon the Garden of Innocence and flung the apple to her descendants.

This little head, of which I am now writing, has cer tainly a character of its own. Although it was great Sir Joshua himself who painted Miss Angel — so her friends called her — and set the stamp of his own genius upon the picture, although the engraver has again come between us to reproduce the master's impression ; beyond their art and across the century that separates the lady from the print lying on Mr. Colnaghi's table, some feelinoof her identity seems to reach one still as one stands in the A PRINT OF SIR JOSHUA'S. 3 shop, after years of other things and people ; an identity which seems to survive, in the mysterious way in which people's secret intangible feelings do outlive the past, the future, and death, and failure, and even success itself. When I began to criticise the looks of my black-and-white heroine and to ask myself if there was anything wanting in her expression, any indescribable want of fine perceptive humour, the eyes seemed suddenly to look reproachfully and to refute my unspoken criticism.

Those outward signs which we call manners, and customs, and education have changed since that quick heart ceased to beat, since Miss Angel lived and ruled in her May- Fair kingdom ; but the true things and significations that those signs express are not less true because they have lasted a little longer and gone through a few more revolu tions. It is only the false impressions, the exaggerations and affectations that, by a natural law, destroy themselves. How many did she live out in her appointed span of life, and wear out one by one on her journey towards the truth ? My poor Angel all her life was used to praise and blame, to be accused of faults she never committed, to be admired for qualities that she scarcely possessed. Art was art, and so indeed was nature, in the language of signs, practised by her and her companions.

On the Continent Arcadia was coming to an end ; shepherds and shepherdesses were straggling off and driving their flocks before them. Watteau was no more ; Boucher was waning ; Vernet's B wide seas were overflooding the pastoral vallies, flowing northwards, irresistible, wide, delightful. With us Olympus was beginning to be in fashion. Long-legged deities, cupids, and heroes in helmets or slashed silk hose were colonising English studios. Fancy and natural feeling are expressed by odes, by nymphs, by ovals, and mezzotints. Cipriani teaches in his schools ; classic temples are rising in windy gardens (for alas ! the climate does not lend itself to this golden age revival), and never were winters more wintry, fogs more enduring, or frosts more nipping than those at the end of the last century.

Perhaps to Miss Angel the darkness may have seemed but as a veil to the sweet dazzling images of her early youth. She may have still seen the sunlight through the mists and fogs of the great city where she had cast her lot, and her November may have appeared splendid still, and set upon a golden background, while she found present sunshine in the admiring eyes of her friends and lovers. Some lives have in them a quality which may perhaps be compared to that secret of which the early Venetians knew the mystery — some secret of light, some sweet trans parent gift of colouring, a hidden treasure of hope shining through aftershadow. I do not say that this is the highest among the gifts that there are not far greater things in art and in nature than sweet harmonies of colour ; but it is a delightful quality A PRINT OF SIR JOSHUA'S. 5 in its way, in pictures and in the lives of those who look at pictures and of those who paint them.

Angelica Kauffmann's is a life so tinted, warmed at the outset by some such broad golden stream. It flooded its youth with hope, and shone on through a mid-life of storm and shadow. In later days tears and languor dim med those bright azure eyes and overmastered the brave spirit that we must all respect and recognise ; but to the last moment hope remained — hope for life's continuance when all else was gone ; false hope indeed, only to be realised by a mightier revelation of life than ours. Poor little Angelica ! so true to herself, so defeated in her highest flights, so complete in her victory — not always over those things she set herself to conquer, but over others by the road, along which she struggled valiantly for sixty years. Over-praised, over-loved, deceived, and satisfied, little by little she has grown up out of the dic tionaries and guide-books, out of the faithful old friend Rossi's careful sentences, out of the relics scattered by her hand.

She was no great genius, as people once thought, no inspired painter of gods and men. Her heroes stand in satin pumps and feathered toques ; her nymphs are futile and somewhat dislocated beings ; one laughs at them, but one loves them too. Some of her portraits are charming, and still hold their own by the good right of grace and truthful feeling. I think that, as far as it lay in her power, Angelica was true to her perceptions. The artificial education of the day cast its constraints upon her simple soul, and yet, with all its failings, her work is bright with a womanly sympathy and transparence, a delicacy of rendering which holds its own even now. Religion, as Angelica painted her, still sits in the South Kensington Museum surrounded by attendant vir tues. There is Hope with her anchor, Faith with her hands crossed upon her breast, Charity reclining in the place of honour.

They all have Greek profiles. The in spiration is something like an apotheosis of some of Madame Tussaud's happiest compositions, and yet a certain harmony and innocent enthusiasm redeems it all from utter absurdity, and draws one into sympathy with the painter. One head, crowned and gentle, seems to shine with a real Italian brightness through the grim November vapours in the galleries, to which we have wandered across a century.

Chapter II. In

A SHRINE. A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted. Pictures are strange and shifting things. People come and stand before them, to wonder, to envy, to study; sometimes it is to realize their secret hearts painted out upon canvas and hanging up framed before them — some times veils hang before the images. It is all there — you see it, know it — and see and know nothing as you pass by untouched. Or again, some power has dispelled the mists, strange life flashes along the walls, picture answers picture, and some great dominant chord breaks out, in a burst of silent music, imposing its own harmony upon the rest. In those days the great Assumption hung above an altar in the Church of the Frari, a solemn culmination to its worship. Old Kauffmann had obtained leave for his daughter to copy there, and day after day she used to come to the Piazza where the great Church stands, rearing its stupendous bricks upon the depths.

To Angelica it was always a sensation when she walked from the blazing sun and labouring life without into these solemn enclosures. Here in the church of the Frari are the tombs of the Doges resting from their rule. They seem pondering still as they lie, carved in stately marbled death, contemplating the past with their calm brows and their hooked noses. The great church is piled arch upon arch, tomb beyond tomb ; some of these monu ments hang in the nave high over the heads of the people as they kneel ; above the city and its cries, and its circling life, and the steps of the easy-going Venetians. There is no one in the chapel where Angelica is at work ; it is cool and dark and empty. The great altar piece hangs veiled with morning shadow ; as the day goes on, a rod of slanting sunshine strikes the picture, and the floods of liquid crimson light come floating and outpouring over the marble shrine.

But Angelica could not realise it all that day, she could not fall into her work. She was tired, or cross, or dissatisfied ; she had not slept the night before. Her father, as usual, had left her at the door of the church, bidding her be diligent, but she could not be diligent to good effect ; one thing and another disturbed her. Every now and then their friend and fellow-lodger, Antonio, who was painting in the Sacristy, had come up and vexed her by a criticism. 'You waste your time at tempting such subjects,' he had said ; 'it is not in your grasp ; you should not accept such commissions.' ' I must take what comes,' said Angelica, pettishly. ' I need not complain when I am given a masterpiece to reproduce.' ' To reproduce ! ' said Antonio ; ' you might as well try to paint the sun ; ' and so he walked away leaving her dis couraged, out of tune.

Antonio was a delicate, a nervous looking man, with worn hands and an anxious, noble looking head. His black brows nearly met over clear eyes, full of thought and expression. He had a quantity of frizzed black hair, which he used to push back wearily ; he was of middle size, slightly bent. A word, a nothing at times would set him trembling. Sometimes, however, he had sudden bursts of confidence and good spirits. He did not spare others although he suffered so much himself from their criticisms. There is a picture of St. John the Baptist in the Church of the Madonna del Orto. Cima da Conegliano painted it two hundred years before Antonio Zucchi was born, but it has some look of this friend of Angelica. Haggard and tender stands St. John against the golden limpid sky that still lights the chapel, where it has burnt for three hundred years.

(' Ah ! ' said the custode, who showed the place to us, ' I could travel round the world with that picture. Look, he cried with enthusiasm, ' see the Saint's hair, did you ever see such curls ? ') There were lines of care in Antonio's face and lines of grey in his curls, though he was little over thirty years of age. Of these thirty years he had known Angelica for twenty. Miss Angel could not imagine what it would be like not to know Antonio, or not to be vexed with him. He was the least satisfied of all her friends and the least satisfactory in his criticisms. It was but rarely that her sweet temper was so ruffled as to-day, and it happened that when she was most angry with Antonio and with herself, a gentleman, young, stately, dressed in deepest mourning, had come up, walking across the marble aisle, and, with a glance at her picture, asked her if ' the charming copy was for sale ? ' ' Who is one to believe ? ' thinks the poor little painter, as she looks up demurely, poises her brush, and says, ' It is an order, and sold already.' ' You must allow me, madam, to envy the fortunate possessor of such a picture, copied by so fair a hand,' said the stranger in a low voice, bending his handsome head with one of the courteous flourishes then in fashion, and he walked away with long black legs.

Then a priest came up to look ; then a couple of soldiers ; then a new-married couple. ' How beautiful,' said the bride ; ' I like the copy better than the picture — it is a prettier size; see how she has got it all in.' Angel was not unused to compliments; she was a princess in her own little kingdom, but she did not care for them quite so broadly expressed as this. She half hoped the black prince would come back and make her some more consoling speeches. There was something in his manner which interested her. How different from Antonio, with his rude abruptness and jealousy. Any one must allow that he was disagreeable. Angelica painted on quietly for some time, but she made no pro gress. All about her the marble arches and the pictures had begun to glow with light and to beguile her from her work.

Presently comes a soft rustling and scent of perfume, and again the girl looks up. A lady is standing beside her and looking at her copy of the ' Assumption.' This is evidently a personage of some importance, not very young, but very beautiful, with a pale high brow and dreamy sweet looks. She is dressed in the fashion of the day, in white watered silk with grey fur trimmings and pearls. She wears long loose gloves upon her arms. The gentle fragrance comes with each wave of her fan ; that great flaunting fan with its jewelled sticks. The lady does not speak, only smiles, as she moves away and passes on, looking about her as she disappears into the great arching forcel of marble. The bells of Venice are jingling outside in the great hot, hot sunshine. As the lady leaves the chapel she looks back once more at Angelica, looks and then turns away, retracing her steps and smiling with gentle dignity as she sweeps past Antonio, who is coming up the step.

She scarcely sees the plain young man in his shabby coat and knee-breeches, but the same thought is in both their minds. It is one same living picture that they are both looking at with interest, that of Angelica, who had put down her brushes thoughtfully. I can see her, though it is a hundred years ago since she stood there, as Antonio could see her as he stood upon the marble step. How well he knew every shade and light of that sweet living picture. How often he had watched it, at home, in the strange galleries where she painted all day long, and whence he would fetch Angelica home after her day's work was ended. Only yesterday from the curtained doorway in the dealer's palace he had seen her standing as now, with her palette in her hand. He could have drawn each line and curve of the light figure in its common faded dress now standing before great Titian's altar fires.

Her head was a little bent with that gentle turn he knew so well, her thick brown hair was all tied back with a brown ribbon beneath her veil. Her two little feet stood somewhat far apart, springing, firm, and elastic, from the marble. One hand was raised to shade the light from her eyes, in the other — from habit carefully extended — she held her palette. There she stood, for once pale and discouraged, and with dimmed eyes. Her father would be furious if Antonio could see her as he stood upon the marbls step. she were to tell him of Antonio's gibes, but then her father was no critic where her work was concerned. This she owned in her heart, and perhaps she agreed more often than she chose to acknowledge with Antonio, the jealous, rude, tiresome, friend. Ah ! how infinitely pleasanter are acquaintances than friends who live in the house with you, who say anything that comes uppermost.

The English Signor Dance, whom they had met at Rome, how he had praised her work, with what fervour and sincerity ; and the friendly priests in the villa at Como, how they had exclaimed in wonder at her portraits of the cardinal and his chaplain. If only Antonio would praise her work as they did, it might give her some courage and interest to go on. So there she stood, pale and discouraged, an inade quate little copyist blinking at the sun, so she told her self. Presently her heart began to beat, and the colour came into her cheeks as she forgot her own insignificance and caught some strange terrified emotion from the great achievement before her. Some fancy came to her that she was one of the women in the crowd looking on with the amazed Apostles, as they stretch their astonished hands. The great mystery is being accomplished before their eyes.

The Virgin rises cloud-lifted to the jubilant chorus of angels and cherubims ; simple, extatic, borne upward upon the resistless vapours. The glories seemed to gather gold, the clouds to drift upon unseen winds, the distance widens and intensifies. This strange great heaven floats and shines again triumphant before the dazzled eyes of the mortals before her altars. One or two people had gathered round. Had any thing occurred in the great Assumption ? Little old dirty Pinuzzi, the painter, had crept up to see from his distant corner, where he had been counting his beads with his trembling fingers. He stood clucking his admiration with odd noises and shakings of the head. Then some one sighed deeply ; it was the strange lady who had returned ; some magnetic thrill of sympathy possessed them all, as when the bursts of silver trumpets come sounding along St. Peter's and the crowds respond.

At that moment a harsh angry voice calls Miss Angel very peremptorily back to earth again. ' Angelica, what doest thou ? where is thy morning's work ? Why art thou wasting time and money ? ' So the voice begins in German, then the scolding turns into Italian as Antonio comes up once more. The accuser is a tall, angry, grey, old man who is gazing with displeasure at the easel, at the idle brush, and at his daughter in the crowd. ' Is this your manner of working ? ' he cries, oblivious of listeners. ' It is the best for her,' said Antonio, interfering. ' Hush, John Joseph ! ' he added, in a low voice ; ' how can you speak to her so.' ' Be quiet, Antonio ; you can afford, perhaps, to idle your life away. Angelica cannot allow herself that luxury. What has she done all this long morning.' ' Nothing, father ! ' said Angelica, turning round from habit to meet him, and to soothe away his anger, as she could always do, with a word and a fond look ; but to-day the sense of the Impossible had overmastered the custom of the present, and she forgot her artless wiles and her father's displeasure, in a sudden longing for some higher achievement and some better ideal.

Her face changed, the smile faded. 'I was tired, father, and no wonder,' and with a sudden movement she held out her palette to him. ' Look at this,' she said, ' and look at that ! How can I do it ? How can you ask me to do it ? ' Her voice echoed sadly under the great over-arching vault. Antonio looked at her with an approving flash from beneath his black eyebrows. ' What absurdity ! ' cried the old man. ' Is it to-day that she is to tell me she cannot paint ? After all the crowns she has won — after all the sacrifices her mother and I have made — all the hopes we have indulged in ! Why did you not say so to Giuseppe Morosco when he gave you the order ? Ungrateful girl ! ' The tears which started to Angelica's eyes changed her future destiny for years and years. ' Might I, a stranger, venture to ask a favour ? ' said the lady, coming forward and addressing Angelica from her waves of satin, of laces ; she spoke in a very sweet and melancholy voice. ' I am leaving Venice very shortly.

I should regret my going less, if I might carry away something to recall the happy hours I have spent.' Gently certain of herself, she looked from the father to the daughter. She was not used to see life from any but her own aspect and level. The father's reproaches, the daughter's tears, were a revelation to this impression able personage, who was not used to be thwarted, and who had suddenly determined to make this girl happy, and to wipe away her tears with her own cambric handkerchief, if need be. ' Perhaps,' she continued, addressing the old man with a charming dignified grace, ' you would allow me, sir, to take your daughter home in my gondola ? Would you trust yourself to my care ? ' she said to Miss Angel. ' We might consult upon the subject of the picture, which I hope you may consent to paint for me.

I should like to show you my children, and my husband, who would make a noble study.' Angel's tearful blue eyes answer unconsciously to the two shining flashes, the smile that greets her. It seemed as if they were friends already. ' I should like to paint you just as you are,' thought Angelica. ' You great ladies can make yourselves into pictures.' Old Pinuzzi whispered something into Kauffmann's ear. ' It is her Excellency Lady W , the English Ambassadress,' he said. Old Kauffmann bowed to the ground. ' I know ! I know ! ' he answered, quickly. ' You are too good to my poor child,' said the old fellow. ' My daughter's name is perhaps not unknown to your Excellency — Angelica Kauffmann,' he repeated, proudly. 'I, her father, may truly say that her name is known in all Italy. We have lately come from Naples, where all the galleries were thrown open to us — that of the Palace of Capo di Monte, and many others.

Her gifts of music and painting, her remarkable precocity, have ' ' Dear father,' said Angelica, interrupting ; ' the lady has judged me too favourably already. Antonio would describe my poor performances very differently.' She spoke with a smile, but she wounded her poor plain-speaking friend to the heart. He turned pale, and abruptly walked away. ' I thank you, sir, for telling me your daughter's name. Indeed I half suspected that it might be her. Her bril lant reputation is well known to me and many of my friends,' said the lady. ' My friend the Abbe Franck showed me a most interesting letter from Rome not long ago, describing her rare gifts. The Abbe Winkelman speaks of her, too, with enthusiastic praise, and I have seen her beautiful portrait of my old master, the great c Porpora.' Then she added, with a sort of dignified shy ness, ' I have little to offer as a temptation to one so gifted ; but if she will accept me as a friend, it will be conferring a favour that I shall know how to value.' The lady held out her hand as she spoke, and Angelica gladly took it in her young grateful grasp.

Old Kauffmann's eyes glistened when Angelica started off with this high company, dressed in her shabby dress, timid yet resolute — the compeer of any lady in the land. No thought of any difference of rank discomposed her, as she prepared to accompany her new-found protectress. The girl was bewitched by the beautiful lady. As the ladies walked up the great transept, two little barefooted children, hand in hand, came pattering softly along the marble pavement ; they passed beneath the tombs of the Doges ; they made for an open door, where only a curtain swung, dark against all the blaze without. The rays of light came through on every side, streaking the flat marble monument of some defunct Venetian buried there in the centre aisle with all dignity and heraldry and engraved into eternal glory.

Outside, in the flaring piazza, some fiddler on his way had struck up a country tune, to the call of which the children were hastening, but the youngest, a mere baby, suddenly stopped and began to dance upon the marble tomb with some pretty flying patter of little steps. The little ragged sister dragged the baby, still dancing, away, and the two straggled out by the curtained door into the piazza. ' Did you see them ? ' said Angelica, greatly touched. ' Poor little wretches,' said the Ambassadress ; ' there should be railings round the tomb. Come, dearest creature.' c2

Chapter III. Gondolas

How light it moves, how softly, ah ! Could life as does our gondola, Unvexed with quarrels, aims, and cares, And moral duties and affairs, Unswaying, noiseless, swift, and strong, For ever thus — thus glide along. Antonio saw Angelica walk away with the splendid stranger, and as she did so he jealously felt as if all was over between them. Old Kauffmann was surely demented to let her go — was this the way he guarded his treasure ? Would Antonio have let her go in company with those worldly people who take artists up to suit the fancy of the moment — who throw them by remorselessly and pass on when their fancy is over, leaving them perhaps wounded, mortified, humiliated ? Ah ! no, no ; he would have guarded and shielded her from all the world, if it had been in his power. They all lived together in the same house, one of the GONDOLAS. 21 smallest on the Grand Canal — a narrow shabby little tenement enough, with a view of palaces all about, and itself more splendid to Antonio than any marble magni ficence.