Kabanata Kabanata 5 · Chapter V The Studio

. Chapter V The Studio

It was about the close of the month, that, yielding at length to the

urgent importunities of Rose, I accompanied her in a visit to Wildfell

Hall. To our surprise, we were ushered into a room where the first

object that met the eye was a painter’s easel, with a table beside it

covered with rolls of canvas, bottles of oil and varnish, palette,

brushes, paints, &c. Leaning against the wall were several sketches in

various stages of progression, and a few finished paintings—mostly of

landscapes and figures.

“I must make you welcome to my studio,” said Mrs. Graham; “there is no

fire in the sitting-room to-day, and it is rather too cold to show you

into a place with an empty grate.”

And disengaging a couple of chairs from the artistical lumber that

usurped them, she bid us be seated, and resumed her place beside the

easel—not facing it exactly, but now and then glancing at the picture

upon it while she conversed, and giving it an occasional touch with her

brush, as if she found it impossible to wean her attention entirely

from her occupation to fix it upon her guests. It was a view of

Wildfell Hall, as seen at early morning from the field below, rising in

dark relief against a sky of clear silvery blue, with a few red streaks

on the horizon, faithfully drawn and coloured, and very elegantly and

artistically handled.

“I see your heart is in your work, Mrs. Graham,” observed I: “I must

beg you to go on with it; for if you suffer our presence to interrupt

you, we shall be constrained to regard ourselves as unwelcome

intruders.”

“Oh, no!” replied she, throwing her brush on to the table, as if

startled into politeness. “I am not so beset with visitors but that I

can readily spare a few minutes to the few that do favour me with their

company.”

“You have almost completed your painting,” said I, approaching to

observe it more closely, and surveying it with a greater degree of

admiration and delight than I cared to express. “A few more touches in

the foreground will finish it, I should think. But why have you called

it Fernley Manor, Cumberland, instead of Wildfell Hall, ——shire?” I

asked, alluding to the name she had traced in small characters at the

bottom of the canvas.

But immediately I was sensible of having committed an act of

impertinence in so doing; for she coloured and hesitated; but after a

moment’s pause, with a kind of desperate frankness, she replied:—

“Because I have friends—acquaintances at least—in the world, from whom

I desire my present abode to be concealed; and as they might see the

picture, and might possibly recognise the style in spite of the false

initials I have put in the corner, I take the precaution to give a

false name to the place also, in order to put them on a wrong scent, if

they should attempt to trace me out by it.”

“Then you don’t intend to keep the picture?” said I, anxious to say

anything to change the subject.

“No; I cannot afford to paint for my own amusement.”

“Mamma sends all her pictures to London,” said Arthur; “and somebody

sells them for her there, and sends us the money.”

In looking round upon the other pieces, I remarked a pretty sketch of

Lindenhope from the top of the hill; another view of the old hall

basking in the sunny haze of a quiet summer afternoon; and a simple but

striking little picture of a child brooding, with looks of silent but

deep and sorrowful regret, over a handful of withered flowers, with

glimpses of dark low hills and autumnal fields behind it, and a dull

beclouded sky above.

“You see there is a sad dearth of subjects,” observed the fair artist.

“I took the old hall once on a moonlight night, and I suppose I must

take it again on a snowy winter’s day, and then again on a dark cloudy

evening; for I really have nothing else to paint. I have been told that

you have a fine view of the sea somewhere in the neighbourhood. Is it

true?—and is it within walking distance?”

“Yes, if you don’t object to walking four miles—or nearly so—little

short of eight miles, there and back—and over a somewhat rough,

fatiguing road.”

“In what direction does it lie?”

I described the situation as well as I could, and was entering upon an

explanation of the various roads, lanes, and fields to be traversed in

order to reach it, the goings straight on, and turnings to the right

and the left, when she checked me with,—

“Oh, stop! don’t tell me now: I shall forget every word of your

directions before I require them. I shall not think about going till

next spring; and then, perhaps, I may trouble you. At present we have

the winter before us, and—”

She suddenly paused, with a suppressed exclamation, started up from her

seat, and saying, “Excuse me one moment,” hurried from the room, and

shut the door behind her.

Curious to see what had startled her so, I looked towards the

window—for her eyes had been carelessly fixed upon it the moment

before—and just beheld the skirts of a man’s coat vanishing behind a

large holly-bush that stood between the window and the porch.

“It’s mamma’s friend,” said Arthur.

Rose and I looked at each other.

“I don’t know what to make of her at all,” whispered Rose.

The child looked at her in grave surprise. She straightway began to

talk to him on indifferent matters, while I amused myself with looking

at the pictures. There was one in an obscure corner that I had not

before observed. It was a little child, seated on the grass with its

lap full of flowers. The tiny features and large blue eyes, smiling

through a shock of light brown curls, shaken over the forehead as it

bent above its treasure, bore sufficient resemblance to those of the

young gentleman before me to proclaim it a portrait of Arthur Graham in

his early infancy.

In taking this up to bring it to the light, I discovered another behind

it, with its face to the wall. I ventured to take that up too. It was

the portrait of a gentleman in the full prime of youthful

manhood—handsome enough, and not badly executed; but if done by the

same hand as the others, it was evidently some years before; for there

was far more careful minuteness of detail, and less of that freshness

of colouring and freedom of handling that delighted and surprised me in

them. Nevertheless, I surveyed it with considerable interest. There was

a certain individuality in the features and expression that stamped it,

at once, a successful likeness. The bright blue eyes regarded the

spectator with a kind of lurking drollery—you almost expected to see

them wink; the lips—a little too voluptuously full—seemed ready to

break into a smile; the warmly-tinted cheeks were embellished with a

luxuriant growth of reddish whiskers; while the bright chestnut hair,

clustering in abundant, wavy curls, trespassed too much upon the

forehead, and seemed to intimate that the owner thereof was prouder of

his beauty than his intellect—as, perhaps, he had reason to be; and yet

he looked no fool.

I had not had the portrait in my hands two minutes before the fair

artist returned.

“Only some one come about the pictures,” said she, in apology for her

abrupt departure: “I told him to wait.”

“I fear it will be considered an act of impertinence,” I said “to

presume to look at a picture that the artist has turned to the wall;

but may I ask—”

“It _is_ an act of very great impertinence, sir; and therefore I beg

you will ask nothing about it, for your curiosity will not be

gratified,” replied she, attempting to cover the tartness of her rebuke

with a smile; but I could see, by her flushed cheek and kindling eye,

that she was seriously annoyed.

“I was only going to ask if you had painted it yourself,” said I,

sulkily resigning the picture into her hands; for without a grain of

ceremony she took it from me; and quickly restoring it to the dark

corner, with its face to the wall, placed the other against it as

before, and then turned to me and laughed.

But I was in no humour for jesting. I carelessly turned to the window,

and stood looking out upon the desolate garden, leaving her to talk to

Rose for a minute or two; and then, telling my sister it was time to

go, shook hands with the little gentleman, coolly bowed to the lady,

and moved towards the door. But, having bid adieu to Rose, Mrs. Graham

presented her hand to me, saying, with a soft voice, and by no means a

disagreeable smile,—“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, Mr.

Markham. I’m sorry I offended you by my abruptness.”

When a lady condescends to apologise, there is no keeping one’s anger,

of course; so we parted good friends for once; and _this_ time I

squeezed her hand with a cordial, not a spiteful pressure.