The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather (children's ebooks online .txt) 📕

“I see your meaning, I think,” said Lady Ellen, looking at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

When MacMaster stopped at the studio on leaving the house he stood for some time before Treffinger’s one portrait of himself, that brigand of a picture, with its full throat and square head; the short upper lip blackened by the close-clipped mustache, the wiry hair tossed down over the forehead, the strong white teeth set hard on a short pipestem. He could well understand what manifold tortures the mere grain of the man’s strong red and brown flesh might have inflicted upon a woman like Lady Ellen. He could conjecture, too, Treffinger’s impotent revolt against that very repose which had so dazzled him when it first defied his daring; and how once possessed of it, his first instinct had been to crush it, since he could not melt it.

Toward the close of the season Lady Ellen Treffinger left town. MacMaster’s work was progressing rapidly, and he and James wore away the days in their peculiar relation, which by this time had much of friendliness. Excepting for the regular visits of a Jewish picture dealer, there were few intrusions upon their solitude. Occasionally a party of Americans rang at the little door in the garden wall, but usually they departed speedily for the Moorish hall and tinkling fountain of the great show studio of London, not far away.

This Jew, an Austrian by birth, who had a large business in Melbourne, Australia, was a man of considerable discrimination, and at once selected the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> as the object of his especial interest. When, upon his first visit, Lichtenstein had declared the picture one of the things done for time, MacMaster had rather warmed toward him and had talked to him very freely. Later, however, the man’s repulsive personality and innate vulgarity so wore upon him that, the more genuine the Jew’s appreciation, the more he resented it and the more base he somehow felt it to be. It annoyed him to see Lichtenstein walking up and down before the picture, shaking his head and blinking his watery eyes over his nose glasses, ejaculating: “Dot is a chem, a chem! It is wordt to gome den dousant miles for such a bainting, eh? To make Eurobe abbreciate such a work of ardt it is necessary to take it away while she is napping. She has never abbreciated until she has lost, but,” knowingly, “she will buy back.”

James had, from the first, felt such a distrust of the man that he would never leave him alone in the studio for a moment. When Lichtenstein insisted upon having Lady Ellen Treffinger’s address James rose to the point of insolence. “It ayn’t no use to give it, noway. Lydy Treffinger never has nothink to do with dealers.” MacMaster quietly repented his rash confidences, fearing that he might indirectly cause Lady Ellen annoyance from this merciless speculator, and he recalled with chagrin that Lichtenstein had extorted from him, little by little, pretty much the entire plan of his book, and especially the place in it which the <i>Marriage of Phaedra</i> was to occupy.

By this time the first chapters of MacMaster’s book were in the hands of his publisher, and his visits to the studio were necessarily less frequent. The greater part of his time was now employed with the engravers who were to reproduce such of Treffinger’s pictures as he intended to use as illustrations.

He returned to his hotel late one evening after a long and vexing day at the engravers to find James in his room, seated on his steamer trunk by the window, with the outline of a great square draped in sheets resting against his knee.

“Why, James, what’s up?” he cried in astonishment, glancing inquiringly at the sheeted object.

“Ayn’t you seen the pypers, sir?” jerked out the man.

“No, now I think of it, I haven’t even looked at a paper. I’ve been at the engravers’ plant all day. I haven’t seen anything.”

James drew a copy of the <i>Times</i> from his pocket and handed it to him, pointing with a tragic finger to a paragraph in the social column. It was merely the announcement of Lady Ellen Treffinger’s engagement to Captain Alexander Gresham.

“Well, what of it, my man? That surely is her privilege.”

James took the paper, turned to another page, and silently pointed to a paragraph in the art notes which stated that Lady Treffinger had presented to the X—gallery the entire collection of paintings and sketches now in her late husband’s studio, with the exception of his unfinished picture, the <i>Marriage Of Phaedra</i>, which she had sold for a large sum to an Australian dealer who had come to London purposely to secure some of Treffinger’s paintings.

MacMaster pursed up his lips and sat down, his overcoat still on. “Well, James, this is something of a—something of a jolt, eh? It never occurred to me she’d really do it.”

“Lord, you don’t know ‘er, sir,” said James bitterly, still staring at the floor in an attitude of abandoned dejection.

MacMaster started up in a flash of enlightenment, “What on earth have you got there, James? It’s not-surely it’s not—”

Yes, it is, sir,” broke in the man excitedly. “It’s the <i>Marriage</i> itself. It ayn’t agoing to H’Australia, no’ow!”

“But man, what are you going to do with it? It’s Lichtenstein’s property now, as it seems.”

It ayn’t, sir, that it ayn’t. No, by Gawd, it ayn’t!” shouted James, breaking into a choking fury. He controlled himself with an effort and added supplicatingly: “Oh, sir, you ayn’t agoing to see it go to H’Australia, w’ere they send convic’s?” He unpinned and flung aside the sheets as though to let <i>Phaedra</i> plead for herself.

MacMaster sat down again and looked sadly at the doomed masterpiece. The notion of James having carried it across London that night rather appealed to his fancy. There was certainly a flavor about such a highhanded proceeding. “However did you get it here?” he queried.

“I got a four-wheeler and come over direct, sir. Good job I ‘appened to ‘ave the chaynge about me.”

“You came up High Street, up Piccadilly, through the Haymarket and Trafalgar Square, and into the Strand?” queried MacMaster with a relish.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir, ” assented James with surprise.

MacMaster laughed delightedly. “It was a beautiful idea, James, but I’m afraid we can’t carry it any further.”

“I was thinkin’ as ‘ow it would be a rare chance to get you to take the <i>Marriage</i> over to Paris for a year or two, sir, until the thing blows over?” suggested James blandly.

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, James. I haven’t the right stuff in me for a pirate, or even a vulgar smuggler, I’m afraid.” MacMaster found it surprisingly difficult to say this, and he busied himself with the lamp as he said it. He heard James’s hand fall heavily on the trunk top, and he discovered that he very much disliked sinking in the man’s estimation.

“Well, sir,” remarked James in a more formal tone, after a protracted silence; “then there’s nothink for it but as ‘ow I’ll ‘ave to make way with it myself.”

“And how about your character, James? The evidence would be heavy against you, and even if Lady Treffinger didn’t prosecute you’d be done for.”

“Blow my character!—your pardon, sir,” cried James, starting to his feet. “W’at do I want of a character? I’ll chuck the ‘ole thing, and damned lively, too. The shop’s to be sold out, an’ my place is gone any’ow. I’m agoing to enlist, or try the gold fields. I’ve lived too long with h’artists; I’d never give satisfaction in livery now. You know ‘ow it is yourself, sir; there ayn’t no life like it, no’ow.”

For a moment MacMaster was almost equal to abetting James in his theft. He reflected that pictures had been whitewashed, or hidden in the crypts of churches, or under the floors of palaces from meaner motives, and to save them from a fate less ignominious. But presently, with a sigh, he shook his head.

“No, James, it won’t do at all. It has been tried over and over again, ever since the world has been agoing and pictures amaking. It was tried in Florence and in Venice, but the pictures were always carried away in the end. You see, the difficulty is that although Treffinger told you what was not to be done with the picture, he did not say definitely what was to be done with it. Do you think Lady Treffinger really understands that he did not want it to be sold?”

“Well, sir, it was like this, sir,” said James, resuming his seat on the trunk and again resting the picture against his knee. “My memory is as clear as glass about it. After Sir ‘Ugh got up from ‘is first stroke, ‘e took a fresh start at the <i>Marriage</i>. Before that ‘e ‘ad been working at it only at night for a while back; the <i>Legend</i> was the big picture then, an’ was under the north light w’ere ‘e worked of a morning. But one day ‘e bid me take the <i>Legend</i> down an’ put the <i>Marriage</i> in its place, an’ ‘e says, dashin’ on ‘is jacket, ‘Jymes, this is a start for the finish, this time.’

“From that on ‘e worked at the night picture in the mornin’—a thing contrary to ‘is custom. The <i>Marriage</i> went wrong, and wrong—an’ Sir ‘Ugh agettin’ seedier an’ seedier every day. ‘E tried models an’ models, an’ smudged an’ pynted out on account of ‘er face goin’ wrong in the shadow. Sometimes ‘e layed it on the colors, an’ swore at me an’ things in general. He got that discouraged about ‘imself that on ‘is low days ‘e used to say to me: ‘Jymes, remember one thing; if anythink ‘appens to me, the <i>Marriage</i> is not to go out of ‘ere unfinished. It’s worth the lot of ‘em, my boy, an’ it’s not agoing to go shabby for lack of pains.’ ‘E said things to that effect repeated.

“He was workin’ at the picture the last day, before ‘e went to ‘is club. ‘E kept the carriage waitin’ near an hour while ‘e put on a stroke an’ then drawed back for to look at it, an’ then put on another, careful like. After ‘e ‘ad ‘is gloves on, ‘e come back an’ took away the brushes I was startin’ to clean, an’ put in another touch or two. ‘It’s acomin’, Jymes,’ ‘e says, ‘by gad if it ayn’t.’ An’ with that ‘e goes out. It was cruel sudden, w’at come after.

“That night I was lookin’ to ‘is clothes at the ‘ouse when they brought ‘im ‘ome. He was conscious, but w’en I ran downstairs for to ‘elp lift ‘im up, I knowed ‘e was a finished man. After we got ‘im into bed ‘e kept lookin’ restless at me and then at Lydy Elling and ajerkin’ of ‘is ‘and. Finally ‘e quite raised it an’ shot ‘is thumb out toward the wall. ‘He wants water; ring, Jymes,’ says Lydy Elling, placid. But I knowed ‘e was pointin’ to the shop.

“‘Lydy Treffinger,’ says I, bold, ‘he’s pointin’ to the studio. He means about the <i>Marriage</i>; ‘e told me today as ‘ow ‘e never wanted it sold unfinished. Is that it, Sir ‘Ugh?’

“He smiled an’ nodded slight an’ closed ‘is eyes. ‘Thank you, Jymes,’ says Lydy Elling, placid. Then ‘e opened ‘is eyes an’ looked long and ‘ard at Lydy Elling.

“‘Of course I’ll try to do as you’d wish about the picture, ‘Ugh, if that’s w’at’s troublin’ you,’ she says quiet. With that ‘e closed ‘is eyes and ‘e never opened ‘em. He died unconscious at four that mornin’.

“You see, sir, Lydy Elling was always cruel ‘ard