The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece Part 22

CHAPTER I

"Manon Lescaut," Carrington repeated. He did not show any particular enthusiasm.

"Yes, Manon Lescaut. I see the thing. It would be really superb."

"You don't mean to say, my dear boy, that you are falling into anecdote?

You are not going to degrade your canvas with painted literature?"

Carrington's voice betrayed some concern, for he took a friendly interest in my career.

"The t.i.tle--a mere label--suggests it. But nothing of the sort. I am going to paint a portrait of Manon--and of her ilk."

"A portrait?"

"Yes; the portrait of a type."

Carrington smoked on, stretched comfortably in a chair. His feet were on another chair, and the broad soles of his slippers so displayed implied ease and intimacy.

"It will look like the portrait of an actress in character; a costume picture," he said, presently; "the label isn't suggestive to me."

"There will, I promise you, be no trace of commonplace realism in it. It will be Velasquez dashed with Watteau. Can you realize the modest flight of my imagination? Seriously, Carrington, I intend to paint a masterpiece. I intend to paint a woman who would sell her soul for pleasure--a conscienceless, fascinating egotist--a corrupt charmer--saved by a certain _navete_. The eighteenth century, in fact, _en grisette_."

"Manon rather redeemed herself at the end, if I remember rightly,"

Carrington observed.

"Or circ.u.mstances redeemed her, if you will. She had a heart, perhaps; it never made her uncomfortable. Her love was of the doubtful quality that flies out of the window as want comes in at the door. Oh! she was a sweet little _scelerate_. I shall paint the type--the little _scelerate_."

"Well, of course, everything would depend on the treatment."

"Everything. I am going to astonish you there, Carrington."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Carrington said, good-humouredly.

"I see already the golden gray of her dim white boudoir; the satins, the laces, the high-heeled shoes, the rigid little waist, and face of pretty depravity. The face is the thing--the key. Where find the face? I think of a trip to Paris on purpose. One sees the glancing creature--such as I have in my mind--there, now and then. I want a fresh pallor, and gay, lazy eyes--light-brown, not too large."

"I fancy I know of someone," Carrington said, meditatively. "Not that she's _dans le caractere_," he added: "not at all; anything but depraved. But--her face; you could select." Carrington mused. "The line of her cheek is, I remember, mockingly at variance with her staid innocence of look."

"Who is she? Manon could _look_ innocent, you know--was so, after a fas.h.i.+on. I should like a touch of childish _insouciance_. Who is she, and how can I get her?"

"Well," said Carrington, taking his pipe from his lips and contemplating the fine colouring of the bowl, "she's a lady, for one thing."

"Oh, the devil!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "that won't do!"

"Well, it might."

"Shouldn't fancy it. Ill at ease on her account, you know. How could one tell a lady that she was out of pose--must sit still? How could one pay her?"

"Very simple, if she's the real article."

"I never tried it," I demurred.

"Well"--Carrington had a soothing way of beginning a sentence--"you might see her, at least. Her father is a socialist; a very harmless and unnecessary one, but that accounts for her posing."

"Do the paternal unconventionalities countenance posing for the _academie_? That savors of a really disconcerting lat.i.tude."

"The _academie_? Dear me, no! Oh, no; Miss Jones is a model of the proprieties. One indeed can hardly connect her with even such mild nonconformity as her father's socialism. He was a parson; had religious scruples, and took to rather aimless humanitarianism and to very excellent bookbinding in Hampstead. He binds a lot of my books for me; and jolly good designing and tooling, too. You remember that Petrarch of mine. That's really how I came to know him. It was the artist in him that wrestled with and overthrew the parson. He seems a happy old chap; poor as Job's turkey and absorbed in his work. He has rather longish hair--wavy, and wears a leather belt and no collar." Carrington added: "That's the first socialistic declaration of independence--they fling their collars in the face of conventionality. But the belt and the lack of collar are the only noticeable traces socialism seems to have left on Mr. Jones, except that he lets his daughter make money by posing. He must know about the people, of course. She usually sits for women. But I can give you a recommendation."

I felt, to a certain extent, the same lack of enthusiasm that Carrington himself had shown at the announcement of my "label," but I thanked him, and said that I should be glad to see Miss Jones.

"And her mother was French, too," he added, as a cogent afterthought.

"That accounts for the rippled cheek-line." Miss Jones's cheek had evidently made an emphatic impression. Indeed, Carrington's enthusiasm seemed to wax on reflection, and, as interpreted by Miss Jones, my Manon became tangible.

"How's her colouring?" I asked.

"Pale; her mouth is red, very red; charming figure, nice hands; I remember them taking up the books--she was dusting the books. I've only seen her once or twice; but I noticed her, and she struck me as a type--of something."

The pale skin and red mouth rather pleased me, and it was arranged that Carrington should see Mr. Jones, and, if possible, make an appointment for Miss Jones to call on Monday afternoon at my studio.

Carrington had rooms next door, in the little court of artists' quarters in Chelsea.

Carrington wrote reviews and collected all sorts of expensive things, chiefly old books and Chinese porcelain. He and I had art-for-art sympathies, and, being lucky young men from a monetary point of view, we could indulge our propensities with a happy indifference to success.

I had painted now for a good many years, both in Paris and in London, and had a pleasant little reputation among people it was worth while to please, and a hearty and encouraging philistine opposition. I had even shocked Mrs. Grundy in an Academy picture which wasn't at all shocking and was very well painted, and I had aroused controversy in the pages of the _Sat.u.r.day Review_.

I felt Manon Lescaut.

This epitome of the soullessness of the eighteenth century whirled in its satin frivolity through all my waking thoughts.

On Monday I awaited Miss Jones, fervently hoping that her face would do.

Punctual to the minute came the young lady's rap at my door. I ushered her in. She was rather small; and self-possessed, very. In the cut of her serge frock and the line of her little hat over her eyebrows I fancied I saw a touch of the mother's nationality. With a most business-like air she removed this hat, carefully replacing the pins in the holes they had already traversed, took off her coat (it was February), and turned to the light. She would do. Evident and delightful fact! I at once informed her of it. She asked if she should sit that morning. I said that, as I had sketches to make before deciding on pose and effect of light, the sooner she would enter upon her professional duties the better.

The gown I had already discovered--a _trouvaille_ and genuinely of the epoch; an enticing pink silk with glowing shadows.

Miss Jones made no comment on the exquisite thing which I laid lovingly on her arm. She retired with a brisk, calm step behind the tall screen in the corner.

When she reappeared in the dress, the old whites of the muslins at elbows and breast falling and folding on a skin like milk, I felt my heart rise in a devout e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of utter contentment. The Manon of my dreams stood before me. The expression certainly was wanting; I should have to compa.s.s it by a.n.a.logy. My imagination had grasped it, and I should realize the type by the aid of Miss Jones's pale face, narrowing to a chin the French would call _mutin_, her curled lips and curiously set eyes, wide apart, and the brows that swept ever so slightly upward.

The very way in which her fair hair grew in a little peak on the forehead, and curved silky and unrippled to a small knot placed high, fulfilled my aspirations, though the hair must be powdered and in it the vibrating black of a bow.

Miss Jones stood very well, conscientiously and with intelligence. Pose and effect were soon decided upon, and in a day or two I was regularly at work, delighting in it, and with a sensation of power and certainty I had rarely experienced.

Carrington came in quite frequently, and, looking from my canvas to Miss Jones, would p.r.o.nounce the drawing wonderfully felt.

"Degas wouldn't be ashamed of the line of the neck," he said. "The turn and lift of her head as she looks sideways in the mirror is really _emouvant_, life; good idea; in character; centred on herself; not bent on conquest and staring it at you. Manon had not that trait."