Part 23 (1/2)
”Here comes Mr. Baker with the proofs. In case you don't see the P. G.
at Galignani's, I send you an extract from Bayham's article on the Royal Academy, where you will have the benefit of his opinion on the works of some of your friends:--
”'617. 'Moses Bringing Home the Gross of Green Spectacles,' Smith, R.A.--Perhaps poor Goldsmith's exquisite little work has never been so great a favourite as in the present age. We have here, in a work by one of our most eminent artists, an homage to the genius of him 'who touched nothing which he did not adorn:' and the charming subject is handled in the most delicious manner by Mr. Smith. The chiaroscuro is admirable: the impasto is perfect. Perhaps a very captious critic might object to the foreshortening of Moses's left leg; but where there is so much to praise justly, the Pall Nall Gazette does not care to condemn.
”'420. Our (and the public's) favourite, Brown, R.A., treats us to a subject from the best of all stories, the tale 'which laughed Spain's chivalry away,' the ever new Don Quixote. The incident which Brown has selected is the 'Don's Attack on the Flock of Sheep;' the sheep are in his best manner, painted with all his well-known facility and brio.
Mr. Brown's friendly rival, Hopkins, has selected Gil Blas for an ill.u.s.tration this year; and the 'Robber's Cavern' is one of the most masterly of Hopkins' productions.
”'Great Rooms. 33. 'Portrait of Cardinal Cospetto,' O'Gogstay, A.R.A.; and 'Neighbourhood of Corpodibacco--Evening--a Contadina and a Trasteverino dancing at the door of a Locanda to the music of a Pifferaro.'--Since his visit to Italy Mr. O'Gogstay seems to have given up the scenes of Irish humour with which he used to delight us; and the romance, the poetry, the religion of 'Italia la bella' form the subjects of his pencil. The scene near Corpodibacco (we know the spot well, and have spent many a happy month in its romantic mountains) is most characteristic. Cardinal Cospetto, we must say, is a most truculent prelate, and not certainly an ornament to his church.
”'49, 210, 311. Smee, R.A.--Portraits which a Reynolds might be proud of,--a Vand.y.k.e or Claude might not disown. 'Sir Brian Newcome, in the costume of a Deputy-Lieutenant,' 'Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, K.C.B.,' painted for the 50th Dragoons, are triumphs, indeed, of this n.o.ble painter. Why have we no picture of the Sovereign and her august consort from Smee's brush? When Charles II. picked up t.i.tian's mahl-stick, he observed to a courtier, 'A king you can always have; a genius comes but rarely.' While we have a Smee among us, and a monarch whom we admire,--may the one be employed to transmit to posterity the beloved features of the other! We know our lucubrations are read in high places, and respectfully insinuate verb.u.m sapienti.
”'1906. 'The M'Collop of M'Collop,'--A. M'Collop,--is a n.o.ble work of a young artist, who, in depicting the gallant chief of a hardy Scottish clan, has also represented a romantic Highland landscape, in the midst of which, 'his foot upon his native heath,' stands a man of splendid symmetrical figure and great facial advantages. We shall keep our eye on Mr. M'Collop.
”'1367. 'Oberon and t.i.tania.' Ridley.--This sweet and fanciful little picture draws crowds round about it, and is one of the most charming and delightful works of the present exhibition. We echo the universal opinion in declaring that it shows not only the greatest promise, but the most delicate and beautiful performance. The Earl of Kew, we understand, bought the picture at the private view; and we congratulate the young painter heartily upon his successful debut. He is, we understand, a pupil of Mr. Gandish. Where is that admirable painter? We miss his bold canva.s.ses and grand historic outline.'
”I shall alter a few inaccuracies in the composition of our friend F. B., who has, as he says, 'drawn it uncommonly mild in the above criticism.' In fact, two days since, he brought in an article of quite a different tendency, of which he retains only the two last paragraphs; but he has, with great magnanimity, recalled his previous observations; and, indeed, he knows as much about pictures as some critics I could name.
”Good-bye, my dear Clive! I send my kindest regards to your father; and think you had best see as little as possible of your bouillotte-playing French friend and his friends. This advice I know you will follow, as young men always follow the advice of their seniors and well-wishers.
I dine in Fitzroy Square to-day with the pretty widow and her daughter, and am yours always, dear Clive, A. P.”
CHAPTER XXIII. In which we hear a Soprano and a Contralto
The most hospitable and polite of Colonels would not hear of Mrs.
Mackenzie and her daughter quitting his house when he returned to it, after six weeks' pleasant sojourn in Paris; nor, indeed, did his fair guest show the least anxiety or intention to go away. Mrs. Mackenzie had a fine merry humour of her own. She was an old soldier's wife, she said and knew when her quarters were good; and I suppose, since her honeymoon, when the captain took her to Harrogate and Cheltenham, stopping at the first hotels, and travelling in a chaise-and-pair the whole way, she had never been so well off as in that roomy mansion near Tottenham Court Road. Of her mother's house at Musselburgh she gave a ludicrous but dismal account. ”Eh, James,” she said, ”I think if you had come to mamma, as you threatened, you would not have staid very long.
It's a wearisome place. Dr. M'Craw boards with her; and it's sermon and psalm-singing from morning till night. My little Josey takes kindly to the life there, and I left her behind, poor little darling! It was not fair to bring three of us to take possession of your house, dear James; but my poor little Rosey was just withering away there. It's good for the dear child to see the world a little, and a kind uncle, who is not afraid of us now he sees us, is he?” Kind Uncle James was not at all afraid of little Rosey; whose pretty face and modest manners, and sweet songs, and blue eyes, cheered and soothed the old bachelor. Nor was Rosey's mother less agreeable and pleasant. She had married the captain (it was a love-match, against the will of her parents, who had destined her to be the third wife of old Dr. M'Mull) when very young. Many sorrows she had had, including poverty, the captain's imprisonment for debt, and his demise; but she was of a gay and lightsome spirit. She was but three-and-thirty years old, and looked five-and-twenty. She was active, brisk, jovial, and alert; and so good-looking, that it was a wonder she had not taken a successor to Captain Mackenzie. James Binnie cautioned his friend the Colonel against the attractions of the buxom siren; and laughingly would ask Clive how he would like Mrs. Mackenzie for a mamaw?
Colonel Newcome felt himself very much at ease regarding his future prospects. He was very glad that his friend James was reconciled to his family, and hinted to Clive that the late Captain Mackenzie's extravagance had been the cause of the rupture between him and his brother-in-law, who had helped that prodigal captain repeatedly during his life; and, in spite of family quarrels, had never ceased to act generously to his widowed sister and her family. ”But I think, Mr.
Clive,” said he, ”that as Miss Rosa is very pretty, and you have a spare room at your studio, you had best take up your quarters in Charlotte Street as long as the ladies are living with us.” Clive was nothing loth to be independent; but he showed himself to be a very good home-loving youth. He walked home to breakfast every morning, dined often, and spent the evenings with the family. Indeed, the house was a great deal more cheerful for the presence of the two pleasant ladies. Nothing could be prettier than to see the two ladies tripping downstairs together, mamma's pretty arm round Rosey's pretty waist. Mamma's talk was perpetually of Rosey. That child was always gay, always good, always happy! That darling girl woke with a smile on her face, it was sweet to see her! Uncle James, in his dry way, said, he dared to say it was very pretty. ”Go away, you droll, dear old kind Uncle James!” Rosey's mamma would cry out. ”You old bachelors are wicked old things!” Uncle James used to kiss Rosey very kindly and pleasantly. She was as modest, as gentle, as eager to please Colonel Newcome as any little girl could be.
It was pretty to see her tripping across the room with his coffee-cup, or peeling walnuts for him after dinner with her white plump little fingers.
Mrs. Irons, the housekeeper, naturally detested Mrs. Mackenzie, and was jealous of her: though the latter did everything to soothe and coax the governess of the two gentlemen's establishment. She praised her dinners, delighted in her puddings, must beg Mrs. Irons to allow her to see one of those delicious puddings made, and to write the receipt for her, that Mrs. Mackenzie might use it when she was away. It was Mrs. Irons' belief that Mrs. Mackenzie never intended to go away. She had no ideer of ladies, as were ladies, coming into her kitchen. The maids vowed that they heard Miss Rosa crying, and mamma scolding in her bedroom for all she was so soft-spoken. How was that jug broke, and that chair smashed in the bedroom, that day there was such a awful row up there?
Mrs. Mackenzie played admirably, in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, dances, reels, and Scotch and Irish tunes, the former, of which filled James Binnie's soul with delectation. The good mother naturally desired that her darling should have a few good lessons of the piano while she was in London. Rosey was eternally strumming upon an instrument which had been taken upstairs for her special practice; and the Colonel, who was always seeking to do harmless jobs of kindness for his friends, bethought him of little Miss Cann, the governess at Ridley's, whom he recommended as an instructress. ”Anybody whom you recommend I'm sure, dear Colonel, we shall like,” said Mrs. Mackenzie, who looked as black as thunder, and had probably intended to have Monsieur Quatremains or Signor Tw.a.n.keydillo; and the little governess came to her pupil. Mrs. Mackenzie treated her very gruffly and haughtily at first; but as soon as she heard Miss Cann play, the widow was pacified--nay, charmed. Monsieur Quatremains charged a guinea for three-quarters of an hour; while Miss Cann thankfully took five s.h.i.+llings for an hour and a half; and the difference of twenty lessons, for which dear Uncle James paid, went into Mrs. Mackenzie's pocket, and thence probably on to her pretty shoulders and head in the shape of a fine silk dress and a beautiful French bonnet, in which Captain Goby said, upon his life, she didn't look twenty.
The little governess trotting home after her lesson would often look in to Clive's studio in Charlotte Street, where her two boys, as she called Clive and J. J., were at work each at his easel. Clive used to laugh, and tell us, who joked him about the widow and her daughter, what Miss Cann said about them. Mrs. Mack was not all honey, it appeared. If Rosey played incorrectly, mamma flew at her with prodigious vehemence of language, and sometimes with a slap on poor Rosey's back. She must make Rosey wear tight boots, and stamp on her little feet if they refused to enter into the slipper. I blush for the indiscretion of Miss Cann; but she actually told J. J., that mamma insisted upon lacing her so tight, as nearly to choke the poor little la.s.s. Rosey did not fight: Rosey always yielded; and the scolding over and the tears dried, would come simpering downstairs with mamma's arm round her waist, and her pretty artless happy smile for the gentlemen below. Besides the Scottish songs without music, she sang ballads at the piano very sweetly. Mamma used to cry at these ditties. ”That child's voice brings tears into my eyes, Mr. Newcome,” she would say. ”She has never known a moment's sorrow yet!
Heaven grant, heaven grant, she may be happy! But what shall I be when I lose her?”
”Why, my dear, when ye lose Rosey, ye'll console yourself with Josey,”
says droll Mr. Binnie from the sofa, who perhaps saw the manoeuvre of the widow.
The widow laughs heartily and really. She places a handkerchief over her mouth. She glances at her brother with a pair of eyes full of knowing mischief. ”Ah, dear James,” she says, ”you don't know what it is to have a mother's feelings.”
”I can partly understand them,” says James. ”Rosey, sing me that pretty little French song.” Mrs. Mackenzie's attention to Clive was really quite affecting. If any of his friends came to the house, she took them aside and praised Clive to them. The Colonel she adored. She had never met with such a man or seen such a manner. The manners of the Bishop of Tobago were beautiful, and he certainly had one of the softest and finest hands in the world; but not finer than Colonel Newcome's. ”Look at his foot!” (and she put out her own, which was uncommonly pretty, and suddenly withdrew it, with an arch glance meant to represent a blush)--”my shoe would fit it! When we were at Coventry Island, Sir Peregrine Blandy, who succeeded poor dear Sir Rawdon Crawley--I saw his dear boy was gazetted to a lieutenant-colonelcy in the Guards last week--Sir Peregrine, who was one of the Prince of Wales's most intimate friends, was always said to have the finest manner and presence of any man of his day; and very grand and n.o.ble he was, but I don't think he was equal to Colonel Newcome--I don't really think so. Do you think so, Mr. Honeyman? What a charming discourse that was last Sunday! I know there were two pair of eyes not dry in the church. I could not see the other people just for crying myself. Oh, but I wish we could have you at Musselburgh! I was bred a Presbyterian, of course; but in much travelling through the world with my dear husband, I came to love his church. At home we sit under Dr M'Craw, of course; but he is so awfully long! Four hours every Sunday at least, morning and afternoon! It nearly kills poor Rosey. Did you hear her voice at your church? The dear girl is delighted with the chants. Rosey, were you not delighted with the chants?”
If she is delighted with the chants, Honeyman is delighted with the chantress and her mamma. He dashes the fair hair from his brow: he sits down to the piano, and plays one or two of them, warbling a faint vocal accompaniment, and looking as if he would be lifted off the screw music-stool, and flutter up to the ceiling.
”Oh, it's just seraphic!” says the widow. ”It's just the breath of incense and the pealing of the organ at the Cathedral at Montreal. Rosey doesn't remember Montreal. She was a wee wee child. She was born on the voyage out, and christened at sea. You remember, Goby.”