'Upon my word, Fenwick, I've a mind to do something for you—I have indeed. I believe you'd justify it—I do! And I've always had a soft heart for artists. You look at the things in this room'—he waved his hand towards the walls, which were covered with water-colour drawings—'I've known most of the men who painted them, and I've assisted a very great many of them. Those pictures—most of them—represent loans, sir!—loans at times of difficulty, which I was proud to make'—Mr. Morrison struck his hand on the table—'yes, proud—because I believed in the genius of the men to whom I made them. I said, "I'll take a picture"—and they had the money—and the money saved their furniture—and their homes—and their wives and children. Well, I'm glad and proud to have done it, Fenwick!—you mark my words.'
He paused, his eyes on the artist, his attitude grasping, as it were, at the other's approval—hungry for it. Fenwick said nothing. He stood in the shadow of a curtain, and the sarcasm his lip could not restrain escaped the notice of his companion. 'And so, you see, I'm only following out an old custom when I say, I believe in you, Fenwick!—I believe in your abilities—I'm sorry for your necessities—and I'll come to your assistance. Now, how much would take you to London and keep you there for six months, till you've made a few friends and done some work?'
'A hundred pounds,' said the painter, breathing hard.
'A hundred pounds. And what about the wife?'
'Her father very likely would give her shelter, and the child. And of course I should leave her provided.'
'Well, and what about my security? How, John, in plain words, do you propose to repay me?'
Mr. Morrison spoke with extreme mildness. His blue eyes, whereof the whites were visible all round the pupils, shone benevolently on the artist—his mouth was all sensibility. Whereas, for a moment, there had been something of the hawk in his attitude and expression, he was now the dove—painfully obliged to pay a passing attention to business.
Fenwick hesitated.
'You mentioned six guineas, I think, for this portrait?' He nodded towards the canvas, on which he had been at work.
'I did. It is unfortunate, of course, that Bella dislikes it so. I shan't be able to hang it. Never mind. A bargain's a bargain.'
The young man drew himself up proudly.
'It is so, Mr. Morrison. And you wished me to paint your portrait, I think, and Mrs. Morrison's.' The elder man made a sign of assent. 'Well, I could run up to your place—to Bartonbury—and paint those in the winter, when I come to see my wife. As to the rest—I'll repay you within the year—unless—well, unless I go utterly to grief, which of course I may.'
'Wait here a moment. I'll fetch you the money. Better not promise to repay me in cash. It'll be a millstone round your neck. I'll take it in pictures.'
'Very well; then I'll either paint you an original finished picture—historical or romantic subject—medium size, by the end of the year, or make you copies—you said you wanted two or three—one large or two small, from anything you like in the National Gallery.'
Morrison laughed good-temperedly. He touched a copy of The Art Journal lying on the table.
'There's an article here about that German painter—Lenbach—whom they crack up so nowadays. When he was a young man, Baron Schack, it appears, paid him one hundred pounds a year, for all his time, as a copyist in Italy and Spain.' He spoke very delicately, mincing his words a little.
Fenwick's colour rose suddenly. Morrison was not looking at him, or he would have seen a pair of angry eyes.
'Prices have gone up,' said the painter, dryly. 'And I guess living in London's dearer now than living in Italy was when Lenbach (which he pronounced Lenback) was young!'
'Oh! so you know all about Lenbach?'
'You lent me the article. However'—Fenwick rose—'is that our bargain?'
The note in the voice was trenchant, even aggressive. Nothing of the suppliant, in tone or attitude. Morrison surveyed him, amused.
'If you like to call it so,' he said, lifting his delicate eyebrows a moment. 'Well, I'll take the risk.'
He left the room. Fenwick thrust his hands into his pockets, with a muttered exclamation, and walked to the window. He looked out upon a Westmoreland valley in the first flush of spring; but he saw nothing. His blood beat in heart and brain with a suffocating rapidity. So his chance was come! What would Phoebe say?
As he stood by the large window, face and form in strong relief against the crude green without, the energy of the May landscape was, as it were, repeated and expressed in the man beholding it. He was tall, a little round-shouldered, with a large, broad-browed head, covered with brown, straggling hair; eyes, glancing and darkish, full of force, of excitement even, curiously veiled, often, by suspicion; nose, a little crooked owing to an injury at football; and mouth, not coarse, but large and freely cut, and falling readily into lines of sarcasm.
The general look was one of great acuteness, rather antagonistic, as a rule, than sympathetic; and the hands, which were large and yet slender, were those of a craftsman finely endowed with all the instincts of touch.
Suddenly the young man turned on his heel and looked at the water-colours on the wall.
'The old hypocrite!' he thought; 'they're worth hundreds—and I'll be bound he got them for nothing. He'll try to get mine for nothing; but he'll find I'm his match!'
For among these pictures were a number of drawings by men long since well known, and of steady repute among the dealers or in the auctions, especially of Birmingham and the northern towns. Morrison had been for years a bank-clerk in Birmingham before his appointment to the post he now held. A group of Midland artists, whose work had become famous, and costly in proportion, had evidently been his friends at one time—or perhaps merely his debtors. They were at any rate well represented on the wall of this small Westmoreland house in which he spent his holidays.
Presently Mr. Morrison was heard returning. He placed an envelope in Fenwick's hand, and then, pointing him to a chair at the table, he dictated a form of IOU, specifying that the debt was to be returned within a year, either in money or in the pictures agreed upon.
'Oh, no fine speeches, please, my boy—no fine speeches!' said Morrison, as the artist rose, stammering out his thanks. 'That's been my nature all my life, I tell you—to help the lame dogs—ask anybody that knows me. That'll do; that'll do! Now then, what's going to be your line of action?'
Fenwick turned on him a face that vainly endeavoured to hide the joy of its owner.
'I shall look out, of course, first of all, for some bread-and-butter work. I shall go to the editors of the illustrated papers and show them some things. I shall attend some life-school in the evenings. And the rest of the time I shall paint—paint like Old Harry!'
The words caused a momentary wrinkling of Mr. Morrison's brow.
'I should avoid those expressions, if I were you, Fenwick. But paint what, my dear boy?—paint what?'
'Of course I have my ideas,' said Fenwick, staring at the floor.
'I think I have earned a right to hear them.'
'Certainly.
