Widdershins Part 34

"But hang it all, what could I do? They were in my place," I broke out.

He chuckled, enjoying my discomfiture. Then his eyes fell on those absurd and solemn chairs again.

"Look at 'em--the Art Shades in conference!" he chuckled. "That rush-seated one, it was talking half an hour ago about 'Scherzos in Silver and Grey!' ... Nice, fresh green stuff!"

To shut him up I told him that he would find cigarettes and tobacco on the table.

"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'!" he chuckled again as he took a cigarette....

All this, perhaps, needs some explanation. It had been the usual thing, usual in those days, twenty years ago--smarming about Art and the Arts and so forth. They--"we," as apparently Andriaovsky had lingered behind for the purpose of reminding me--had perhaps talked a little more soaringly than the ordinary, that was all. There had been Jamison in the wicker chair, full to the lips and running over with the Colour Suggestions of the late Edward Calvert; Gibbs, in a pulpy state of adoration of the less legitimate side of the painting of Watts; and Magnani, who had advanced that an Essential Oneness underlies all the Arts, and had triumphantly proved his thesis by a.n.a.logy with the Law of the Co-relation of Forces. A book called Music and Morals had appeared about that time, and on it they--we--had risen to regions of kite-high lunacy about Colour Symphonies, orgies of formless colour thrown on a magic-lantern screen--vieux jeu enough at this time of day. A young newspaper man, too, had made mental notes of our adjectives, for use in his weekly (I nearly spelt it "weakly") half-column of Art Criticism; and--and here was Andriaovsky, grinning at the chairs, and mimicking it all with diabolical glee.

"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'--'Word Pastels'--' Lyrics in Stone!'"

he chuckled. "And what was it the fat fellow said?' A Siren Song in Marble!' Phew!... Well, I'll get along. I shall just be in time to get a pint of bitter to wash it all down if I'm quick... Bah!" he broke out suddenly. "Good men build up Form and Forms--keep the Arts each after its kind--raise up the dikes so that we shan't all be swept away by night and nothingness--and these rats come nosing and burrowing and undermining it all!... _Et tu, Brute!_"

"Well, when you've finished rubbing it in--" I grunted.

"As if _you_ didn't know better!... Is that your way of getting back on 'em, now that you've chucked drawing and gone in for writing books?

Phew I... Well, I'll go and get my pint of beer--"

But he didn't go for his pint of beer. Instead, he began to prowl about my room, pryingly, nosingly, touching things here and there. I watched him as he pa.s.sed from one thing to another. He was very little, and very, very shabby. His trousers were frayed, and the sole of one of his boots flapped distressingly. His old bowler hat--he had not thought it necessary to wait until he got outside before thrusting it on the back of his head--was so limp in substance that I verily believed that had he run incautiously downstairs he would have found when he got to the bottom that its crown had sunk in of its own weight. In spite of his remark about the pint of beer, I doubt if he had the price of one in his pocket.

"What's this, Brutus--a concertina?" he suddenly asked, stopping before the collapsible case in which I kept my rather old dress suit.

I told him what it was, and he hoisted up his shoulders.

"And these things?" he asked, moving to something else.

They were a pair of boot-trees of which I had permitted myself the economy. I remember they cost me four s.h.i.+llings in the old Brompton Road.

"And that's your bath, I suppose.... Dumb-bells too.... And--_oh, good Lord!_..."

He had picked up, and dropped again as if it had been hot, somebody or other's card with the date of a "day" written across the corner of it....

As I helped him on with his overcoat he made no secret of the condition of its armholes and lining. I don't for one moment suppose that the garment was his. I took a candle to light him down as soon as it should please him to depart.

"Well, so long, and joy to you on the high road to success," he said with another grin for which I could have bundled him down the stairs....

In later days I never looked to Andriaovsky for tact; but I stared at him for his lack of it that night. And as I stared I noticed for the first time the broad and low pylon of his forehead, his handsome mouth and chin, and the fire and wit and scorn that smouldered behind his cheap spectacles. I looked again; and his smallness, his malice, his pathetic little braggings about his poverty, seemed all to disappear. He had strolled back to my hearthrug, wis.h.i.+ng, I have no doubt now, to be able to exclaim suddenly that it was too late for the pint of beer for which he hadn't the money, and to curse his luck; and the pigmy quality of his colossuss.h.i.+p had somehow gone.

As I watched him, a neighbouring clock struck the half-hour, and he did even as I had surmised--cursed the closing time of the English public-houses....

I lighted him down. For one moment, under the hall gas, he almost dropped his jesting manner.

"You _do_ know better, Harrison, you know," he said. "But, of course, you're going to be a famous author in almost no time. Oh, _ca se voit_! No garrets for _you_! It was a treat,' the way you handled those fellows--really ... Well don't forget us others when you're up there--I may want you to write my 'Life' some day...."

I heard the slapping of the loose sole as he shuffled down the path. At the gate he turned for a moment.

"Good night, Brutus," he called.

When I had mounted to my garret again my eyes fell once more on that ridiculous a.s.semblage of empty chairs, all solemnly talking to one another. I burst out into a laugh. Then I undressed, put my jacket on the hanger, took the morrow's boots from the trees and treed those I had removed, changed the pair of trousers under my mattress, and went, still laughing at the chairs, to bed.

This was Michael Andriaovsky, the Polish painter, who died four weeks ago.

I

I knew the reason of Maschka's visit the moment she was announced. Even in the stressful moments of the funeral she had found time to whisper to me that she hoped to call upon me at an early date. I dismissed the amanuensis to whom I was dictating the last story of the fourth series of _Martin Renard_, gave a few hasty instructions to my secretary, and told the servant to show Miss Andriaovsky into the drawing-room, to ask her to be so good as to excuse me for five minutes, to order tea at once, and then to bring my visitor up to the library.

A few minutes later she was shown into the room.

She was dressed in the same plainly cut costume of dead black she had worn at the funeral, and had pushed up her heavy veil over the close-fitting cap of black fur that accentuated her Sclavonic appearance.

I noticed again with distress the pallor of her face and the bistred rings that weeks of nursing had put under her dark eyes. I noticed also her resemblance, in feature and stature, to her brother. I placed a chair for her; the tea-tray followed her in; and without more than a murmured greeting she peeled off her gloves and prepared to preside at the tray.

She had filled the cups, and I had handed her toast, before she spoke.

Then:

"I suppose you know what I've come about," she said.

I nodded.

"Long, long ago you promised it. n.o.body else can do it. The only question is 'when.'"

"That's the only question," I agreed.

"We, naturally," she continued, after a glance in which her eyes mutely thanked me for my implied promise, "are anxious that it should be as soon as possible; but, of course--I shall quite understand--"

She gave a momentary glance round my library. I helped her out.

"You mean that I'm a very important person nowadays, and that you're afraid to trespa.s.s on my time. Never mind that. I shall find time for this. But tell me before we go any further exactly how you stand and precisely what it is you expect."

Briefly she did so. It did not in the least surprise me to learn that her brother had died penniless.

"And if you hadn't undertaken the 'Life,'" she said, "he might just as well not have worked in poverty all these years. You can, at least, see to his fame."

I nodded again gravely, and ruminated for a moment. Then I spoke.

"I can write it, fully and in detail, up to five years ago," I said. "You know what happened then. I tried my best to help him, but he never would let me. Tell me, Maschka, why he wouldn't sell me that portrait."

I knew instantly, from her quick confusion, that her brother had spoken to her about the portrait he had refused to sell me, and had probably told her the reason for his refusal. I watched her as she evaded the question as well as she could.

"You know how--queer--he was about who he sold his things to. And as for those five years in which you saw less of him, Schofield will tell you all you want to know."

I relinquished the point. "Who's Schofield?" I asked instead.

"He was a very good friend of Michael's--of both of us. You can talk quite freely to him. I want to say at the beginning that I should like him to be a.s.sociated with you in this."

I don't know how I divined on the spot her relation to Schofield, whoever he was. She told me that he too was a painter.