CHAPTER XIV.
ARTHUR PHILLIPS AT WORK.
He sat near the trunk of an oak-tree, and a brook made murmuring music amongst the gnarled and grey and knotty old roots. There were big burdock-leaves at his feet, trailing brambles full of luscious fruit, and thick brown and yellow grasses.
Beneath the branches of the tree, on one side, there was a peep of distant tender hills, with a foreground of foliage just tinted with autumnal touches of red and yellow. He sat in the shadow of a clump of grand old Severnshire elms, and on his right at some distance a number of farm labourers were stacking wheat.
It was a bright, sunny afternoon in the latter part of August, and the sun played amongst the leaves of the old oak-tree, keeping the artist’s eye and hand rapidly at work. And never had Arthur Phillips watched the sunny gleams with more intense interest. A tramp with his slovenly wife, wandering out of the footpath to find a cool shelter for rest, stood to look at the artist for a moment; and a couple of school-boys, who had been fishing for minnows in the adjacent brook, sat down quietly in the grass, and lazily watched the glowing canvas.
It would have made a pretty picture this, of the artist and his spectators. But Phillips was soon alone again; he was too severe and earnest for the school-boys. A squirrel ventured to peep at him from a branch in the oak-tree, and a couple of mice whisked by him, and squeaked beneath the leaves of the broad burdock. A stupid moth lit upon the wet stump of his painted tree and spoiled its pretty wings.
How quiet, how peaceful it was, how thoroughly the country! By-and-by Arthur leaned back on his camp-stool and thought so; and his heart was grateful for the running brook, the whispering trees, the broad expanse of distant hills and meadows, and above all for the sympathy which he possessed in his own nature for the beautiful and sublime. The sun disappeared behind a cloud for a few minutes, leaving the oak-tree almost in its own natural colour, and showing the artist’s successful touches. However far short of the reality, the canvas held some wonderful sunny effects: the leaves of the grand old tree were fairly illuminated, as if gleams of sunshine had gone through them, indicating almost the fibres of the lower branches.
No man knew how far art is below nature; no painter felt more the inferiority of a picture when compared with the ever-changing and always beautiful reality: but Arthur Phillips knew when he had achieved something beyond the ordinary work, and he was pleased that his labour on this occasion had been successful; for Arthur was now actually painting for money. He had long since ceased to accept commissions, except for subjects of his own selection, and had painted more for the love of his art than for what his art would bring. The drudgery of painting had been got over long ago: the years of patient industry and unrewarded toil; the pictures returned from the Academy unhung; the adverse criticism when at last they were hung: all this had long since been at an end, and Arthur Phillips left to select his subjects and name his own price for his pictures.
But on this bright day in August the artist sat once more hard at work, painting for money, painting for subsistence. For not only had he been induced to invest largely in Overton, Baker, & Co., but he had a deposit account at their local branch in his native city of Severntown, and the branch had succumbed to the same monetary pressure which had swamped the head concern. And Arthur Phillips was nearly penniless.
There were many others in Severntown almost in the same condition, and from the same cause. So Arthur, instead of making himself wretched and miserable, packed up his box of colours, and went out to finish that bit of local study upon which we find him engaged, prior to locking himself up in his study for months of hard work.
“I thought I should find you at last, old boy,” said Mr. Hammerton, putting his hand familiarly on Arthur’s shoulders. “By the aid of your man, that faithful old grinder of colours and cleaner of pallettes, I traced you to the cross-roads; there I was at fault, and almost gave you up. I believe my old mare scented you out at last.”
“Then give my best thanks to the old mare, for I am glad to see you,” said Arthur.
“By Jove, that’s pretty! what a glorious bit of colour! Have you finished?”
“Yes; I think so.”
“Then pack up—here, I’ll help you—and let us have a quiet chat. Your man said he was to meet you here in about an hour, to carry the things home.”
“Yes,” said Arthur; “but I have finished. I was just thinking of smoking a quiet pipe whilst the sun goes down.”
“Bravo! we’ll mingle our smoke together, friend Arthur,” said Hammerton; adding, a little more seriously, “and our tears, too, by Jove! It’s the last time we shall see each other for a long time, I guess.”
“Indeed! Why?” said Arthur, turning the key in his colour-box.
“I’m off to foreign lands, Arthur—
‘Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.’”
“Are you serious, Lionel?”
“I was never more so. I have had a few angry words with my brother; and though he’s a good fellow, and is sorry for what he has said, I must go away for a time.”
Arthur looked up inquiringly.
“The fact is, I have been a great fool; I have lost a lot of money lately. I don’t know how it was, but through young Tallant I was induced to visit the Ashford Club. You have not heard, then, of the row at that quiet, but now notorious, institution?”
“No; I never heard of the Ashford before.”
“Why, it was in all the papers, man,—about a fellow cheating, and being put out into the street. My name was mentioned. You shall see the paper. Well, all that naturally annoyed my brother; but, to clinch matters, I was advised to buy a lot of Overton and Baker’s shares, to put myself right, and I have gone all to the bad. Overton and Baker’s have failed, and I not only lose the value of the shares, but there is a liability, and a large one, besides. I suppose you heard of the failure?”
“Yes. I had a large deposit with them at Severntown,” said Arthur.
“You had? By Jove! I’m sorry for that. And you are hit then, too; much, Arthur?”
“Yes, considerably. I must work hard, and make it up again.”
“I’m awfully sorry. But there, cheer up, old boy; there is no good in worrying about it, I suppose.”
“No,” said Arthur, quietly. “And where are you going, Lionel?”
“To join my regiment at Bombay; I am to be gazetted next week. I’m not going in bad disgrace, Arthur—don’t think that; but my brother, the Earl, twitted me with my folly and my expenditure, you know, and, no doubt, he was right. I have been a fool. A few years in the army will do a fellow good. There is no chance of war; that’s unfortunate.”
They chatted and smoked until Arthur’s man came and carried the artist’s picture and materials away, and then they strolled together towards a farm where Lionel had put up his horse, and where Arthur had arranged to sleep.
In the farmer’s clean-sanded parlour, Lionel told Arthur the story of his losses, not forgetting the incident of his interview with Paul Somerton. This, it seemed, had annoyed Lionel as much as anything in the whole of the unfortunate affair. He was satisfied that Miss Somerton had set her brother to watch him.
“I could never have supposed that a girl could have behaved so absurdly. You may rely upon it, Arthur, that pretty bailiff’s daughter had set her mind on marrying me, and she was anxious that I should not get through my patrimony without her assistance, I suppose. Imagine the absurdity of the thing! The girl fancies I am in love with her.”
“You have paid her great attention,” said Arthur.
“Who doesn’t pay a pretty girl great attention, whoever she may be?” said Lionel.
“You were in raptures with her picture—not out of compliment to the artist, but to the pretty face—the aristocratic head,” said Arthur, significantly.
“Ah, you have anticipated me: I shall want that picture,” said Lionel, with assumed indifference; “but imagine a bailiff’s daughter setting her heart upon the next heir to the earldom of Verner, and making her brother a spy upon him lest he should lose too much money at cards. By Jove, Arthur, it was an impudent thing to do.”
“Did she do it?”
“Did she? Of course she did. Why, the impudent young blackguard told me who he was, as if he had some claim upon me.”
“And so he had, if he was warning you against conspirators.”
“Look at it in that light, perhaps he had; but what about the other view?”
“She is a fine, handsome girl, Miss Somerton, and accomplished; she’s fit for the wife of a prince,” said Arthur, in his quiet, emphatic manner.
“Why, what radicalism you are talking! Marry a bailiff’s daughter to a prince?”
“A prince might be proud of such a wife as Amy Somerton. You have not seen so much of her as I have, and you may rely upon it you have wronged her.”
“She’s an impudent, meddling baggage, Arthur—a presumptuous, designing woman,” said Lionel, with an angry flash of the eye.
“I don’t think so, indeed,” said Arthur.
“I am sure; therefore we will not discuss the point further. Miss Tallant would be a better theme.”
But Arthur Phillips would not talk about Phœbe: and so at last they parted, Lionel shaking Arthur by the hand, and telling him that whatever might come to pass, he should never forget the many happy hours they had passed together, and that he should always treasure his friendship. Arthur was not behindhand in reciprocating Lionel’s kind feelings and expressions, and he stood at the farmer’s gate and watched his aristocratic friend until he had ridden out of sight.
With all his love of nature, with all his courage, Arthur Phillips felt sadly lonely now, as he stood listening to the last sound of the clatter of Lionel’s horse’s hoofs on the white, hard road.
It seemed as if all things that he loved faded out, or were unattainable. He had formed a warm attachment for Lionel Hammerton, and he would miss his cheery voice in the cathedral close at Severntown. Arthur, indeed, had no other familiar friend. He had followed his art with such singleness of purpose, that his life had been comparatively solitary, and he knew little or nothing of the world and its doings; hence his likes and dislikes were intensified.
For the last two or three years his love for Phœbe Tallant had grown up into a passion which he could not control, and it was only this which disturbed the peaceful course of his life. He had never thought of disclosing his feelings to her. It had been a great relief to him to tell Lionel Hammerton, and more particularly when he had for a moment feared that he had a rival in his friend. Not that Arthur, perhaps, ought to have looked upon any one as a rival, when marriage could hardly be said to have entered his thoughts. To be near his love, to see her often, to speak to her, to dwell on her kind words, that was enough for Arthur. His ambition so far had soared no higher. How could he, a poor, ill-shaped little fellow, with his solitary life, ask a fair, bright thing like Phœbe Tallant to throw in her lot with his—with his, the paid tutor?
No, poor Arthur! he had never arrived at such a daring pitch of passion and presumption, even when he had a large balance at his bankers, with which to meet, in some fashion, the monetary consideration of the wealthy father. If he had known more of the world he might have ventured to make this last cast of the die; but a quiet, retiring, modest, susceptible nature like Arthur’s, wont to brood over all sorts of imaginary nothings, wont to dream and set his thoughts upon the quiet river, to be wafted out far away beyond the world, it was impossible for him to tell Mr. Tallant that he had fallen in love with his daughter.
Once or twice he had thought there was something mean in his position at Barton Hall; that he had taken a mean advantage of his position as tutor to fall in love with his pupil. This idea had taken such fast possession of him at one time that he had almost determined to leave the country; but his will was not strong enough to shut out Phœbe from his sight. He was a prisoner to her charms, and content to remain so. How his excitement had blurted out his captivity to Lionel Hammerton was something that he could hardly understand himself; but he was glad that he had no longer to carry the secret about alone: it was like a divided responsibility now that Lionel knew it.
“And so I am to begin again,” he thought. “Well so be it; maybe this is but a kind act of mercy to give me more to think about. I have been lazy; I will paint a grand picture.”