VIII
An Artist Makes an Exhibition of Himself
No man has ever understood a woman, for the simple reason that woman is unintelligible even to her own kind. If she were not, and if she were susceptible to explanation by her own sisters, be sure that her own sisters would lose no time in telling the first man she met all about her.
Lady Moya Felton possessed that rare combination of talents, beauty and acumen. She dressed well, she spoke well, and she looked well. She was a product of Newnham, an institution which, more often than not, gives the world a being which is something less than a woman and something more than a babu. This being is crammed with erudition and for many years fights life with a textbook. Sometimes she continues to the end, very self-assured, very confident of the facts she has culled from the printed page and very determined that she will never surrender her mechanical facts or her machine-made values. Sometimes, she succumbs to the humanising influences which daily contact with the verities of life bring to her and develops into a useful and charming member of society.
Moya had absorbed just as much of life as she thought was necessary to her comfort. She stopped short of the supreme lesson which finds expression in cheerful sacrifice but she was an eminently pleasing person and never discussed biological justice or gave forth as her own the shoddy philosophies she had acquired in hall. Therefore, she was bearable. Moreover, by realising—here her instinct served her—that Newnham had turned her out fit for nothing better than a churchgoing school ma’am, she conveyed an impression of her education rather than declaimed the fact.
Practical as she was, she had a guilty secret, not only a very dear one, to be hugged tight to her heart, but one which evoked the unusual emotion of profound disapproval in the more ordered compartments of her mind. Moya was a dreamer, a cold-blooded romanticist who had wonderful adventures with wonderful people whenever she walked or rode abroad. In the privacy of her big limousine, she would be absorbed in events of her own creation, wholly monopolised by men and women who bore no likeness to and had no relation with any person in her somewhat extensive list of acquaintances. She would often find herself in situations so absurdly impossible that even the penny novelette reader would have rejected them with the scorn which their crudity deserved. She did not dream of living people, the mere mental suggestion—for the roving mind has a trick of taking charge at times—that any of her visionary heroes had his prototype in flesh and blood ensured the ejection of the offending dream-man and the substitution of another, more wildly improbable but at the same time more unlikely to challenge relationship with anybody in the material world.
She could dream and yet accept the cold practicality of a Ralph Sapson and calmly consider a marriage so hopelessly prosaic.
That was inexplicable.
For an engaged lover Ralph had been singularly remiss. He had called once since his unemotional declaration of love. To do him justice he had skipped the tender demonstrations which usually accompany even the most formal engagements and had got down to the question of settlement in the shortest space of time. This was as Moya could wish, for she also was embarrassed at the thought that a human being might possibly approach—suffering in comparison—the extravagance, wordless and intangible as it was, of her shadowy friends.
It is a remarkable circumstance that romance in concrete form did not come to Moya, until the very week she engaged herself to marry Sir Ralph Sapson. It came in a curious way. She had driven to Leicester Square to see an exhibition of pictures. It was one of those collections which dawn upon London, bringing in its wake a name which has never been heard before, save in a very select circle and is never heard again outside of that circle; an orbit which swings beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.
She went into the gallery and found it a veritable desert. Save for a young man and a small, pinched and preoccupied girl, wearing a large pendant in which was inserted the photograph of her uninteresting fiancé, the place was empty. The girl with the pendant carried her excuse in her hand, in the shape of a bunch of catalogues. There was less excuse for the young man for he was healthy in appearance and it was not raining.
Moya began a conscientious inspection of the pictures, chiefly remarkable for their colouring and for the atmosphere which the artist had managed to secure. Indeed, the pictures were all atmosphere. The girl made a slow progress along the wall, comparing each framed atrocity with her catalogue and striving to sense, dimly, something of the artist’s honourable intentions.
She looked around once to discover what effect the pictures had upon her fellow sightseer. He was standing before a long panel representing, if the catalogue had been rightly compiled, A Blue Wind on a Green Hill. His face bore an expression of the deepest gloom, his hat was tilted to the back of his head and his hands were thrust deeply into his trousers pockets. The longer he looked at the Blue Wind on the Green Hill the more morose and unhappy did he appear.
This then was the attitude which the new colourist school demanded, one of fierce but approving antagonism if the paradox be permitted.
She moved up till she was almost by his side, never thinking that in the presence of the girl with the programmes and the photographic miniature, he would dare address her. Yet he did.
“What do you think of that one?” he asked without turning his head.
She was taken aback and was prepared to be chilly and noncommittal. She looked at his face and the nearer view was a pleasing one. He was very fair, very good-looking and had the bluest eyes she had ever seen in a man. He was also unshaven and his collar was not clean, but he was well dressed enough and his tone was wholly Oxford—and Balliol at that.
“I think it is rather weird,” she said.
“So do I,” he nodded vigorously. “I think it is—‘weird’ is the word. As a work of art how does it strike you?”
She hesitated. She had a full range of studio jargon which she had acquired in the course of her after-education and could speak glibly on atmosphere, tone and light. She knew that it was possible to refer to a still-life study of a bunch of bananas as being “full of movement” without being guilty of an absurdity. In fact, she knew enough about art to have occupied a position on any average newspaper as a critic.
“As a work of art,” she said, “it is original and a little eccentric.”
“Frankly?” he demanded fiercely.
All the time he spoke he was glaring at the picture and had not turned his head toward her.
“Frankly,” she replied, “I think these are monstrosities.”
He nodded again.
“I agree with you,” he said, “and I know better than anybody else how monstrous they are—I painted ’em!”
Moya gasped.
“I am awfully sorry,” she began.
“I am sorry, too—that I painted them,” he replied. “I am not sorry that I exhibited them, because all my friends told me that they were wonderful and naturally I get some satisfaction from proving that my friends are mentally deficient.”
He turned round and looked at her and was in turn surprised.
“Hello,” he said, staring at her with his blue eyes wide open, “I thought you were much older.”
She laughed.
“The fact is I didn’t look at you,” he confessed; “how can anybody look at anything with these beastly things staring one in the face—Hi! Emma!”
Fortunately the programme girl was looking his way and realised that he was speaking to her.
“Your name is Emma, I suppose.”
“No, sir,” said the girl impressively, “my name is Evangeline.”
He turned to the girl.
“Here is an Evangeline whom I thought was an Emma; and here are my Emmas that I thought were Evangelines,” he said despairingly. “What made you come to this exhibition?”
“I saw a criticism of the pictures in yesterday’s papers.”
“In the Megaphone,” he said accusingly.
“Yes—it was a very flattering criticism, I thought,” said the girl.
He nodded.
“I wrote it myself,” he said without shame.
He turned to the programme girl.
“Tell your master to shut up the gallery, have the pictures packed away and sent home.”
“But,” said Moya in alarm, “I hope my stupid views won’t influence you.”
“It isn’t your stupid view,” he said, “it is my original stupid view. You see, I can’t paint really. I know not the slightest thing about art, I have never had an artistic education or served under any master. I am a genius. These works are works of a genius. The frames cost a lot of money and the amount of paint I have used is prodigious. There is everything there,” he waved his hand to the covered walls, “except the know-how.”
She murmured a conventional expression of sympathy, but he did not invite sympathy, he invited condemnation and seemed to find a comfort in his own misfortune and was obviously all the happier, that he had reached a decision on his own merits.
They walked out of the gallery together and Moya wondered at herself. That she had in so brief a space of time entered into the aspirations and disappointments of a perfect stranger so that she felt something of his chagrin was truly amazing.
“I know you,” he said, breaking off in the midst of a sardonic dissertation on art, “you are Lady Moya Melton or Pelton.”
“Felton,” she suggested, amused.
“Oh, yes, Felton,” he nodded. “I saw your portrait in the academy, a very bad portrait too.”
“People thought it was rather good,” she demurred.
“Idealised, but Lord, what do I know about art? This charabanc de luxe is yours, I presume,” he pointed to the big limousine.
“It does happen to be mine,” she said; “my father gave it to me on my twenty-first birthday.”
He inspected it critically.
“I wonder if I know as much about motorcars as I know about painting,” he said. “I used to think I knew something about both, but here, at any rate, is something real, it is a very nice car.”
He opened the door for her and she offered her hand.
“I am so sorry about the pictures,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” he replied cheerfully.
She thought for a moment.
“Can I drop you anywhere?”
He fingered his unshaven chin.
“If you know of a nice deep pond where a man may drown himself without interference I should be obliged,” he said gravely, then, seeing the look of alarm in her eyes he laughed. “You probably don’t know my name,” he said.
As a matter of fact she did not and had been trying throughout the interview to take a surreptitious look at the catalogue. She knew it was something like Brixel.
“Fonso Blaxton—” he said shortly. “Fonso stands for Alphonso, a perfectly rotten name, isn’t it? It would be quite all right for an artist. If there’s any need to send flowers, my address is Oxford Chambers.”
He shook hands abruptly, handed her into the car and closed the door. He waited only the briefest spell and had lifted his hat and vanished before the car had started.
Moya drove back with so much to occupy her thoughts that she forgot to dream. So preoccupied was she, that she passed Sir Ralph Sapson and his chic companion turning into the park before she was aware that he was bowing to her or had time to note anything more about the lady than that she was very beautifully gowned and that her sunshade was tilted at such an angle that it was impossible to see her face.
“Who is your friend?”
Sir Ralph turned with a smirk.
“That, Princess,” he said, “is Lady Moya Felton.”
“Oh, your fiancée,” said the girl, “isn’t it a bore being in London incognito; I should so much like to have met her.”
“Perhaps some day,” said Ralph.
“I should dearly love to,” murmured the girl; “but please go on, you interest me so much. I am beginning to realise why you English are so successful. You seem to know every detail of your business.”
“Oh, dear no,” protested Sir Ralph good-humoredly. “I am rather a dunce if the truth be told, but one must know something of the details.”
“Something!” said the girl, raising her eyebrows. “I think you are very modest. Why, you seem to know the workings of your railway system from beginning to end.”
Sir Ralph stroked his moustache thoughtfully.
“One has to go into things,” he said vaguely, “and of course one takes a lot of credit for things which one is not entitled to take credit for. But the gold train was my idea altogether.”
“I never thought there was so much romance in business,” said the Princess, then suddenly, “do you mind telling the driver to turn about, I am tired of the park now.”
He leaned forward and instructed the chauffeur and the big car circled round.
“I am glad you suggested that,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Did you notice a man in a grey felt hat talking to a lady in a victoria?”
She shook her head.
“He’s a weird bird,” said Sir Ralph; “he is a policeman, Michael Pretherston, Lord Pretherston’s brother. I don’t want to meet him, apart from the fact that he might recognize you, even through that veil of yours which would deny him so much happiness,” he added gallantly.
“Tell me some more about the gold train,” she said.
Nothing loath Sir Ralph explained. He told the story of the Seahampton Docks and the big liners which would be coming in and the new services he had inaugurated to meet the increased traffic.
“We shall carry practically the whole of the gold which comes from the Rand mines,” he said impressively. “Naturally we have to be very careful although there is not much danger in England. The gold train is really two big safes on wheels. To outward appearance, they are just like ordinary closed railway trucks. In reality they are steel boxes, burglar proof and fire proof. Of course, nothing can go wrong and even if we had a smash the cars would be uninjured. But I have the best men on the system to run the train.”
“How very fascinating,” she said intensely interested. “I suppose you have a most elaborate timetable?”
“I have worked out every detail myself,” he said.
He took a notebook from his pocket.
“I will show you, Princess,” he said impressively.
He turned the gilt-edged leaves until he came to two pages covered with his fine writing.
“You will get some idea of the work involved in the running of a special train,” he said; “here are the times. There is the driver’s name, the fireman’s name, the assistant fireman’s name, the names of the two guards.”
She looked at the book.
“I cannot read your writing very well,” she laughed; “you must not forget that my family was very old fashioned and my dear father never allowed us to learn the Roman alphabet until we were quite grown up. But I can see what a very difficult business it is.”
She handed the book back to him with a little sigh.
“I am afraid I am very stupid,” she said; “figures always bother me and I can see that you revel in them. I hate writing, but by the way your book is filled, it seems that you revel in it! I cannot understand people who like to write. It is always an agony for me to compose an ordinary letter. My thoughts come so much faster than my poor hand can move.”
She took a pad and pencil from the silver mounted stationery case in front of her.
“I will show you something,” she said.
She wrote rapidly, resting the pad on her knee and he watched her in astonishment as she proceeded to fill the sheet.
“There,” she said triumphantly, “that is what I can do best.”
“It looks like shorthand,” he said.
“It is something like Russian shorthand,” said the girl, “and I am such a lazy person that I always use it whenever I want to write a note. My secretary, who is the only person in the world who understands it, transcribes it. I do it because I hate writing.”
“So you are clever, after all, Princess.”
She reached out her little hand and patted his arm.
“You don’t know how clever I am,” she said and they both laughed together.