The blind artist's pictures and other stories

Front matter

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Brigham Young University

Chapter I. A Philanthropic Scheme

SERENA MAULDEN and Ferdinand Brail were very dear friends, in spite of some fifty-five years difference in their ages, or perhaps all the more on account of that difference. He was a great artist — might have been one of the greatest in Europe perhaps — only long ago, when he had been young and strong, he had let himself get thoroughly wet out sketching, trying to catch the wonderful shades of a Cumberland thunderstorm, and, with the almost impious carelessness of youth, had taken no account of it, and sat for hours in his wet clothes ; the result was an attack of rheumatic fever, which left him a cripple.

This had hampered his studies, but could not destroy his genius. Travel was next door to an impossibility to him, and hard work an utter impossibility. Yet spending all his life extended on a sofa, he still had painted, and painted gloriously. Sea io THE BLIND ARTISTS PICTURES.

pieces generally, horrible wild storms, so fierce, and so awful, that, looking on them, one almost felt the agony of the drowning sailors ; or stern rock-bound coasts, with great futile waves, dashing in helpless anger against them, or hurling some stately ship to destruction.

Sometimes — but only sometimes— he painted portraits, painted them with wonderful truth and vivacity, but it was now and then said, half in wonder, and half in jest, that those whose portraits lie had painted were invariably unlucky.

He had painted Serena Maulden’s portrait eight years ago, when she was a light-hearted girl in her first season — one of the pets of society not a great beauty, but so sweet, -people said, so “nice.” A girl with no sarcasm in her whole composition, only pleasant, frank common-sense, and a very pretty, gentle manner. She had made a bewitching subject ; the portrait was to have been her father’s present to her husband on her marriage, but before the portrait was finished the lover had been found utterly worthless, and had fled in fear and shame from all who knew him. So long as it was possible Serena was true to him: standing up for him against overwhelming proof, and speaking brave words in his defence — brave and loyal words ; but they sounded terribly pathetic to those who knew only too well that he had neither cared, nor dared to defend himself.

At last, when she realised that her late lover

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neither valued nor desired her fidelity, she submitted ; but she believed her life was over. She made no show of anger or sorrow ; she simply bade a kind farewell to society, walked out of it backwards, as it were, curtseying at the door, and lived a quiet life in her own home.

Perhaps no one but Ferdinand Brail ever knew what she suffered at the time when she heard the evil news, and through the many days which followed, while — vainly certain that her lover would clear himself — she had insisted on having the picture finished. They never spoke of her lover then, though she had often talked about him before with the sweet confidence of a young girl towards a very old man whom she loves and trusts, but at last, when she begged him to send home the picture as it was, for she did not want ever to see it again, he knew what that meant. He said nothing, except that he hoped she would still come to see him often, for he was lonely and liked to talk to her, and lame and unable to come to her.

So, after she had taken leave of society, Serena went often to the old man’s studio. The two grew to be very firm friends, and had countless pleasant talks together, but they never spoke of her lover once during the eight years of their friendship.

Serena had lived the last few years almost entirely alone. Her sisters had grown up and married, and were with their husbands, one of whom was a governor of an insignificant far-off i2 THE BLIND ARTISTS PICTURES.

colony ; another, an exceptional Irish landlord, who lived on his estate on good terms with his tenants, in some place with an unpronounceable name, at the extreme left-hand corner of the map ; the third, a Midland squire, devoted to hunting and drainage. Her father, who divided his time pretty equally among his four daughters, was at present visiting the colonial couple.

A few years after Serena had so hopelessly lost her lover, an affliction even greater than his lameness had befallen her old friend. His eyesight slowly left him, and his painting was at an end. Still, he had one consolation left : he could not paint pictures on canvas, but he could paint them in words — could paint them until his hearers saw them almost as vividly as he did, and this was a pleasure that could never leave him.

While he could yet see, he had seen the bitterness of sorrow pass away from Serena’s face, leaving it still sweet and fair, with all life’s possibilities yet in it ; and when her face had slowly faded from his sight he could still hear her pleasant voice and sweet low laugh, and she made the chief figure in many a dream picture.

To-day they were sitting together in the big bow window of the room which had been the studio — that is, she was sitting on a low chair, and he was reclining on a wicker American sofa ; a bright silk drapery was thrown over him, leaving his arms and shoulders free ; beside him was a low table containing the breakfast equipage, some magazines, and a volume of Morris’s poems.

Serena had been reading aloud, and Mr. Brail had not been paying the least attention ; he had come out with utterly irrelevant remarks upon the state of the weather, and the state of the political atmosphere, the doctor’s last prescription, and the last new music, during the most tragic passages ; and between the most telling lines —

“ It is no use,” he said at last, “ I can’t listen. I have been thinking about women, and I am cross — naturally. My dear, do you look nice this afternoon ? ”

“Yes,” she answered promptly. “I look very nice indeed. I have my newest hat on, and my newest hat is very becoming; then my gloves match it perfectly, and all the buttons fasten. Generally the first button of my gloves will not fasten, but these will, because they are a very good pair of gloves.”

Mr. Brail coloured with pleasure in spite of his eighty-one years. It was just like his Serena to put on her prettiest clothes to visit him, although he was blind and could not see her.

He took hold of one of the well-shaped hands as if to verify her assertion concerning the buttons.

“Serena, my dear,” he said, after a pause, “as I said, I have been thinking about women.”

“ Well, dear, what about them ? ”

<r They are so terribly conscious of their femininity ;

i4 THE BLIND ARTISTS PICTURES.

they never lose sight of it for a moment. They forget that they are humanities, they forget they are immortalities, because they will never lose sight of their femininity. And the worst of it is,” he went on inconsequently, “ you are as bad as any of them.”

“Yes, have I been giving an example lately?”

“Of course; that was what set me thinking — what you told me last time you were here.”

“ I forget. What is it ? ”

“ Of course you forgot the incident, but I remember it, and have been seeing most frightful pictures ever since. Let me remind you. You were coming from Streatham Common to Kensington, and you had to change carriages at Clapham Junction. As far as I remember it is a great misfortune to have to change carriages at Clapham Junction.”

“Yes,” said Serena, “no matter where you want to go you have to wait twenty-five minutes for your train.”

“It was two thirty-five in the afternoon. You knew there was no train to Kensington for some time, but you knew also that by walking across to Battersea you could catch a Richmond train which stopped at Addison Road.”

“Yes,” said Serena. “I thought myself very clever for knowing 'that.”

“As you were going down the steps to the underground passage, you heard behind you the following fragment of dialogue : — ‘ When is the next to Kensington ? * ‘ Three-fifteen, sir/ ‘Three-fifteen? Oh Lord!* Half turning, you saw a young man — you said a ‘ masher/ but I shan’t encourage you in talking slang — a young man standing in an attitude of dismal consternation as the stolid ticket collector turned away from him to the other passengers. Instead of charitably imparting your little piece of useful knowledge, you walked off by yourself, leaving him still in consternation.”

“Well,” she said, laughing, “was it so very wrong ? ”

“Yes — very wrong indeed. Just consider; that young man may have been a very hard-up young man — a respectable ‘ unemployed/ His clothes count for nothing, you know ; he may have had on his best because he had pawned his second suit ; he may have been on his way to apply for an appointment and lost it through being late. Serena, that young man may be starving in a garret now through your — femininity ! ”

“ Let us hope not,” said Serena.

“ Or, perhaps, he was on his way to make up a quarrel with his fiancee . ‘ Dearest, meet me at three o’clock, and I will explain all,’ he had entreated, and she had consented. Three o’clock comes — there I see her, pacing up and down the appointed spot ; at five minutes past three she is impatient ; at ten minntes past three she is tearful ; at a quarter past three she is angry ; at twenty minutes past three she has gone off in a rage, and accepted the other fellow !”

“ I should suggest that if she is so quick-tempered he is best without her.”

“ Ah, but perhaps it was something quite different,” said Mr. Brail promptly; “ he may have been a married man with a wife and family, an aged mother, and an infirm mother-in-law depending on him. He has a good business, but a temporary embarrassment obliges him to ask a loan of his rich uncle. 4 I’m not sure if I shall want it/ he says, 4 but, if I do, I will let you know on Friday by three o’clock/ ‘All right/ says the uncle, ‘you shall have it if you want it/ Three o’clock comes : the uncle, a lawyer, has meanwhile received a letter begging him to go down at once to Devonshire to make the will of a rich client. He waits, packed bag in hand. Three o’clock comes, no nephew. ‘I’ll give him five minutes grace/ says the uncle. Gives him five — gives him ten — fifteen. ‘Well/ says he at last, ‘a man coming for money was never known to be late. It is clear my nephew’s affairs are all right/ So he goes ; and that young man bolts to America, and his wife and family are thrown on the parish.”

“ Let us hope it isn’t so bad as all that,” said Serena. “After all,' perhaps, he was only going to Kensington to have afternoon tea with his aunt.”

“Perhaps,” admitted Mr. Brail gloomily, “and in that case he very likely caught such a cold waiting

THE BLIND ART/SDS PICTURES, 17 among the draughts at Clapham Junction that he will go into consumption and die miserably a year or two hence. But you didn’t tell him of that train at Battersea ; you did not think of all the awful possible consequences, because your mind was filled with the thought that you were a young lady, and he was a gentleman.”

“ Excuse the correction, but I said a ‘ masher.’ It was vulgar, I know, but that was what I said.”

“ I accept the correction, my dear, but what does it lead to ? ”

“ Why this : if I had been sure he was a gentleman I would have spoken, because I should have been understood; but what if he had not beenagentleman ? When I had told him the train, the next thing would have been to tell him the way — the way I was going myself in fact — and his inference ”

She would have left her sentence unfinished even if Mr. Brail had not interrupted her.

“ There — :that is just what I mean. You thought you would be misjudged. Well, what matter? you should not have thought of opinions, you should have thought of consequences. Your mind was full of femininity, when you should have thought, here are two human beings, and one of them can help the other. A woman should remember after all that a man is a fellow-creature, and be ready to help him a little — even unconventionally.”

“ I don’t quite know what you mean by unconventional, there are so many degrees of queerness.”

B u Go on. If I could see your face I should know exactly what you meant to say. I almost know from your voice.”

“Well, I know I should never do anything I thought wrong ” (she said this with the most easy frankness imaginable, as if such knowledge were a very common thing, and quite certain not to be mistaken); “ at least, I think I know that, but I should not mind doing anything strange or unusual if it were for a good purpose, to please you, for instance.”

“Thank you. Do you know Mr. Earne — Stan Earne ? ”

“ No ; except from the newspapers.”

“ I painted his portrait.”

4< Then I should like to know him, because you only paint nice people.”

“You know what some people say,” he said with a half-sad smile, “ that I only paint unfortunate people.”

“ It was fortunate that you painted me,” she said pleasantly, “ for I should never have known you else.”

“ Eve seen a good deal of Earne ever since I painted him, and that was nine years ago — just before he went in for politics — and he has never been unfortunate that I know of until now.”

“What has happened to him now?”

“The friend he trusted most has betrayed him.”

“ Oh ! ” she exclaimed with painfully intense sympathy.

“ Well, the girl to whom he was engaged has jilted him. Does it sound better or worse that way ? ”

“ It sounds very bad either way.”

“Very bad! that is what one says of the toothache, ‘ very bad.’ It is fatal ! ”

“ Fatal ? ”

“Yes, it is killing Stanway Earne.”

“ Impossible ! men don’t die of love! ”

“ Not in the ordinary way, of course : there will be no funeral ; his friends won’t go into mourning, his heir won’t rejoice, but the Stan way Earne that might have been — that God meant to be — is dying ! ”

“ Oh, but that needn’t be.”

“ No, but it is. You say you knew him from the newspapers ; then you knew what all friends and foes alike knew of him — that he was that rara avis in modern politics — a politician with courtesy and conscience ; a clever, earnest, honest young man, giving his whole life to his country in the cause he deemed best. That was the living man — the dead one, the corpse that will not be buried, will be an idle, dissipated, hopeless cynic, with no purpose in his life and no faith in himself.”

“ This is horribly sad.”

“It is true, though. This girl’s faithlessness has overthrown all his beliefs — he seems to care for nothing ; he neglects his duties and shuns his friends ; he is getting into trouble with his constituents. I can’t enter into details, but he is going to the bad as fast as he can; he drinks — he never did that before — and I am afraid he is trying to forget his troubles in follies/’

“ He must be very weak.”

“ No — only very impressionable. Some men are like musical instruments that must give out some sound, and if God does not play on them the devil will. The devil has got hold of poor Earne just now, and is making very broken music.”

“ Can nothing be done ? ”

“Of course, or I should not tell you all this. You can do something — everything. You can make him forget his unhappy first love in a happy second. You can make love to him courageously, and I am sure successfully. Well, how astonished you are looking ! I can hear it in your silence ! ”

“ That would indeed be unusual.”

u Certainly, but you can’t say it would be wrong.”

“ It isn’t likely I could make him care for me.”

“You must chance that ; your business is simply to try to make him.”

“ It would be so unwomanly.”

“ Of course, but it would save the life of that Stanway Earne I was speaking of.”

She saw now what he had meant by his denunciation of female femininity.

“ But he is a politician, and I don’t agree with his politics.”

“ Look at it in this way — my way. I never understood politics, and I never could see that one party was better than the other, but a certain number of men manage by all pulling separate ways to get the state governed somehow. Now it is obvious, if wise and good men predominate, it is well : if foolish and bad men, it is ill for the country. Now if you save Stan Earne, that is one good man more ; if you don't, there is one good man less, and one bad one more. You see he counts double that way as they do in divisions. As to party, I can’t see for the life of me what it matters which side a good man works on ; wherever he is he is bound to do good.

“But, Mr. Brail, you said he drank, and to marry a drunkard ! Think of it.”

“ I have thought of it. My child, if you make this effort you are doing a very brave thing. If you succeed, you, a woman, may feel you have served your country in saving this man’s life for her service, but if you fail your own life will be a ruin.”

“ And you ask me to do it. You, who love me ! ”

“ I ask you because I love you, because I want you to do a noble and beautiful thing. Will you not save your brother unless you can do so without risk ? Does the fireman think how he may be maimed or scarred or killed when he rushes into the fire to save a life ? My child, don’t think I don’t know what a great thing I ask of you, but who so fit as you to do it ? ”

She knew what he meant, that she, having lost her own chance of happiness long ago, could safely take her failed life in her hands and use it for this purpose. The purpose looked grand and noble, as her eager, white-haired old friend described it, and, after all, why should not one as well as the other of two humanities — two immortalities as he phrased it — try to win love ?

She stood considering, he reached out and took her hand. “ I will think of it,” she said slowly.

At this moment the servant announced, “ Mr. Earne, sir/’

‘‘Unfair,” murmured Serena, trying to draw her hand away. “ I have not thought.”

But Mr. Brail held her hand fast, a smile of good-natured triumph on his face.

“ Here you are at last, Earne , we are going to have some breakfast and were waiting for you.”

“We!” At the plural pronoun Mr. Earne stopped short, and glanced suggestively at the door as it closed behind him.

“ Oh, I didn’t expect — I mean I told you I would come this morning, so I called on my way home.”

Mr. Earne hesitated and spoke with such evident and painful embarrassment that Serena looked up quickly to see what was the matter.

The matter was very plain indeed, It was now quite half-past eleven in the morning, and Mr. Earne was in evening dress, in yesterday’s evening dress. His linen was crumpled and soiled, his hair disarranged, his eyes red-rimmed and sleepy. He had the wretched and unmistakeable look of a man who has not washed since yesterday’s dinner-time, and there was a blackguardly blue shadow on his chin and lip. It is appalling what tremendous advance a usually well-shaved beard can make in twenty-four hours.

To make the matter worse, when he so unexpectedly found himself in the presence of a person who could see and note his appearance, Mr. Earne was so overcome with shame as to be almost speechless.

It was fortunate that Mr. Brail, fearing lest Serena in consequence of their late conversation should feel shy or awkward, talked for all three at first.

Presently, after he had introduced his guest, and appealed to Serena to pour out the tea, he thought it time to set the others talking.

“ Miss Maulden is a young lady who puts on her prettiest hat to come to see a blind man,” he said. “ I am sure she looks charming in all her hats, but I mention the fact because it is characteristic”

Mr. Earne had been shrinking back in a big chair with his eyes on the ground ; now for the first time he raised them, and looked across at her, not to see the hat, but to implore her not to betray him, not to let it be known that he had taken advantage of his friend’s blindness to appear before him in a state so plainly showing how the past night had been spent.

“ I think Miss Maulden is right to put on that hat on every opportunity/’ he said with a hurried effort to be common-place.

Serena was sorry for him ; he had no more idea of the hat than he had of what he was saying, and the forced gaiety of his words contrasted very painfully with his sleepless eyes and intensely humiliated expression. Mr. Brail went on.

“ Of course she always looks nice. Ah, what a while it is since I saw her, or you either for that matter! How is he looking, Serena?”

There was a pause. Serena felt herself turn scarlet. Mr. Earne again raised his eyes to hers, this time with no request in them, only very bitter shame. It flashed into Serena’s mind that she was beginning to make love very desperately indeed, since she began with a downright lie.

“Well?” said Mr. Brail.

“ I think,” began Serena, and stopped. Poor girl, she came up to her lie gallantly enough, but she couldn’t get over it. Earne saw and told it himself.

“ I don’t think it is fair to beguile your friends into personal remarks, Mr. Brail. I fancy I am looking as well as I know how. I must go now. I only looked in in passing to see how you were getting on.”

“No, stay; I like to have you loitering in my rooms. I know you are a busy man with important duties, social and political, exacting constituents, and endless business that I don’t understand. So

THE BLlJMU ARTIST'S PICTURES. 25

I like you to neglect all that and come here to amuse me; it makes me feel important.”

Earne laughed. “ I have important duties, as you phrase it, this afternoon, some Bill about railways or drainage, that my dear Ledway constituents have gone mad over. I think I will come here and read Morris to you.”

“ Serena,” said Mr. Brail gravely, “ I should like to know what you think of that suggestion.”

“ I think it is very good-natured,” she replied in the same tone, “but you know my thoughts don’t matter. Opinions don’t matter ; we must consider consequences. Mr. Earne, I have been having a lesson on consequences this morning. If you don’t attend to the Ledway Drainage Bill, when the hot weather comes scarlet fever will break out, and all the good people in Ledway will probably die, and all the disagreeable people will probably recover. Or, to make the picture more touching ”

‘‘No, no,” interrupted Mr. Earne, “there is no danger. It is a new harbour they want.” He felt deeply grateful to the girl who was shielding him so good-naturedly.

“That is rather worse. Imagine a homewardbound ship, containing the long-looked-for father of a very large family, the consumptive daughter of an aged widow who had been a trip to the Cape, the young lawyer to whom the clergyman’s eldest daughter is engaged, and all the sweethearts of all the Ledway mill girls. The ship is in full sail, a sudden wind rises — no time to take in sail. The vessel is dashed against the rocks and all on board perish, because you were here reading Morris when you should have been attending to the Ledway Harbour Bill.”

Mr. Earne rose with a laugh, natural and pleasant this time. “ I will go home this moment and get a few hours sleep, and then it shan’t be my fault, Miss Maulden, if the Ledwayites are not a little nearer towards getting their harbour this afternoon.”

“ Now, I should like to know,” said Mr. Brail, “what a healthy, full-grown man means by wanting sleep at this hour of the day.”

“ Ah, if you were in the House representing Ledway you would know.”

“ I understand. How long is it, by the way, since you did represent Ledway in the House?”

Mr. Earne, whose one thought just then was to get out of the room as quickly as possible, did not at first quite catch the meaning of this, and answered absently,

“About three years.”

“ I shouldn’t have thought it was quite so long,” said Mr. Brail reflectively; “if you had said three weeks now.”

“At any rate, if I am to go there this afternoon, I must leave you now.”

“ Then you may as well take Miss Maulden home with you. She is going too, and means to walk ; it is only a step out of your way.”

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2 7

No suggestion could possibly have been more awkward. Mr. Earne could not possibly have excused himself, and Serena dared not offer to stay behind, lest she should betray him. They submitted, said good-bye, and left the room together.

Mr. Earne’s brougham was waiting for him outside. The coachman had, like his master, an unmistakable out-all-night expression, but did not look nearly so wan and dissipated.

If Mr. Earne had looked jaded and disreputable in the softened light of Mr. Brail's room, he looked and felt infinitely more so as he stood on the steps in the relentlessly clear full morning light. He stood a moment, looking at Serena’s sweet, bright face, so fresh and healthy, seeming all the fairer for the brilliant sunlight playing on it — longing to apologise for the necessity of leaving her in the street after promising to see her home — wondering miserably if any apology would be adequate to the outrage of even appearing before her in such a state ; then he did what was probably the very best thing under the circumstances ; he simply raised his hat without speaking, bolted down the steps into his brougham, and shut himself in out of sight.

Serena walked home by herself, thinking that this silent penitence had been very eloquent, half resolved already to undertake the task her old friend had set her.

Chapter II. The Working Of It

“ T DON’T think it is exactly — manly,” said 1 Serena.

“ Oh, but it is, my dear. A diffident but hopeful lover would naturally confide the ups and downs of his courtship to a friend, and I want to hear the latest. Did you go to the picture gallery ? ”

“ Yes,” said Serena. “ I went when you told me. I was there when he came.”

u What did you say ? ”

“ I said I had come to see the pictures because you had told me so much about them, and he said he had come because you asked him to make notes for your benefit. We made notes together. I think when you hear them you will find they are a good deal more my notes than his.”

“ That is very good.”

“But I have done better. I made him take a very long walk with me. I don’t know how, but I did it. I think I looked surprised when he was not going to do so.”

“ That's the best way. Don’t seem as if you wanted, but as if you expected attention. I believe the strongest and most long-lived instinct in that kind of a man is the habit of courtesy, the instinct of a gentleman ; people will do things involuntarily, and without noticing what they are doing — which they certainly would not do if asked. I remember the case of a man, who, in a fit of anger, but accidentally, had almost killed his dearest friend — indeed, for some time it could not be known whether he had not quite killed him. Well, this man was in a wild state of remorse and horror, and would not leave his friend’s bedside. He would take neither food, nor drink, nor rest. His wife begged him with tears to take rest for her sake. His mother tried to force him to eat ; but no — he declared he would neither eat, nor drink, nor rest until he knew if his friend would live. At last he got himself into such a state that the doctor feared for his brain, and said he must be made to sleep somehow, even if it were by means of an opiate. But how to administer the opiate, when he would not even take food ? At last a young lady staying in the house, almost a stranger to the poor fellow, made them disguise the opiate in a cup of coffee, and took it up to him. Being a stranger, of course she did not entreat like his wife and mother; she simply stood waiting, and he took the cup from her, and drank the coffee mechanically, because it was more natural to him than to keep a lady standing-. Yes, there is nothing like trusting to these instincts. You must look as if you expected to be taken home to-day.”