the house to which all the jovial fellows who passed the girl on the doorstep with such carelessness were wending their way was almost unique in the metropolis. the rumour ran that it had originally been designed for stables, and indeed there was a certain mews-ish appearance about its architectural elevation; it had the squat, squabby, square look of those buildings from whose upper-floors clothes-lines stretch diagonally across stable-yards; and you were at first surprised at finding an imposing portico with an imposing bell in a position where you looked for the folding-doors of a coach-house. whether there had been any truth in the report or not, it is certain that the owner of the property speedily saw his way to more money than he could have gained by the ignoble pursuit of stabling horses, and made alterations in his building, which converted it into several sets of spacious, roomy, and comfortable, if not elegant chambers. the upper rooms were duly let, and speedily became famous--thus-wise. when parmegiano wilkins made his first great success with his picture of "boadicea at breakfast,"--connoisseurs and art-critics will recollect the marvellous manner in which the chip in the porridge of the queen of the iceni was rendered,--mr. caniche, the great picture-dealer, to whom wilkins had mortgaged himself body and soul for three years, felt it necessary that his next works should be submitted to the private inspection of the newspaper-writers and the _cognoscenti_ previous to their going into the academy exhibition. on receiving a letter to this effect from caniche, wilkins was at his wits' end. he was living, for privacy's sake, in a little cottage on the outskirts of epping forest, and having made a success, had naturally alienated all his friends whose rooms in town would otherwise have been available for the display of his pictures; he thought--and there the astute picture-dealer agreed with him--that it would be unwise to send them to caniche's shop (it was before such places were called "galleries"), as tending to make public the connection between them; and wilkins did not know what to do. then caniche came to his rescue. little jimmy dabb, who had been gold-medallist and travelling-student at the academy three years beforehand, and who, for sheer sake of bread-winning, had settled down as one of caniche's labourers, had a big studio in the stable-like edifice near langham church. in it he painted those bits of domestic life,--dying children on beds, weeping mothers, small table with cut-orange, bible and physic by bedside, and pitying angel dimly hovering between mantelpiece and ceiling,--which, originally in oil, and subsequently in engravings, had such a vast sale, and brought so much ready money to caniche's exchequer. the situation was central; why not utilise it? no sooner thought of than done: a red cotton-velvet coverlet was spread over jimmy dabb's bed in the corner; a dutch carpet, red with black flecks, was, at caniche's expense, spread over the floor, paint-smeared and burnt with tobacco-ash; two gorgeous easels, on which were displayed wilkins's two pictures, "the bird in the hand"--every feather in the bird and the dirt in the nails of the ploughboy's hand marvellously delineated--and "crumbs of comfort," each crumb separate, and the loaf in the background so real, that the dowager-countess of rundall, a celebrated household manager, declared it at once to be a "slack-baked quartern." invitation-cards, wonderfully illuminated in old-english characters, and utterly illegible, were sent forth to rank, fashion, and talent, who duly attended. crowds of gay carriages choked up the little street: dabb in his sunday-clothes did the honours; caniche, bland, smiling, and polyglot, flitted here and there, his clerk took down orders for proof copies, and the fortune of the chambers was made. they were so original, so artistic, so convenient, they were just the place for a painter. smudge, r.a., who painted portraits of the aristocracy, who wore a velvet-coat, and whose name was seen in the tail-end of the list of fashionables at evening-parties, took a vacant set at once; and clement walkinshaw of the foreign office, who passed such spare time as his country could afford him in illuminating missals, in preparing designs for stained glass, and in hanging about art-circles generally, secured the remainder of the upper-floor, and converted it into a wardour-street paradise, with hanging velvet _portières_, old oak cabinets, venetian-glass, marqueterie tables, sèvres china, escutcheons of armour, and viennese porcelain pipes.
meanwhile, utterly uncaring for and utterly independent of what went on upstairs, the denizens of the lower story kept quietly on. who were the denizens of the lower story? who but the well-known titian sketching-club! how many men who, after struggling through suffolk street and the portland gallery, have won their way to fame and fortune, have made their _coup d'essai_ on the walls of the chambers rented by the titian sketching-club! outsiders, who professed great love for art, but who only knew the two or three exhibitions of the season and only recognised the score of names in each vouchsafed for by the newspaper-critics, would have been astonished to learn the amount of canvas covered, pains taken, and skill brought to bear upon the work of the members of the titian. there are guilds, and companies of freemasons, and brotherhoods by the score in london; but i know of none where the grand spirit of camaraderie is so carried out as in this. it is the nearest thing to the _vie de bohème_ of paris of henri murger that we can show; there is more liberty of speech and thought and action, less reticence, more friendship,--when friendship is understood by purse-sharing, by sick-bedside-watching, by absence of envy, jealousy, hatred, and all uncharitableness,--more singleness of purpose, more contempt for shams and impostures and the dismal fetters of conventionality, than in any other circle of english society with which i am acquainted.
it was a grand night with the titians; no model was carefully posed on the "throne" that evening; no intelligent class was grouped round on the rising benches, copying from the "draped" or the "nude;" none of the wardrobe or properties of the club (and it is rich in both),--none of the coats of mail or suits of armour, hauberks and broadswords, buff boots, dinted breastplates, carved ebony crucifixes, ivory-hafted daggers, louis-onze caps, friars' gowns and rosaries, nor other portions of the stock-in-trade, were on view. the "sending-in" day for the approaching exhibition of the british institution was at hand; and the discoloured smoky old walls of the titians, the rickety easels piled round the room, all available ledges and nooks, were covered with the works of the members of the club, which they fully intended to submit for exhibition. a very babel, in a thick fog of tobacco-smoke, through which loomed the red face of flexor the famous model, like the sun in november, greeted you on your entrance. flexor pretended to take the hats, but the visitors seemed to know him too well, and contented themselves with nodding at him in a friendly manner, and retaining their property. then you passed into the rooms, where you found yourself wedged up amongst a crowd of perhaps the most extraordinary-looking beings you ever encountered. little men with big heads and long beards, big men with bald heads and shaved cheeks, and enormous moustaches and glowering spectacles; tall thin straggling men, who seemed all profile, and whose full face you could never catch; dirty shaggy little men, with heads of hair like red mops, and no apparent faces underneath, whose eyes flashed through their elf-locks, and who were explaining their pictures with singular pantomimic power of their sinewy hands, and notably of their ever-flashing thumbs; moon-faced solemn didactic men prosing away on their views of art to dreary discontented listeners; and foppish, smart little fellows, standing a-tiptoe to get particular lights, shading their eyes with their hands, and backing against the company generally. moving here and there among the guests was the titians' president, honest old tom wrigley, who had been "at it," as he used to say, for thirty years; without making any great mark in his profession, but who was cordially beloved for his kind-heartedness and _bonhomie_, and who had a word and a joke for all. as he elbowed his way through the room he spoke right and left.
"hallo, tom rogers!--hallo, tom! that's an improvement, tom, my boy! got rid of the heavy browns, eh? weren't good, those heavy browns; specially for a venetian atmosphere, eh, tom? much better, this.--how are you, jukes? old story, jukes?--hen and chickens, ducks in the pond, horse looking over the gate? quite right, jukes; stick to that, if it pays. much better than the death of j. caesar on a twenty-foot canvas, which nobody would be fool enough to buy. stick to the ducks, jukes, old fellow.--what's the matter, george? why so savage, my son?"
"here's scumble!" said the young man addressed, in an undertone.
"and what of that, george? mr. scumble is a royal academician, it is true; and consequently a mark for your scorn and hatred, george. but it's not _his_ fault; he never did anything to aspire to such a dignity. it's your british public, george, which is such an insensate jackass as to buy scumble's pictures, and to tell him he's a genius."
"he was on the hanging-committee last year, and--"
"ah, so he was; and your 'aristides' was kicked out, and so was my 'hope deferred,' which was a deuced sight better than your big picture, master george; but see how i shall treat him.--how do you do, mr. scumble? you're very welcome here, sir."
mr. scumble, r.a., who had a head like a tin-loaf, and a face without any earthly expression, bowed his acknowledgments and threw as much warmth into his manner as he possibly could, apparently labouring under a notion that he was marked out for speedy assassination. "this is indeed a char-ming collection! great talent among the ri-sing men, mr.--pardon me--president! this now, for instance, a most charming landscape!"
"yes, old boy; you may say that," said a square-built man smoking a clay-pipe, and leaning with his elbows on the easel on which the picture was placed. "i mean the real thing,--not this; which ain't bad though, is it? not that i should say so; 'cause for why; which i did it!" and here the square-built man removed one of his elbows from the easel, and dug it into the sacred ribs of scumble, r.a.
"bad, sir!" said scumble, recoiling from the thrust, and still with the notion of a secret dagger hidden behind the square-built man's waistcoat; "it's magnificent, superb, mr.----!"
"meaning me? potts!" said the square-built man "charley potts, artist, u.e., or unsuccessful exhibitor at every daub-show in london. that's the via mala, that is. i was there last autumn with geoffrey ludlow and tom bleistift. 'show me a finer view than that,' i said to those fellows, when it burst upon us. 'if you'd a scotchman with you,' said tom, 'he'd say it wasn't so fine as the approach to edinburgh.' 'would he?'said i. 'if he said anything of that sort, i'd show him that view, and--and rub his nose in it!'"
mr. scumble, r.a., smiled in a sickly manner, bowed feebly, and passed on. old tom wrigley laughed a great boisterous "ha, ha!" and went on his way. charley potts remained before his picture, turning his back on it, and puffing out great volumes of smoke. he seemed to know everybody in the room, and to be known to and greeted by most of them. some slapped him on the back, some poked him in the ribs, others laid their forefingers alongside their noses and winked; but all called him "charley," and all had some pleasant word for him; and to all he had something to say in return.
"hallo, fred snitterfield!" he called out to a fat man in a suit of shepherd's-plaid dittoes. "halloa, fred! how's your brother bill? what's he been doing? not here to-night, of course?"
"no; he wasn't very well," said the man addressed. "he's got--"
"yes, yes; i know, fred!" said charley potts. "wife won't let him! that's it, isn't it, old boy? he only dined out once in his life without leave, and then he sent home a telegram to say he was engaged; and when his wife received the telegram she would not believe it, because she said it wasn't his handwriting! poor old bill! did he sell that 'revenge' to what's-his-name--that manchester man--prebble?"
"lord, no! haven't you heard? prebble's smashed up,--all his property gone to the devil!"
"ah, then prebble will find it again some day, no doubt. look out! here's bowie!"
mr. bowie was the art-critic of a great daily journal. in early life he had courted art himself; but lacking executive power, he had mixed up a few theories and quaint conceits which he had learned with a great deal of acrid bile, with which he had been gifted by nature, and wrote the most pungent and malevolent art-notices of the day. a tall, light-haired, vacant-looking man, like a light-house without any light in it, peering uncomfortably over his stiff white cravat, and fumbling nervously at his watch-chain. clinging close to him, and pointing out to him various pictures as they passed them by, was quite another style of man,--caniche, the great picture dealer,--an under-sized lively gascon, black-bearded from his chin, round which it was closely cut, to his beady black eyes, faultlessly dressed, sparkling in speech, affable in manner, at home with all.
"ah, ah!" said he, stopping before the easel, "the via mala! not bad--not at all bad!" he continued, with scarcely a trace of a foreign accent. "yours, charley potts? yours, _mon brave?_ de-caidedly an improvement, charley! you go on that way, mai boy, and some day--"
"some day you'll give me twenty pound, and sell me for a hundred! won't you, caniche?--generous buffalo!" growled charley, over his pipe.
the men round laughed, but caniche was not a bit offended. "of course," he said, simply, "i will, indeed; that is my trade! and if you could find a man who would give you thirty, you would throw me over in what you call a brace of shakes! _n'est-ce pas?_ meanwhile, find the man to give you thirty. he is not here; i mean coming now.--how do you do, herr stompff?"
mr. caniche (popularly known as cannish among the artists) winced as he said this, for herr stompff was his great rival and bitterest enemy.
a short, bald-headed, gray-bearded man was mr. stompff,--a hamburger,--who, on his first arrival in england, had been an importer of piping bullfinches at hull; then a tobacconist in st mary axe; and who finally had taken up picture-selling, and did an enormous business. no one could tell that he was not an englishman from his talk, and an englishman with a marvellous fluency in the vernacular. he had every slang saying as soon as it was out, and by this used to triumph over his rival caniche, who never could follow his phraseology.
"hallo, caniche!" he said; "how are you? what's up?--running the rig on the boys here! telling charley potts his daubs are first-rate? pickles!--we know all that game, don't we, charley? what do you want for it, charley?--how are you, mr. bowie? what's fresh with you, sir? too proud to come and have a cut of mutton with me and mrs. s. a-sunday, i suppose? some good fellows coming, too; mugger from the cracksideum, and talboys and sir paul potter--leastways i've asked him. well, charley, what's the figure for this lot, eh?"
"i'll trouble you not to 'charley' me, mr. stump, or whatever your infernal name is!" said potts, folding his arms and puffing out his smoke savagely. "i don't want any havannah cigars, nor silk handkerchiefs, nor painted canaries, nor anything else in your line, sir; and i want your confounded patronage least of all!"
"good boy, charley! very good boy!" said stompff, calmly pulling his whisker through his teeth--"shouldn't lose his temper, though. come and dine a-sunday, charley." mr. potts said something, which the historian is not bound to repeat, turned on his heel, and walked away.
mr. stompff was not a bit disconcerted at this treatment. he merely stuck his tongue in his cheek, and looking at the men standing round, said, "he's on the high ropes, is master charley! some of you fellows have been lending him half-a-crown, or that fool caniche has bought one of his pictures for seven-and-six! now, has anybody anything new to show, eh?" of course everybody had something new to show to the great stompff, the enterprising stompff, the liberal stompff, whose cheques were as good as notes of the bank of england. how they watched his progress, and how their hearts beat as he loitered before their works! jupp, who had a bed-ridden wife, a dear pretty little woman recovering from rheumatic fever at, adalbert villa, elgiva road, st. john's wood; smethurst, who had a 25_l_. bill coming due in a fortnight, and had three-and-sevenpence wherewith to: vogelstadt, who had been beguiled into leaving dusseldorf for london on the rumours of english riches and english patronage, and whose capital studies of birds in the snow, and _treibe-jagd's_, and boar-hunts, had called forth universal laudation, but had not as yet entrapped a single purchaser, so that vogelstadt, who had come down not discontentedly to living on bread-and-milk, had notions of mortgaging his ancestral thumb-ring to procure even those trifling necessaries,--how they al glared with expectation as the ex-singing-bird-importer passed their pictures in review! that worthy took matters very easily, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, glancing at the easels and along the walls, occasionally nodding his head in approval, or shrugging his shoulders in depreciation, but never saying a word until he stopped opposite a well-placed figure-subject to which he devoted a two-minutes' close scrutiny, and then uttered this frank though _argot_-tinged criticism "that'll hit 'em up! that'll open their eyelids, by jove! whose is it?"
the picture represented a modern ballroom, in a corner of which a man of middle age, his arms tightly folded across his breast, was intently watching the movements of a young girl, just starting off in a _valse_ with a handsome dashing young partner. the expressions in the two faces were admirably defined: in the man's was a deep earnest devotion not unmingled with passion and with jealousy, his tightly-clenched mouth, his deep-set earnest eyes, settled in rapt adoration on the girl, showed the earnestness of his feeling, so did the rigidly-fixed arms, and the _pose_ of the figure, which, originally careless, had become hardened and angular through intensity of feeling. the contrast was well marked; in the girl's face which was turned toward the man while her eyes were fixed on him, was a bright saucy triumph, brightening her eyes, inflating her little nostrils, curving the corners of her mouth, while her figure was light and airy, just obedient to the first notes of the _valse_, balancing itself as it were on the arm of her partner before starting off down the dance. all the accessories were admirable: the dreary wallflowers ranged round the room, the chaperons nidnodding together on the rout-seats, paterfamilias despondingly consulting his watch, the wearied hostess, and the somnolently-inclined musicians,--all were there, portrayed not merely by a facile hand but by a man conversant with society. the title of the picture, "sic vos non vobis," was written on a bit of paper stuck into the frame, on the other corner of which was a card bearing the words "mr. geoffrey ludlow."
"ah!" said stompff, who, after carefully scanning the picture close and then from a distance, had read the card--"at last! geoffrey ludlow's going to fulfil the promise which he's been showing this ten years! a late birth, but a fine babby now it's born! that's the real thing and no flies! that's about as near a good thing as i've seen this long time--that; come, you'll say the same! that's a good picture, mr. wrigley!"
"ah!" said old tom, coming up at the moment, "you've made another lucky hit if you've bought that, mr. stompff! geoff is so confoundedly undecided, so horribly weak in all things, that he's been all this time making up his mind whether he really would paint a good picture or not. but he's decided at last, and he has painted a clipper."
"ye-es!" said stompff, whose first enthusiasm had by no means died away--on the contrary, he thought so well of the picture that he had within himself determined to purchase it; but his business caution was coming over him strongly. "yes! it's a clipper, as you say, wrigley; but it's a picture which would take all a fellow knew to work it. throw that into the market--where are you! pouf! gone i no one thinking of it. judicious advertisement, judicious squaring of those confounded fellows of the press; a little dinner at the albion or the star and garter to two or three whom we know; and then the wonderful grasp of modern life, the singular manner in which the great natural feelings are rendered, the microscopic observation, and the power of detail--"
"yes, yes," said tom wrigley; "for which, see _catalogue of stompff's gallery of modern painters_, price 6_d_. spare yourself, you unselfish encourager of talent, and spare geoff's blushes; for here he is.--did you hear what stompff was saying on, geoff?"
as he spoke, there came slouching up, shouldering his way through the crowd, a big, heavily-built man of about forty years of age, standing over six feet, and striking in appearance if not prepossessing. striking in appearance from his height, which was even increased by his great shock head of dark-brown hair standing upright on his forehead, but curling in tight crisp waves round the back and poll of his head; from his great prominent brown eyes, which, firmly set in their large thickly-carved lids, flashed from under an overhanging pair of brows; from his large heavy nose, thick and fleshy, yet with lithe sensitive nostrils; from his short upper and protruding thick under lip; from the length of his chin and the massive heaviness of his jaw, though the heavy beard greatly concealed the formation of the lower portion of his face. a face which at once evoked attention, which no one passed by without noticing, which people at first called "odd," and "singular," and "queer," according to their vocabulary; then, following the same rule, pronounced "ugly," or "hideous," or "grotesque,"--allowing all the time that there "was something very curious in it." but a face which, when seen in animation or excitement, in reflex of the soul within, whose every thought was legibly portrayed in its every expression, in light or shade, with earnest watchful eyes, and knit brows and quivering nostrils and working lips; or, on the other hand, with its mouth full of sound big white teeth gleaming between its ruddy lips, and its eyes sparkling with pure merriment or mischief;--then a face to be preferred to all the dolly inanities of the household brigade, or even the matchless toga-draped dummies in mr. truefitt's window. this was geoffrey ludlow, whom everybody liked, but who was esteemed to be so weak and vacillating, so infirm of purpose, so incapable of succeeding in his art or in his life, as to have been always regarded as an object of pity rather than envy; as a man who was his own worst enemy, and of whom nothing could be said. he had apparently caught some words of the conversation, for when he arrived at the group a smile lit up his homely features, and his teeth glistened again in the gaslight.
"what are you fellows joking about?" he asked, while he roared with laughter, as if with an anticipatory relish of the fun. "some chaff at my expense, eh? something about my not having made up my mind to do something or not; the usual nonsense, i suppose?"
"not at all geoff," said tom wrigley. "the question asked by mr. stompff here was--whether you wished to sell this picture, and what you asked for it."
"ah!" said geoffrey ludlow, his lips closing and the fun dying out of his eyes. "well, you see it's of course a compliment for you, mr. stompff, to ask the question; but i've scarcely made up my mind--whether--and indeed as to the price--"
"stuff, geoff! what rubbish you talk!" said charley potts, who had rejoined the group. "you know well enough that you painted the picture for sale. you know equally well that the price is two hundred guineas. are you answered, mr. stump?"
ludlow started forward with a look of annoyance, but stompff merely grinned, and said quietly, "i take it at the price, and as many more as mr. ludlow will paint of the same sort; stock, lock, and barrel, i'll have the whole bilin'. must change the title though, ludlow, my boy. none of your sic wos non thingummy; none of your hebrew classics for the british public. 'the vow,' or 'the last farewell,' or something in that line.--very neatly done of you, charley, my boy; very neat bit of dealing, i call it. i ought to deduct four-and-nine from the next fifteen shillin' commission you get; but i'll make it up to you this way,--you've evidently all the qualities of a salesman; come and be my clerk, and i'll stand thirty shillings a-week and a commission on the catalogues."
charley potts was too delighted at his friend's success to feel annoyance at these remarks; he merely shook his fist laughingly, and was passing on, with his arm through ludlow's; but the vivacious dealer, who had rapidly calculated where he could plant his newly-acquired purchase, and what percentage he could make on it, was not to be thus balked.
"look here!" said he; "a bargain's a bargain, ain't it? people say your word's as good as your bond, and all that. pickles! you drop down to my office to-morrow, ludlow, and there'll be an agreement for you to sign--all straight and reg'lar, you know. and come and cut your mutton with me and mrs. s. at velasquez villa, nottin' 'ill, on sunday, at six. no sayin' no, because i won't hear it. we'll wet our connection in a glass of sham. and bring charley with you, if his dress-coat ain't up! you know, charley! tar, tar!" and highly delighted with himself, and with the full conviction that he had rendered himself thoroughly delightful to his hearers, the great man waddled off his brougham.
meanwhile the news of the purchase had spread through the rooms, and men were hurrying up on all sides to congratulate ludlow on his success. the fortunate man seemed, however, a little dazed with his triumph; he shook all the outstretched hands cordially, and said a few commonplaces of thanks, intermingled with doubts as to whether he had not been too well treated; but on the first convenient opportunity he slipped away, and sliding a shilling into the palm of flexor the model, who, being by this time very drunk, had arranged his hair in a curl on his forehead, and was sitting on the bench in the hall after his famous rendering of george the fourth of blessed memory, geoff seized his hat and coat and let himself out. the fresh night-air revived him wonderfully, and he was about starting off at his usual headstrong pace, when he heard a low dismal moan, and looking round, he saw a female figure cowering in a doorway. the next instant he was kneeling by her side.
