Woman and Artist Part 26

the sight of it is killing her by inches. Nothing will induce her to part with it ... she was bent on bringing it here.... I tell you I have a very good mind to fling it out of the window. Poor woman!" he added, calming down, "it distresses me to see her. The wound is too deep, we can do nothing to cauterise it."

"Listen to me, my dear doctor," said Lorimer, "between ourselves Dora is carrying this thing much too far. I know the story from beginning to end. It is absurdly ridiculous! Philip has, so to speak, nothing to ask forgiveness about, unless it be for having neglected his wife for an invention that absorbed all his thoughts."

"My dear fellow, when a woman of Mrs. Grantham's sort loves her husband, she exaggerates everything. The slightest inattention becomes to her a subject for deep grief, a look of indifference causes her horrible suffering. Little things take on gigantic proportions. A man should surround with the most constant care and affection a woman who loves him as our friend here loved her husband."

"But, after all, a busy man can't pa.s.s all his time at the feet of his wife. There is the morning paper, you know, and his correspondence, and a thousand other everyday occupations. Give him a chance! Happy the wife who only has an art or an invention to be jealous of! Isn't it enough for a woman to know that she is loved, by the substantial proofs of affection that are given her?"

"No," replied the doctor; "for us men it suffices to know that we are loved, but with women the case is quite different. They love to have it told them--some of them so much that they could hear it from morning to night and night to morning, without ever growing weary of the tale!"

"Mistress is coming in a moment," said Hobbs to Lorimer.

"Look here, Hobbs," said the doctor, "how does Mrs. Grantham manage to get a living here? How does she keep you and herself? It is perhaps an indiscreet question, but it is important that we should know just how matters stand."

"Don't you trouble about that, doctor," replied Hobbs. "We pay our way and save money. Why! my mistress sold a picture yesterday."

"Really!--and for how much?"

"Well, sir, you are getting a little inquisitive. For twenty-five pounds, if you must know."

"Twenty-five pounds!" said the doctor, winking at Lorimer. "Well, and how much is your rent?"

"Thirty pounds a year. Don't be alarmed about us, we don't spend all the money we make."

"We make! Oh, I see, you work too?"

"I should think I did, sir; I clean the rooms, I do the cooking" ...

"And what about your wages?"

"My wages--the affection and kindness of my dear mistress, and I shall never ask or expect any increase. We are all right, doctor; don't make your mind uneasy about us. If only I could see her grow strong, everything else would be all right."

"Devoted woman!" said the doctor to Lorimer; "it does one good to feel that there are hearts like that beating in the world! It isn't such a bad place after all."

Then turning to Hobbs, and pretending to be very angry, he said, "By Jove, I'll go and find the landlord, and get him to raise the rent, and turn you both out, if you don't pay it. As for this portrait, I'll throw it in the fire or pitch it out of the window, do you hear?"

He shook hands with Lorimer and went out.

"What did he say?" exclaimed the frightened Hobbs, when Dr. Templeton was out of hearing.

"He says he will pitch that picture out of the window to begin with, and I will help him do it too."

"No, no, he must not do that," cried Hobbs excitedly. "That picture is the only thing she has got left now. See, she is copying it. I have caught her kneeling before it and kissing it. Sometimes she will sit here in front of it and smile so happily--then she will look at the other stool beside her, and her eyes fill with tears. She believes herself in Elm Avenue. Do you know what she did once? Oh, it's too ridiculous, I ought not to tell you."

"Go on, Hobbs," said Lorimer, mastering his emotion, "tell me all about it, you know how much I am interested in everything that concerns Mrs.

Grantham."

"Well, she made me sit on master's stool one day," said Hobbs, in a low confidential voice. "Oh, no, I can't tell you, you will laugh at it--and I could not have you laugh at anything she did," added she, with tears in her eyes.

"Oh, please, Hobbs."

"Well, then," continued Hobbs, "after making me sit down on the stool she threw the old velvet coat on my shoulders--there it is, hanging over there--to make the illusion more complete. She put a palette in my left hand and a brush in my right--then she burst out laughing, and the next minute had thrown herself into my arms sobbing like a child. Throw the picture out of the window," added Hobbs, shaking her fist at the closed door; "throw it in the fire, indeed! let him come and try it! I will obey all the orders he likes to give me, but don't let him dare to come near that picture. Why, sir, it would kill her. Oh, you won't let him do it, you won't, will you? Promise me he shall not touch it."

"No, Hobbs," said Lorimer, profoundly touched. "I promise you that nothing shall happen to it; make your mind easy about that."

And he took the good woman's hands and pressed them with warmth.

"Thank you, sir, thank you," said Hobbs, wiping her eyes--"oh, I hear mistress moving, I will go to her now."

"Dear devoted creature!" said Lorimer to himself when Hobbs had gone out. "The doctor is right, the world is not so bad--I wonder what all this means: the episode of the easel--what can that signify except that Dora loves Philip still, and cannot forget him? Alas, perhaps it is only the Philip of the old days that she tries to keep in her memory.

Anyhow, it is a good symptom--my little idea is growing."

Hearing steps in the adjoining room, he drew from his pocket a small packet which Philip had confided to his care. It was the "little family," of which the reader made the acquaintance at the beginning of this story. Philip had said to him, "Carry this letter to Dora and plead for me. If she refuses to listen to you and refuses to read my letter, give her this little packet, it will intercede for me."

Dora came into the studio pale and evidently ill, but walking with a tolerably firm step. She made a kindly gesture to Hobbs and closed the door of the bedroom.

"Ah, my dear friend," she said to Lorimer, "how good of you to come! I have not been very well lately, but I am better, much better ... well!

what now? Why do you look at me like that?"

"Why do I look at you?"

"Yes."

Lorimer had never seen Dora looking more beautiful than to-day. Her very pallor added a new charm. Her black gown was moulded to the lovely lines of her figure, and her hair was becomingly dressed. Lorimer had taken both her hands in his and was looking at her with eyes that expressed a mingling of sympathy, respect, and admiration.

"Why do I look at you?" he repeated, "well, then, because I should like to give you a good kiss."

"Why then, why don't you?"

Lorimer kissed her on both cheeks, while still holding her hands.

"I should just like," he said, "to take you up in my arms, carry you off and place you in Philip's."

Dora quickly disengaged herself from Lorimer's light hold and repressed an angry gesture. She offered him a chair, and, taking one herself, said, "My dear Gerald, never p.r.o.nounce that name in my hearing, and we shall be good friends still, as we always have been. Speak to me of yourself. Have you a new piece on hand? I hear that _Majella_ is still drawing crowded houses."

Lorimer saw that he had gone a little too fast at the start. He resolved to be more cautious. A better opening might occur presently, perhaps.

"No," he said, "it is of you we will talk! You are not looking well.

Work, solitude, all that sort of thing is not good for you in your present state. Come, Dora, I am an old friend of your childhood, let us talk freely, you and I. You must leave London for the country, you want fresh air. It is the opinion of Dr. Templeton, and it is mine too."

"I am very happy here, I have all that I want; don't be afraid ... I have plenty of occupation.... I work.... I try to forget."

"Ah, yes; you try to forget by surrounding yourself with everything that can help you to remember. It is a strange manner of setting about it. I have come here to fetch you, to beg you to come to my sister's in the country. I will take you there. Come and breathe the pure air in the fields, come and see the apple trees in blossom--it will put new joy into your heart."

"Oh, it would be quite impossible now ... later on, perhaps.... I do not say no."

The conversation did not take the turn that Lorimer wished.

"Listen," said he, in the tone of a man who has taken a sudden resolution, "I want to speak to you upon a rather delicate subject, but you must not stop me. You have just forbidden me to mention the name of your husband before you. Very well, I will not mention his name, but I am going to make you acquainted with certain facts which you ought no longer to be ignorant of. I do not come here to plead in his favour, and yet, as even the blackest criminal is not executed without a chance of defending himself, I really do not see what there would be outrageous, even in that. Will you listen a few moments?"