“How do you do” said Herbert. “Take care of those sketches, Charlie, old fellow. They are wet.”
“Papa felt very tired: he thought it best to lie down for a little,” said Mary, throwing off her cloak and appearing in a handsome dress of marmalade-colored silk. “He left the arrangements with Mr Jack to you. I suspect the dread of having to confront that mysterious stranger again had something to do with his fatigue. Is the Lady of Shalott ready to be seen?”
“The light is bad, I am sorry to say,” said Herbert, lingering whilst Mary made a movement towards the easel.
“Don’t push into the room like that, Mary,” said Charlie. “Artists always have models in their studios. Give the young lady time to dress herself.”
“There is a gleam of sunshine now,” said Herbert, gravely, ignoring the lad. “Better have your first look at it while it lasts.”
Mary placed herself before the easel, and gazed earnestly at it, finding that expression the easiest mask for a pang of disappointment which followed her first glance at the canvas. Herbert did not interrupt her for some moments. Then he said in a low voice: “You understand her action, do you not?”
“Yes. She has just seen the reflexion of Lancelot’s figure in the mirror; and she is turning round to look at the reality.”
“She has a deuce of a scraggy collar-bone,” said Charlie.
“Oh, hush, Charlie,” cried Mary, dreading that her brother might roughly express her own thoughts. “It seems quite right to me.”
“The action of turning to look over her shoulder brings out the clavicle,” said Herbert, smiling. “It is less prominent in the picture than it would be in nature: I had to soften it a little.”
“Why didn’t you paint her in some other attitude?” said Charlie.
“Because I happened to be aiming at the seizure of a poetic moment, and not at the representation of a pretty bust, my critical young friend,” said Herbert quietly. “I think you are a little too close to the canvas, Miss Sutherland. Remember: the picture is not quite finished.”
“She can’t see anything unless she is close to it,” said Charlie. “In fact, she never can get close enough, because her nose is longer than her sight. I don’t understand that window up there above the woman’s head. In reality there would be nothing to see through it except the sky. But there is a river, and flowers, and a man from the Lord Mayor’s show. Are they up on a mountain?”
“Charlie, please stop. How can you be so rude?”
“Oh, I am accustomed to criticism,” said Herbert. “You are a born critic, Charlie, since you cannot distinguish a mirror from a window. Have you never read your Tennyson?”
“Read Tennyson! I should think not. What sensible man would wade through the adventures of King Arthur and his knights? I one would think that Don Quixote had put a stop to that style of nonsense. Who was the Lady of Shalott? One of Sir Lancelot’s, or Sir Galahad’s, or Sir Somebody else’s young women, I suppose.”
“Do not mind him, Mr Herbert. It is pure affectation, He knows perfectly well.”
“I don’t,” said Charlie; “and what’s more, I don’t believe you know either.”
“The Lady of Shalott,” said Herbert, “had a task to perform; and whilst she was at work upon it, she was, on pain of a curse, only to see the outer world as it was reflected by a mirror which hung above her head. One day, Sir Lancelot rode by; and when she saw his image she forgot the curse and turned to look at him.”
“Very interesting and sensible,” said Charlie.
“Why mightn’t she as well have looked at the world Straight off out of the window, as seen it left handed in a mirror? The notion of a woman spending her life making a Turkey carpet is considered poetic, I suppose. What happened when she looked round?”
“Ah, I see you are interested. Nothing happened, except that the mirror broke and the lady died.”
“Yes, and then got into a boat; rowed herself down to Hampton Court into the middle of a water party; and arranged her corpse in an attitude for the benefit of Lancelot. I’ve seen a picture of that.
“I see you do know something about Tennyson. Now, Miss Sutherland, what is your honest opinion?”
“I think it is beautiful. The coloring seemed rather dull to me at first, because I had been thinking of the river bank, the golden grain, the dazzling sun, the gorgeous loom, the armor of Sir Lancelot, instead of the Lady herself. But now that I have grasped your idea, there is a certain sadness and weakness about her that is very pathetic.”
“Do you think the figure is weak?” said Herbert dubiously.
“Not really weak,” replied Mary hastily. “I mean that the weakness proper to her story is very touchingly expressed.”
“She means that it is too sober and respectable for her,” said Charlie. “She likes screaming colors. If you had dressed the lady in red and gold; painted the Turkey carpet in full bloom; and made Lancelot like a sugar stick, she would have liked it better. That armor, by the bye, would be the better for a rub of emery paper.”
“Armor is hard to manage, particularly in distance,” said Herbert. “Here I had to contend with the additional difficulty of not making the reflexion in the mirror seem too real.”
“You seem to have got over that pretty successfully,” said Charlie.
“Yes,” said Mary. “There is a certain unreality about the landscape and the figure in armor that I hardly understood at first. The more I strive to exercise my judgment upon art, the more I feel my ignorance. I wish you would always tell me when make foolish comments. There is someone knocking, I think.”
“It is only the housekeeper,” said Herbert, opening the door.
“Mr Jack, sir,” said the housekeeper.
“Dear me! we must have been very late,” said Mary. “It is four o’clock. Now Charlie, pray behave like a gentleman.”
“I suppose he had better come in here,” said Herbert. “Or would you rather not meet him?”
“Oh, I must meet him. Papa told me particularly to speak to him myself.”
Mr Jack was accordingly shewn in by the housekeeper. this time, he displayed linen — a clean collar; and he carried a new hat. He made a formal bow, and looked at the artist and his guests, who became a little nervous.
“Good evening, Mr Jack,” said Herbert. “I see you got my letter.”
“You are Mr Herbert?” said Jack, in his resonant voice which, in the lofty studio, had a bright, close quality like the middle notes of a trumpet. Herbert nodded. “You are not the gentleman to whom I spoke on Saturday?”
“No. Mr Sutherland is not well; and I am acting for him. This is the young gentleman whom I mentioned to you.”
Charlie blushed, and grinned. Then, seeing a humorous wrinkling in the stranger’s face, he stepped forward and offered him his hand. Jack shook it heartily. “I shall get on very well with you,” he said, “if you think you will like me as a tutor.”
“Charlie never works,” said Mary: “that is his great failing, Mr Jack.”
“You have no right to say that,” said Charlie, reddening. “How