A MIDDLE-SIZED ARTIST
When Rosamond’s brown eyes seemed almost too big for her brilliant little face, and her brown curls danced on her shoulders, she had a passionate enthusiasm for picture books. She loved “the reading,” but when the picture made what her young mind was trying to grasp suddenly real before her, the stimulus reaching the brain from two directions at once, she used to laugh with delight and hug the book.
The vague new words describing things she never saw suggested “castle,” a thing of gloom and beauty; and then upon the page came The Castle itself, looming dim and huge before her, with drooping heavy banners against the sunset calm.
How she had regretted it, scarce knowing why, when the pictures were less real than the description; when the princess, whose beauty made her the Rose of the World (her name was Rosamond, too!), appeared in visible form no prettier, no, not as pretty, as The Fair One with The Golden Locks in the other book! And what an outcry she made to her indifferent family when first confronted by the unbelievable blasphemy of an illustration that differed from the text!
“But, Mother—see!” she cried. “It says, ‘Her beauty was crowned by rich braids of golden hair, wound thrice around her shapely head,’ and this girl has black hair—in curls! Did the man forget what he just said?”
Her mother didn’t seem to care at all. “They often get them wrong,” she said. “Perhaps it was an old plate. Run away, dear, Mama is very busy.”
But Rosamond cared.
She asked her father more particularly about this mysterious “old plate,” and he, being a publisher, was able to give her much information thereanent. She learned that these wonderful reinforcements of her adored stories did not emanate direct from the brain of the beneficent author, but were a supplementary product by some draughtsman, who cared far less for what was in the author’s mind than for what was in his own; who was sometimes lazy, sometimes arrogant, sometimes incompetent; sometimes all three. That to find a real artist, who could make pictures and was willing to make them like the picture the author saw, was very unusual.
“You see, little girl,” said Papa, “the big artists are too big to do it—they’d rather make their own pictures; and the little artists are too little—they can’t make real ones of their own ideas, nor yet of another’s.”
“Aren’t there any middle-sized artists?” asked the child.
“Sometimes,” said her father; and then he showed her some of the perfect illustrations which leave nothing to be desired, as the familiar ones by Teniel and Henry Holiday, which make Alice’s Adventures and the Hunting of the Snark so doubly dear, Dore and Retsch and Tony Johannot and others.
“When I grow up,” said Rosamond decidedly, “I’m going to be a middle-sized artist!”
Fortunately for her aspirations the line of study required was in no way different at first from that of general education. Her parents explained that a good illustrator ought to know pretty much everything. So she obediently went through school and college, and when the time came for real work at her drawing there was no objection to that.
“It is pretty work,” said her mother, “a beautiful accomplishment. It will always be a resource for her.”
“A girl is better off to have an interest,” said her father, “and not marry the first fool that asks her. When she does fall in love this won’t stand in the way; it never does; with a woman. Besides—she may need it sometime.”
So her father helped and her mother did not hinder, and when the brown eyes were less disproportionate and the brown curls wreathed high upon her small fine head, she found herself at twenty-one more determined to be a middle-sized artist than she was at ten.
Then love came; in the person of one of her father’s readers; a strenuous new-fledged college graduate; big, handsome, domineering, opinionative; who was accepting a salary of four dollars a week for the privilege of working in a publishing house, because he loved books and meant to write them some day.
They saw a good deal of each other, and were pleasantly congenial. She sympathized with his criticisms of modem fiction; he sympathized with her criticisms of modern illustration; and her young imagination began to stir with sweet memories of poetry and romance; and sweet hopes of beautiful reality.
There are cases where the longest way round is the shortest way home; but Mr. Allen G. Goddard chose differently. He had read much about women and about love, beginning with a full foundation from the ancients; but lacked an understanding of the modern woman, such as he had to deal with.
Therefore, finding her evidently favorable, his theories and inclinations suiting, he made hot love to her, breathing, “My Wife!” into her ear before she had scarce dared to think “my darling!” and suddenly wrapping her in his arms with hot kisses, while she was still musing on “The Hugenot Lovers” and the kisses she dared dream of came in slow gradation as in the Sonnets From the Portuguese.
He was in desperate earnest. “O you are so beautiful!” he cried. “So unbelievably beautiful! Come to me, my Sweet!” for she had sprung away and stood panting and looking at him, half reproachful, half angry.
“You love me, Dearest! You cannot deny it!” he cried. “And I love you—Ah! You shall know!”
He was single-hearted, sincere; stirred by a very genuine overwhelming emotion. She on the contrary was moved by many emotions at once;—a pleasure she was half ashamed of; a disappointment she could not clearly define; as if some one had told her the whole plot of a promising new novel; a sense of fear of the new hopes she had been holding, and of startled loyalty to her long-held purposes.
“Stop!” she said—for he evidently mistook her agitation, and thought her silence was consent. “I suppose I do—love you—a little; but you’ve no right to kiss me like that!”
His eyes shone. “You Darling! My Darling!” he said. “You will give me the right, won’t you? Now, Dearest—see! I am waiting!” And he held out his arms to her.
But Rosamond was more and more displeased. “You will have to wait. I’m sorry; but I’m not ready to be engaged, yet! You know my plans. Why I’m going to Paris this year! I’m going to work! It will be ever so long before I’m ready to—to settle down.”
“As to that,” he said more calmly, “I cannot of course offer immediate marriage, but we can wait for that—together! You surely will not leave me—if you love me!”
“I think I love you,” she said conscientiously, “at least I did think so. You’ve upset it all, somehow—you hurry me so!—no—I can’t bind myself yet.”
“Do you tell me to wait for you?” he asked; his deep voice still strong to touch her heart. “How long, Dearest?”
“I’m not asking you to wait for me—I don’t want to promise anything—nor to have you. But when I have made a place—am really doing something—perhaps then—”
He laughed harshly. “Do not deceive yourself, child, nor me! If you loved me there would be none of this poor wish for freedom—for a career. You don’t love me—that’s all!”
He waited for her to deny this. She said nothing. He did not know how hard it was for her to keep from crying—and from running to his arms.
“Very well,” said he. “Goodby!”—And he was gone.
All that happened three years ago.
Allen Goddard took it very hard; and added to his earlier ideas about women another, that “the new woman” was a selfish heartless creature, indifferent to her own true nature.
He had to stay where he was and work, owing to the pressure of circumstances, which made it harder; so he became something of a mysogynyst; which is not a bad thing when a young man has to live on very little and build a place for himself.
In spite of this cynicism he could not remove from his mind those softly brilliant dark eyes; the earnest thoughtful lines of the pure young face; and the changing lights and shadows in that silky hair. Also, in the course of his work, he was continually reminded of her; for her characteristic drawings appeared more and frequently in the magazines, and grew better, stronger, more convincing from year to year.
Stories of adventure she illustrated admirably; children’s stories to perfection; fairy stories—she was the delight of thousands of children, who never once thought that the tiny quaint rose in a circle that was to be found in all those charming pictures meant a name. But he noticed that she never illustrated love stories; and smiled bitterly, to himself.
And Rosamond?
There were moments when she was inclined to forfeit her passage money and throw herself unreservedly into those strong arms which had held her so tightly for a little while. But a bud picked open does not bloom naturally; and her tumultuous feelings were thoroughly dissipated by a long strong attack of mal de mer. She derived two advantages from her experience: one a period of safe indifference to all advances from eager fellow students and more cautious older admirers; the other a facility she had not before aspired to in the making of pictures of love and lovers.
She made pictures of him from memory—so good, so moving, that she put them religiously away in a portfolio by themselves; and only took them out—sometimes. She illustrated, solely for her own enjoyment some of her girlhood’s best loved poems and stories. “The Rhyme of the Duchess May,” “The Letter L,” “In a Balcony,” “In a Gondola.” And hid them from herself even—they rather frightened her.
After three years of work abroad she came home with an established reputation, plenty of orders, and an interest that would not be stifled in the present state of mind of Mr. Allen Goddard.
She found him still at work, promoted to fifteen dollars a week by this time, and adding to his income by writing political and statistical articles for the magazines. He talked, when they met, of this work, with little enthusiasm, and asked her politely about hers.
“Anybody can see mine!” she told him lightly. “And judge it easily.”
“Mine too,” he answered. “It to-day is—and to-morrow is cast into the waste-basket. He who runs may read—if he runs fast enough.”
He told himself he was glad he was not bound to this hard, bright creature, so unnaturally self-sufficient, and successful.
She told herself that he had never cared for her, really, that was evident.
Then an English publisher who liked her work sent her a new novel by a new writer, “A. Gage.” “I know this is out of your usual line,” he said, “but I want a woman to do it, and I want you to be the woman, if possible. Read it and see what you think. Any terms you like.”
The novel was called “Two and One;” and she began it with languid interest, because she liked that publisher and wished to give full reasons for refusing. It opened with two young people who were much in love with one another; the girl a talented young sculptor with a vivid desire for fame; and another girl, a cousin of the man, ordinary enough, but pretty and sweet, and with no desires save those of romance and domesticity. The first couple broke off a happy engagement because she insisted on studying in Paris, and her lover, who could neither go with her, nor immediately marry her, naturally objected.
Rosamond sat up in bed; pulled a shawl round her, swung the electric light nearer, and went on.
The man was broken-hearted; he suffered tortures of loneliness, disappointment, doubt, self-depreciation. He waited, held at his work by a dependent widowed mother; hoping against hope that his lost one would come back. The girl meanwhile made good in her art work; she was not a great sculptor but a popular portraitist and maker of little genre groups. She had other offers, but refused them, being hardened in her ambitions, and, possibly, still withheld by her early love.
The man after two or three years of empty misery and hard grinding work, falls desperately ill; the pretty cousin helps the mother nurse him, and shows her own affection. He offers the broken remnants of his heart, which she eagerly undertakes to patch up; and they become tolerably happy, at least she is.
But the young sculptor in Paris! Rosamond hurried through the pages to the last chapter. There was the haughty and triumphant heroine in her studio. She had been given a medal—she had plenty of orders—she had just refused a Count. Everyone had gone, and she sat alone in her fine studio, self-satisfied and triumphant.
Then she picks up an old American paper which was lying about; reads it idly as she smokes her cigarette—and then both paper and cigarette drop to the floor, and she sits staring.
Then she starts up—her arms out—vainly. “Wait! O Wait!” she cries—”I was coining back,”—and drops into her chair again. The fire is out. She is alone.
Rosamond shut the book and leaned back upon her pillow. Her eyes were shut tight; but a little gleaming line showed on either cheek under the near light. She put the light out and lay quite still.
*
Allen G. Goddard, in his capacity as “reader” was looking over some popular English novels which his firm wished to arrange about publishing in America. He left “Two and One” to the last. It was the second edition, the illustrated one which he had not seen yet; the first he had read before. He regarded it from time to time with a peculiar expression.
“Well,” he said to himself, “I suppose I can stand it if the others do.”
And he opened the book.
The drawing was strong work certainly, in a style he did not know. They were striking pictures, vivid, real, carrying out in last detail the descriptions given, and the very spirit of the book, showing it more perfectly than the words. There was the tender happiness of the lovers, the courage, the firmness, the fixed purpose in the young sculptor insisting on her freedom, and the gay pride of the successful artist in her work.
There was beauty and charm in this character, yet the face was always turned away, and there was a haunting suggestion of familiarity in the figure. The other girl was beautiful, and docile in expression; well-dressed and graceful; yet somehow unattractive, even at her best, as nurse; and the man was extremely well drawn, both in his happy ardor as a lover, and his grinding misery when rejected. He was very good-looking; and here too was this strong sense of resemblance.
“Why he looks like me!” suddenly cried the reader—springing to his feet. “Confound his impudence!” he cried. “How in thunder!” Then he looked at the picture again, more carefully, a growing suspicion in his face; and turned hurriedly to the title page,—seeing a name unknown to him.
This subtle, powerful convincing work; this man who undeniably suggested him; this girl whose eyes he could not see; he turned from one to another and hurried to the back of the book.
“The fire was out—she was alone.” And there, in the remorseless light of a big lamp before her fireless hearth, the crumpled newspaper beside her, and all hope gone from a limp, crouching little figure, sat—why, he would know her among a thousand—even if her face was buried in her hands, and sunk on the arm of the chair—it was Rosamond!
*
She was in her little downtown room and hard at work when he entered; but she had time to conceal a new book quickly.
He came straight to her; he had a book in his hand, open—he held it out.
“Did you do this?” he demanded. “Tell me—tell me!” His voice was very unreliable.
She lifted her eyes slowly to his; large, soft, full of dancing lights, and the rich color swept to the gold-lighted borders of her hair.
“Did you?” she asked.
He was taken aback. “I!” said he. “Why it’s by—” he showed her the title-page. “By A. Gage,” he read.
“Yes,” said she, “Go on,” and he went on, ‘Illustrated by A. N. Other.'”
“It’s a splendid novel,” she said seriously. “Real work—great work. I always knew you’d do it, Allen. I’m so proud of you!” And she held out her hand in the sincere intelligent appreciation of a fellow craftsman.
He took it, still bewildered.
“Thank you,” he said. “I value your opinion—honestly I do! And—with a sudden sweep of recognition. “And yours is great work! Superb! Why you’ve put more into that story than I knew was there! You make the thing live and breathe! You’ve put a shadow of remorse in that lonely ruffian there that I was too proud to admit! And you’ve shown the—unconvincingness of that Other Girl; marvellously. But see here—no more fooling!”
He took her face between his hands, hands that quivered strongly, and forced her to look at him. “Tell me about that last picture! Is it—true?”
Her eyes met his, with the look he longed for. “It is true,” she said.
*
After some time, really it was a long time, but they had not noticed it, he suddenly burst forth. “But how did you know?”
She lifted a flushed and smiling face: and pointed to the title page again.
“‘A. Gage.’—You threw it down.”
“And you—” He threw back his head and laughed delightedly. “You threw down A-N-Other! O you witch! You immeasurably clever darling! How well our work fits. By Jove! What good times we’ll have!”
And they did.