Elizabeth's Pretenders/Part 2/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

At the end of a fortnight, Elizabeth had become more reconciled to her life and surroundings at Madame Martineau's than at first had seemed possible to her. At the end of a month she had fully recognized the wisdom of Miss Baring's philosophy, who, in speaking of the three Frenchmen, said—

"You must take these people as you find them. It is of no use our coming with our English or American ideas, and expecting to find they obtain here. Among Frenchmen, especially of the second class (I dare say of the upper class also, but I know nothing about them), there is often something that must be connived at in their talk. They are good-humoured; there is scarcely a subject under the sun they cannot discuss, and upon many they are well informed. Unfortunately, in the desire to be amusing, they are often coarse, and in their innuendoes and suggestions are unrestrained by any sense of propriety. Well, one must just turn a deaf ear—that is all; pretend one doesn't understand."

"As a matter of fact, I very often don't," said Elizabeth. "But when I see Madame de Belcour laugh, it makes me angry. Now, do you think Madame de Belcour a nice woman?"

"Nice? No, not at all. I dislike her particularly. But there she is, and it is no use making a wry face at her. We have been six months in the pension together (she came long after us), and are on distantly civil terms, and I know no more about her than I did the first day I came."

"I don't like associating with people who inspire me with distrust."

"Then you should not come to a pension. You cannot expect, among twelve people gathered from every part of the earth, not to find some shady characters."

"I wish they were all like you," said Elizabeth, smiling. "How nice it would be!"

"Rather monotonous, I expect;" and Miss Baring returned the smile.

The two women had now become as intimate as it is possible to be, when one is perfectly frank and the other reticent of all that concerns the past. Miss Hatty, indeed, had nothing to conceal, nor any love-confidences to make. She had reached the age of twenty-nine without a proposal, without a romance. Her troubles had all been of the most prosaic kind—loss of money, lawsuits, and the long lingering illness of an exacting parent. Her pride and her happiness were centred in her brother. It was the only point on which Elizabeth thought her new friend decidedly weak. He was, no doubt, a man of strength and originality of mind; and he was a clever painter. So much Elizabeth was willing to concede. She saw very little of him, except in the studio; but there she had got to value his opinion, in a way, and to listen to his remarks with interest. He was unlike any one she had ever met. Between this estimate of the man, however, and considering him as a paragon of perfection, an oracle whom there was no gainsaying, as his sister did, there was a wide gulf. It made Elizabeth a little irritable sometimes to have Alaric's opinion quoted as an authority which should effectually prevent further discussion. That so independent-minded a woman should have come to Hatty Baring's years, believing any human being to be infallible, or nearly so, struck her new friend as very odd. She did not see that, though unlike in person and manner, there was an extraordinary sympathy between the brother and sister, which made Hatty understand him when others did not. She was much less clever, but her perception was quicker; and it was a mistake to imagine that she always trusted to his judgment, built on first impressions. At this very time there was a divergence of opinion between them on the subject of Elizabeth herself, in which, as we shall see presently, Hatty held her own, and would not yield an inch.

The classes had not yet begun, and Elizabeth continued to paint from models in Miss Baring's atelier, and to receive Mr. Baring's criticisms daily at teatime. It was sometimes a pleasant half-hour, but not always. He never spared her, since she had expressly desired him to say what he thought of her work. Therefore she was too sensible to resent hearing the truth—that is, the truth as it appeared to him; and with regard to anatomy, she made no mental reservation in her acceptance of his strictures. But when it came to colour it was different. If she felt rather pleased with the result of her morning's labour, his words often fell over her like a douche of cold water, without any healthy reaction. For the opinion of so able a painter could not be disregarded. She recognized that his painting was good—very good—though it belonged to a school which was new to her, and with which she could not honestly feel much sympathy. She told Hatty so frankly—Hatty, whose own painting was the worst possible example of the same methods. Elizabeth felt that it would be impossible to sit in the same atelier, drawing from the same model, day after day, and leave her new friend's work unnoticed. It was better to take the bull by the horns, as she did before a week was over, and say—

"People see nature differently. I was never so convinced of this before. You see what I do not in those flesh-tints, and I as evidently see what you do not. Mr. Baring says I use too much bistre, that my tones are too brown. I dare say he is right—I am sure he is right; but Nature looks to me like that. I can't see it as you and he do."

"Don't you admire his painting?"

"Oh yes. It seems to me exceedingly clever—a little audacious, I suppose?—but awfully clever. Only I am sure, if I saw the lady and child he is painting, they would not appear to me quite like that. I see too much, perhaps."

"So I suppose," said Hatty, dryly.

It was useless to discuss the subject further. Miss Baring looked to the time when her new friend's eyes should be opened; for that she was unusually gifted, the attention which Alaric paid to her studies clearly indicated. He never said so—he only said it was a pity she had been badly taught; but Hatty knew her brother. Though he criticized Miss Shaw's painting, had there not been remarkable promise, he would have passed it by unnoticed. From that day forward there was a tacit understanding that it was not necessary for either girl to say anything of the other's daily work. Hatty knew that in Elizabeth's benighted condition she could not possibly appreciate an impressionist's view of a model. And Elizabeth, on her side, felt that the opinion of a person whose optic nerve was so strangely constituted as Miss Baring's would be of no value, no help, to her. Her brother was a fine draughtsman, and his mastery over the brush was so remarkable that much was to be learned from him in mere "technique." It was not so with Hatty. Elizabeth said to herself, a little scornfully, that it was fraternal partiality which made Mr. Baring so lenient—often absolutely silent—about Hatty's work. He would stand over her easel for a minute or two, and perhaps point his finger to some flagrant fault in drawing, but he never dwelt at any length upon the defects. His severe criticism of Elizabeth's own work was, if she could have known it, the greatest compliment to her talent. She was worth severity. His attachment to his sister did not blind him to the fact that she could never paint well. But it amused her; it was not worth while to discourage her attempts. She was so frail; poor little woman, that he sometimes thought, with a heavy sigh, "She will go the way of our mother, but earlier. It little signifies how she paints—poor Hatty!"

Elizabeth's sitting-room was a harbour of refuge, where the girls always retired shortly after dinner, and where Mr. Baring never joined them. Sometimes, however, all three walked out together in the warm summer evenings; and occasionally Madame Martineau had seats, from a mysterious source, for the Français or the Odéon, which she gave to the girls, or took them with her. They had also tickets offered them once or twice by Messieurs Morin and Doucet; but as these were for theatres where plays were being enacted which, Madame Martineau declared, were not convenable for young unmarried ladies, they were refused. Elizabeth dearly loved a play. She would willingly have paid for herself and her companions once or twice a week; but, in the first place, she knew they would not accept places on these terms; and secondly, such extravagance would vitiate the impression of herself which she had taken pains to produce, as of a young person possessing only a moderate independence. Her sitting-room, it is true, favoured the idea of recklessness—that she could not help; on every other point she flattered herself she was economical, to the verge of parsimony.

After the first week of Elizabeth's entering the pension, its inmates, with one or two exceptions, agreed that, considering she was English, she was much less stiff, much pleasanter, than might have been expected—as appearance, indeed, at first had led them to fear. They had grown more guarded in their language, less risqués in their jokes, and she rewarded them by unbending from her attitude of dignified reserve.

To those who had known her but a short time since, a great change, it is true, would have been apparent—a change corresponding with that we see sometimes, very suddenly, in the human face. The experience of the past weeks had left their trace on her mind and on her manner. Yet she gradually found her interest reviving in the conversation upon art and literature and public affairs which went on around her; her intellect was too keen, her sympathies too healthy, for her to brood upon her own troubles, to the exclusion of other subjects. She asked odd questions, she made acute observations; she amused both the elder men greatly; and Narishkine said, with a world of meaning in his intonation, that she was étrange. Whether her freedom from conventionality led her to be misjudged, is another question. Opinions differed very greatly on this point. Madame de Belcour affirmed, with a little laugh, that she suspected l'Anglaise to be "a prude, lined with a warm capacity for enjoyment." Professor Genron advanced, as a physiological fact, that morality was entirely a question of the shape of the hand. Mademoiselle's fingers were unfortunately virtuous. Professor Morin was strong upon eyes. He did not consider the eyes of the jeune Anglaise were encouraging. Whereupon madame responded, as many have done before, "You men are so easily deceived. Trust a woman to know her own sex." Doucet was silent, for once. But his looks expressed that "he could, an he would," say much.

It is worth while here to transcribe a conversation between the two Barings, which took place some five weeks after Elizabeth's arrival. It tells, first hand, the relative position of this brother and sister towards each other; also it indicates, better than I can describe, the exact impression her new friend made upon the sister, and the less exact impression which the brother believed that their new friend had made upon himself.

They were sitting in Miss Baring's bedroom, discussing a letter which she had just received from an aunt in New York. This aunt was a wealthy woman, and had once before (on the occasion of Mrs. Baring's death) written to offer her niece a home. In declining this offer, Hatty had said that her brother wished her to remain in Paris, where she meant to study, and ultimately she hoped to support herself by, painting. Nine months had passed, and the offer was now renewed. As she finished reading aloud the letter, in which the invitation was pressed with even more warmth than before, Miss Baring said—

"The question is, am I justified in still refusing? Am I justified in saying that I shall ever be able to support myself by painting?"

"I do not see the necessity of saying anything about it. It is enough that I wish you to remain with me."

"Aunt Jane evidently thinks, and rightly too, that I ought not to be a burthen on you, Ally."

"Then why doesn't she make you an allowance? She is a selfish old woman, she wants you to be at her beck and call. She fancies everything is to give way to her, and the opposition she meets with only makes her more obstinate. You know me too well, Hatty, to be moved by any such argument. Pay no attention to that part of the letter."

"Very well, dear, I will not. But you avoid answering my question. Shall I ever make enough by painting to be independent?"

He hesitated. "Many women do, without very distinct talent. At all events, you are happy in pursuing art, and I am happy to have you here with me. Is not that enough? We are alone in the world. Why should we be separated?"

"You will not always be alone, I hope."

"Do you think I want to marry?" he said, with a smile. "Nothing is further from my thoughts. I have not yet made enough to support a wife and child, even if I had ever seen the woman I desired to marry."

"There is time enough," returned his sister, quickly. "It will come. Of course I had rather stay with you than be in all the luxury of Aunt Jane's house at Boston. But, if I stay, you must promise me one thing."

"And that is———?"

"You will tell me frankly when the time comes that you wish to be free. You say you could not support a wife at present, but you may choose one who has means of her own."

"Do you suppose I would live on my wife's means?"

"Live on them—yourself—no. But they would prevent your having any anxiety for her. With your genius, you are sure to make a very large income before long."

He laughed at her enthusiasm. "I wish I was as sure of it. The door of my atelier is not blocked by Astors and Vanderbilts, clamouring to have their portraits."

"It will come—it is bound to come," she said decisively. Then, after a little pause, looking up and watching her brother narrowly, "I want to know, Ally, what you think of Miss Shaw?"

"Do you mean as an artist?

"Well, as an artist to begin with; then, as a woman."

"She has decided talent, if she can ever be brought to see. At present, of course she does not know how to look at nature. She is all wrong; and I fancy she is obstinate."

"She would not be so original as she is if she adopted readily other people's views. She has a strong character."

"She is full of English prejudice. That is not very original."

"Why do you say so?"

"Can't you see what she thinks of Americans? It constantly crops up, though she tries to conceal it."

"She is very young, and I believe we are the first Americans she has ever known."

"But she has that insularity which puts her out of touch with anything that is not English. She is as proud as she can be. She tolerates us because—because you were kind to her, and I can be of use to her, and she is not ungrateful; but, all through it, one sees that she has an immense idea of her own importance—her own superiority."

"You are quite wrong. I never knew you so wrong in your judgment of any one's character. She has great independence, and a certain pride, I admit; but not at all of the kind you attribute to her."

"Look at her manner to every one at table when she arrived here. It was only to be excused by saying she was English. She is a clever girl—very clever—but her manners are often detestable. Can't you see that?"

"No, I can't. At first she could not understand these Frenchmen, and was very 'stand-off' with them; but now they get on fairly well—as well as she could ever get on with that class of men. It is your sex in general, Ally, rather than foreigners, she is on the defensive against. She has dropped things which make me believe that, young as she is, she has had some hard experiences. She has once or twice spoken of men in general very bitterly."

"Indeed!" He seemed more interested in the subject than he had yet been. "Such, a mere girl! Do you know anything of her past?"

"Nothing, except that she is an orphan, and seems to have no one left in the world she cares a cent about. Sad, isn't it?"

"Yes," he said slowly, "it is sad; doubly so, because she will not make many friends. I am glad she has made one of you. You are so sensible."

"Ah! sense is rightly called common; and this girl is uncommon. She is not to be judged by ordinary standards. Her face is to me so interesting; so much more than beautiful."

"It is not the least beautiful; but it would paint well. It is an expressive face, and the expression I often see there is defiance."

"Yes, during the first few days she was here it was very marked; but I am sure that is growing less and less. She is reserved, of course. If I had not made the first advance to her, and almost insisted on making friends, I believe we should still be on the most distant terms. As it is, she never speaks of her family—never alludes to her childhood. But I have grown fond, really fond, of her. You say her face would paint well; why don't you ask her to sit to you?"

"Because I am very sure she would refuse. You believe she is on the defensive against my sex. Well, I am not going to give her aa opportunity of snubbing me. We are on very civil terms, but I shall not advance one inch from the position I have taken up. In the atelier she has told me to speak my mind, and I do so. Out of it, I mean to remain polite and distant."

His sister looked vexed; but there was no more to be said, and she wisely changed the subject.

Shortly after this, one afternoon in Hatty's atelier, Alaric happened to speak with contempt, generally, of the men in the pension before Miss Shaw.

"They are a miserable lot; each one talking of himself, and trying to belittle his neighbour."

Partly out of contradiction, I am afraid, Elizabeth said, "They amuse me rather; it is all so new. And as to what they are I dare say they are not worse than other men. I dare say they are not, any of them, absolutely criminal."

"I don't know about that, I'm sure," returned Hatty's brother, in a tone which indicated that, in his opinion, the balance of probability lay the other way. "Narishkine, I should think, as likely as not, has an intimate acquaintance with dynamite."

"Is a man who risks his own life, when he destroys others, worse, I wonder, than one who destroys others, and sacrifices all—honour, everything—to work his own ends with impunity? I don't like Monsieur Narishkine; but I am not sure, if I were a Russian, that I should not be a Nihilist."

Hatty looked up through her pince-nez, at an angle of forty-five degrees, at the turbulent young person standing beside her. Then she glanced at her brother. His eyes were riveted on Elizabeth.

"A woman was not intended to play the part of a destroying angel, I fancy, however just the cause," he said slowly.

"No!" replied Elizabeth. "Of course you think, like all men, that her only part is to suffer—and to suffer in silence!"

"My expectation is not likely to be realized," he returned sarcastically. And then he left the room.