A Top-Floor Idyl Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  THE OTHER WOMAN

  As we were speaking, Frances came to my room and I advanced a chair forher.

  "Thanks," she said, "I am not at all tired, Mr. Cole."

  "Yet I beg that you will sit down for a moment," I asked her. "I shalltake the piano-stool and you ladies will give me the delightful feelingof receiving a pleasant visit. I shall do my best to entertain twocallers charitable enough to penetrate a sere and yellow bachelor'squarters. I shall proceed to make some tea."

  "Gracious, Dave!" exclaimed Frieda hungrily, "you live in the lap ofluxury."

  "At least your presence here gives me the illusion of it," I answered,pulling out my alcohol lamp and other utensils.

  There is little excuse for poor tea, unless it be considered as a vulgarflavoring intended to lend a different taste to the water taken from thefaucet. A pound of the best lasts me for the greater part of a year,for I take it seldom, and a dollar more than the price of green andfibrous rubbish permits me to offer my friends and delight myself with acup such as brings joy and an eagerness for a second filling.

  "Of course, I was a little afraid at first," confessed Frances, as Imeasured out a spoonful for each of us and one for the greedy pot. "Mr.McGrath was exceedingly civil, however, and briefly explained that forthe time being I must consider myself as one of his materials, like atube of paint or his easel."

  "That's just like Gordon," I interjected.

  "Well, it seemed quite right," she went on. "He made me sit down a dozentimes, in various ways, and then he'd look at me and move my chin alittle, or change the position of my arm. It took him quite a long timeand the more he shifted me around, the more he frowned, so that at lastI asked him just what he wanted.

  "'I want you to hold that baby and look at it as if it were the biggestthing on earth, and forget me, and forget that you're posing,' he said,and I asked him to let me try all by myself. So I moved around a bitand held my head differently, and he said that was just what he waslooking for. He told me to keep still and went to work at once. In ahalf an hour he asked me if I didn't want to rest, and I told him I hadpins and needles in my legs, and he said I must get up and walk a fewtimes around the studio. A few minutes later I sat down again, and--andthat's all, I think."

  "What did he talk about?" asked Frieda.

  "He didn't talk; just kept on glaring at me and then staring at hiscanvas and working away, ever so quickly. At the end of an hour he askedme how it was that the baby kept so quiet, and I told him it was asleep.

  "'When he wakes up he'll howl, won't he?' he asked me.

  "'I don't think so. Paul never howls,' I told him, and just then thepoor wee thing woke up and began. It was perfectly dreadful! He nevercried so loud before. Then Mr. McGrath told me to go into the next roomand see if it was pins or hunger and to take my own time. So when I cameback he was walking up and down in front of his canvas and paid noattention to me for the longest time. Then he said we might as well goon, and I suppose he worked for another hour. He stopped suddenly andtold me I could take off the queer shawl he'd put about my shoulders andrun away. He warned me to be on time to-morrow, because he didn't liketo wait. After that he took his hat and went away and his Japanese manshowed me out, when I was ready."

  "I told you it wouldn't be so dreadfully hard," said Frieda, "andGordon, in spite of his queer ways, is a very nice and decent fellow. Hepaints like an angel, he does, but he's as cold-blooded about his workas a pawnbroker."

  "I'm glad," said Frances. "It makes it much easier."

  I poured out the tea and produced a small box of vanilla wafers, whichFrieda is ever so fond of.

  "I wonder Gordon didn't get mad, when Baby Paul began to scream," shesaid.

  "My dear," I remarked, "a man generally gets angry only at theunexpected. He had made up his mind that the weather would be squallyand would have been rather disappointed if no shower had come. Before Ihad the pleasure of Master Paul's acquaintance, I mistakenly thoughtthat every interval between waking and feeding, in a baby's life, mustbe taken up with lusty shrieking. I'm positively frightened andhopeless, sometimes, when I think of how much there is for me to learn.I know I'll never catch up."

  "You know good tea, for one thing," answered Frieda. "Give me anothercup."

  I complied, and, presently, Frances, at our urging, sat down to the oldpiano and played something that was very pretty and soft. And then theold desire to sing must have come upon her, suddenly, for her low andhusky voice brought forth a few words of a sweet, old French song. This,all at once, must have evoked some of the memories that weighed soheavily upon her heart. Her hands went up to her face and she sobbed.Frieda rose, swiftly and silently, and put her big, able hand upon thegirl's shoulder.

  "I--I can't even sing to my baby!" Frances moaned.

  What a cry from the heart! All else would have amounted to so little, ifshe could only have poured out some of the melody in her soul to thepoor little mite. She was brave; working for Baby Paul was of smallmoment; even the loss of the gallant soldier lad who had poured hisstream of life for the motherland was not for the moment the paramountsource of her distress. No! She could not sing for the diminutiveportrait of himself, the man had left behind!

  As usual, in the presence of a woman's tears, I was mute and incapableof giving comfort. I feared to utter some of the platitudes which causethe sorrowing to revolt against the futility of wordy consolation.Frieda's kindly touch was worth more than all I could have said in adog's age. Soon, the streaming eyes had been dabbed again to dryness,but the smile I had hoped for did not return.

  "I--I am sorry I was so weak," said Frances, and ran away to her room,possibly for the powder surely invented by a great benefactor ofhumanity, since it may serve to obliterate the traces of women's tearsand enables them to look at you again, hopefully and with couragerenewed.

  * * * * *

  After this, three weeks went by. The literary agent upon whose kindlyhead I pour my short stories announced the sale of my virtuous dog'stale, on the strength of which I took Frieda and Frances to amoving-picture theatre, one Saturday night. The latter's posing forGordon was always a subject of conversation. The picture, it appeared,was now quite finished, and we were moving heaven and earth in ourendeavors to find something wherewith a woman with a young baby mightearn a few dollars. Frances spoke little of her experiences at thestudio, except to gratify our curiosity. It was always the same thing.Baby was generally ever so good and Mr. McGrath fairly patient with hisoccasional relapses from slumbering silence. An impression made its wayin my mind to the effect that Gordon rather awed his model. She hadwatched the picture's growth and this process of creation, utterly newto her, seemed to fill her with some sort of amazement.

  "Tell me just what it is like," I asked her, as we sat on the stoop,waiting for Frieda to turn up.

  "I suppose it looks like me," she said, doubtfully, "but then, it isn'ta portrait, of course. I--I don't think I look just like that. Sometimeshe stands in front of me for the longest time and glares, looking moreand more disappointed, and all at once he says I've got a Sphynx of aface or a deuce of a mouth, or something just as complimentary. Then heturns to the picture again and changes something, with merely a touch ofone of those big brushes, and plasters on another dab of paint and movesoff to look at it. After this, he says it's much better, or declareshe's spoiled everything, and he lights his pipe and goes to work again.Sometimes he wears the expression of a bulldog worrying a bone, and aminute later he'll be just as nice as nice can be. He's a strange man."

  "He certainly is," I assented. "At any rate, I am glad that yourexperience with him, on the whole, has not proved a disagreeable one."

  "Indeed, sometimes I have rather enjoyed it. Yesterday, I didn't. Hebegan, _a propos_ of nothing, to tell me about one of your books, andsaid that your idea about a girl called Laura was so silly he had nopatience with you, because you had idealized her until it was rather acaricature than a portrait, and y
ou didn't know any more about womenthan the baby did. So, of course, I got angry at him and he looked atme, with a smile that was half a sneer, and told me to keep on lookingjust like that. It seems that I had just the expression he wanted tobring out. When you look too long at the baby,' he said, 'you get thelikeness of a girl who's been scolded at table and is going to cry intothe soup. I thought I'd wake you up!' I was ever so provoked, and hepainted right along without minding me in the least. When he wasthrough, he put on his most polite air and told me that all he had saidabout that Laura was nonsense, and that she was just a fool girl likeany other. As for the picture, he said it would make some fellows sit upand take notice. He appeared to be intensely pleased with it and thankedme for being so patient with him."

  "I am not surprised," I told her. "When our good little friend, Dr.Porter, who is the best-hearted chap you'll meet in a long day'sjourney, becomes very interested in some dreadful malady and wants tomake experiments, I am sure he considers guinea-pigs and rats in thelight of mere material. Gordon will not have the slightest compunctionabout vivisecting a model, if it suits his purpose."

  "But he can be ever so kind. He very often is," declared Frances. "Onthe very first day he told me not to allow myself to get overtired, andhe's kept on asking me ever since, if I didn't want to take a rest.Sometimes he made me stop, when I could very well have kept on."

  Frieda appeared, coming around the corner under full steam, and we gotin the car and went off to the movies. The services of Eulalie had beenobtained, to mind the baby for a couple of hours. She likes to do it,and it gives her an opportunity to go into my room and rummage in mybureau drawers, where she hunts for missing buttons with the eagernessof a terrier looking for rats.

  When we returned, satiated with picturesque tragedy and second-ratevaudeville, Frances, as usual, flew upstairs, obsessed with the ideathat obviously grease-painted and false-whiskered villains such as wehad seen on the screen must have penetrated the citadel and stolen herbaby. Frieda had left us at the door, and I climbed up in more leisurelyfashion, meeting Eulalie on the stairs, loaded with my soiled linen, whobade me good evening, pleasantly.

  Frances was waiting for me on her door-sill.

  "Paul is all right. Nothing has happened," she confided to me. "Goodnight, Mr. Cole, and thank you ever so much."

  She smiled at me, and I was pleased that I had been able to divert herthoughts for a few moments. How glad I should be if I could render morepermanent that little look of happiness she showed for an instant!

  On my desk I found a message from Gordon, asking me to come to thestudio next day, which was a Sunday, for lunch.

  I kept the appointment, walking all the way up. As I passed Bryant Park,I noticed that the leaves were becoming slightly yellow. It was evidentthat the summer was giving a hint of impending departure. I reached thebig building, just before noon, knowing that I should be somewhat aheadof time, but glad to have a chat with Gordon.

  "I know you've been dying to see that canvas," he told me. "That youngwoman's a wonder. A clever and intelligent woman's the one to reallyunderstand what a fellow's after and help him out. I really think shetook some interest in the thing. If she isn't otherwise occupied when Ireturn from Southampton, I might possibly make use of her for anotherweek or two. And there's Spinelli, the sculptor, who has a commissionfor a big group of sirens, for a fountain. He was in here and looked atthe picture. Asked about her, he did, but I told him I didn't thinkshe'd pose that way."

  "I should think not," I declared.

  "You needn't get mad," he retorted. "I've been looking around to see ifI could get her something to do. Come in the front room and light yourpipe, if you want to. Windows are open. I'm expecting a couple of womenin to lunch. Glad you came in early. Yumasa's juggling in thekitchenette; the chap's an artist, when it comes to playing tunes on achafing-dish. Well, how does it strike you?"

  The picture stood before me. It was practically finished. I sank down onthe cushioned bench that ran beneath the broad window facing the northand stared at the canvas.

  "Great Heavens, Gordon!" I exclaimed.

  "It hits right out from the shoulder, doesn't it," he said. "Ever seeanything much more alive than this?"

  "She's going to lift her eyes from the baby," I answered. "She's goingto indulge in that little half-timid and half-boastful look of theyoung mother challenging the whole world to say that her infant isn'tperfection in flesh and blood!"

  Gordon made no answer. He was standing before the canvas, his left armcrossed over his breast with the right elbow resting upon it and thesquare bluish chin in the grasp of long thin fingers.

  "You've evidently stuck to the model a great deal," I commented further,"but you've also idealized, made poetry of her."

  "And you're talking like a donkey," my friend told me, ratherimpatiently. "I simply have better eyes than you. Of course, I supposeyou've seen a lot of her, for she seems to think the sun rises and setson you, but you haven't studied every bit of her face as I've done. I'veidealized nothing at all, but my own appreciation of her, and perhaps atrick or two, have caught you. The light came right through this openwindow, naturally, and caused that glint of the fluffy ends of hair,like powdered sunlight dusted over the dark chestnut. It also threwthose strong high lights over the edges of the features. Then, I stuckthose roses between her and the window and they gave the reflectedtints. It's just a portrait, you old idiot, and nothing else, exceptperhaps for the fancy shawl. Of course, everything that wasn't directlyillumined was in subdued tones, which account for the softness. You maythink it's rather ideal, but that's only because I saw her right and gotan effective pose. Hang it all, man! If I gave you a pond and a bunch oftrees and blue hills back of them, you might describe them accurately,and yet make the picture an interesting one, in one of those foolstories of yours."

  "She is very beautiful," I said, knowing that he expected no directanswer to his tirade.

  "If she hadn't been, I shouldn't have bothered with her," he replied, ina tone that rather rasped on my feelings. "That's just what's the matterwith her; she's a good-looker and you daren't change anything. If I wereto use her again for anything important, fellows would ask if I intendto stick to the same old model, all my life. If I get her to pose justonce more, it will be about the end of her usefulness to me, and I'd doit just for the fun of making another study of an interesting type,something to stick among the unframed things piled up against the walland show people, after this one's sold."

  He moved off to get a cigarette from the small square stool on which hekeeps brushes and tubes, leaving me to stare in great desolation at thepicture of Frances and her baby. So he's going to sell it! Indeed, themore I looked at it the better I realized that it was the woman herself,described by a master. He had naturally seen things I had not noticed,that was all. I think I've never had a great desire for money, but theidea was very irksome that her portrait would be sold and that it wouldhang on some rich man's wall, stared at only by people merely concernedwith the beauty their dollars had bought.

  It is, perhaps, just as well that I have some sense of humor. The ideaof this wonderful thing hanging in my rather dingy room suddenly struckme as rather incongruous. As well think of a necklace of brilliantsabout some ragged pauper's neck. To the best of my belief I have neverenvied the people who can afford to possess the gauds I have sometimesadmired in the windows of shops, in which only the rich can ever deal.Why this sudden obsession of a desire to have that picture of the youngwoman where I could look at it, daily, and delight in its perfection? Ihave often thought that in my den or in her own room she is as nearlyout of place as her picture would be. She impresses one as being able tolend further grace to the most splendid dwelling-place.

  Once more I catch myself communing with my folly. After all, MadameDupont is just a woman; her smile gives charm to her surroundings. Whenshe sits in my old Morris chair, she converts it into the throne ofbeautiful motherhood and the place into a palace of grace. Why should Icare for daubs, f
or splashes of paint never so cleverly put on, since Ican see the model from time to time and rejoice that she counts me amongher friends?

  "You're the grumpiest old curmudgeon I ever knew," said Gordon,interrupting my cogitations. "You haven't said a word for ten minutes.And so you like it, do you?"

  "You've never done anything half so good," I affirmed.

  "To tell you the truth, I've a notion I've happened to do somethingpretty big," he said, nodding. "But a fellow's apt to get hypnotized byhis own work, sometimes. I'll have to stop looking at the thing. It'llstay here while I go off to the country for a few weeks and, when I comeback, I'll have the right perspective again. But I know it's devilishgood. I feel as I did once at the _Salon_, when I got the _MentionHonorable_ for that codfish and lobster on a marble table. You know, theone Tilson bought. I knew it was right, as soon as I'd finished it."

  Mutely, I committed him to the devil and all his fallen angels. What hadthis picture to do with still-life in a fishmonger's shop? Hang it, Ireally believe Gordon has no soul! Or can it be a part of the poseinseparable from him, of which he certainly is sometimes unconscious?

  At this moment, the bell rang and Yumasa came out of some cubby andrushed to the outer door. Gordon followed him and warmly welcomed arather stout lady of uncertain age and very youthful hair, after whichhe held out his hand to the original of Miss Van Rossum's portrait.

  "The steamer was awfully early," explained the young lady, "but shetook forever to dock. Don't you think we were awfully good to come intown on such a warm day? I could have played thirty-six holes, you know,but, of course, we hadn't seen Dad for a long time. Mamma asked him tocome with us, but he said he'd have to run over to the Club. He'll joinus here at three."

  "Let me see, he was gone four months, wasn't he?" said Gordon.

  "Yes, something like that," answered the mother, holding up atortoise-shell lorgnette and looking at me.

  "I want to introduce my friend, David Cole, Mrs. Van Rossum," hastenedGordon. "Miss Van Rossum, David is my very best pal. He's the novelist,you know."

  "How very interesting!" clamored the young lady. "Gordon has given metwo of your books to read. Now that I have met you, I shall certainlyhave to begin them. You see, there is so much to do in summer, Mr.Cole."

  "Indeed there is, Miss Van Rossum," I assented. "I hardly find time evento look over the morning paper."

  "Oh! Newspapers are such rubbish," she declared, airily.

  "Why, Sophia!" cried Mrs. Van Rossum. "One of them had your picture lastweek."

  "It was rotten," said Miss Sophia, with some firmness.

  "Oh, my dear! Why will you use such dreadful language?" the motherreproved her.

  "That's all right, Ma, every one says it now."

  Miss Van Rossum, having thus established the status of her vocabulary,at least to her own satisfaction, took a few steps across the big studioand stopped before the picture.

  "Oh! I say! Did you do that, Gordon?" she asked. "Isn't she a stunner?Was it her own baby or did she borrow it? Cunning little mite, isn'tit?"

  "A study from a model," Gordon informed her. "Yes, it is her own baby."

  The older lady also came forward and inspected the painting.

  "Of course, you must have flattered her a great deal," she opined. "Youhave _such_ an imagination, my dear Mr. McGrath!"

  "It isn't a patch on David's," he replied. "Novelists can beat paintersall hollow at that sort of thing."

  "I'm awfully hungry," interrupted Miss Van Rossum. "Had to get up at anunearthly hour to come down and meet Dad."

  At once we went to the small table in the next room. The flowers wereexquisite. The young lady crunched radishes, with enthusiasm, and spokedisparagingly of a certain hackney which, according to her, had unfairlybeen awarded a blue ribbon at Piping Rock, gaining a decision over herown palfrey. Also, she discussed Mrs. Pickley-Sanderson's form at tennisand spoke of the new shotgun her father had brought over for her, fromEngland.

  "What's your handicap at golf, Mr. Cole?" she asked me, graciously.

  "I'm afraid David's a fossil," put in Gordon. "He's utterly ignorant ofthe most important things of life."

  "What a pity," she sympathized. "And how do you manage to spend thetime?"

  "I--I don't spend it, Miss Van Rossum," I answered, inanely. "I try tosave it and make it last as long as possible."

  "How funny," she declared, and gave me up as hopeless, directing theremainder of her conversation at Gordon.

  Finally, I took my leave, conscious that I had been asinine in myremarks and had made a deplorable impression. Upon the picture I castone more look before leaving. Those wonderful eyes of Frances weredirected towards the baby, of course, but for an instant I felt that shewas about to raise them and smile at me. At any rate she doesn'tconsider me as a useless incumbrance of the earth because I can't playgolf or shoot birds. She is restful and gentle, whereas Miss Van Rossumappears to me to have the soothing qualities of a healthy bass drum. Butthen, I may be mistaken.