Part 13 (2/2)
”My nineteenth-century chamber,” Badgery explained. ”The best thing of its kind, I flatter myself, outside the State Apartments at Windsor.”
Spode tiptoed round the room, peering with astonishment at all the objects in gla.s.s, in gilded bronze, in china, in leathers, in embroidered and painted silk, in beads, in wax, objects of the most fantastic shapes and colours, all the queer products of a decadent tradition, with which the room was crowded. There were paintings on the walls--a Martin, a Wilkie, an early Landseer, several Ettys, a big Haydon, a slight pretty water-colour of a girl by Wainewright, the pupil of Blake and a.r.s.enic poisoner, a score of others. But the picture which arrested Spode's attention was a medium sized canvas representing Troilus riding into Troy among the flowers and plaudits of an admiring crowd, and oblivious (you could see from his expression) of everything but the eyes of Cressida, who looked down at him from a window, with Pandarus smiling over her shoulder.
”What an absurd and enchanting picture!” Spode exclaimed.
”Ah, you've spotted my Troilus.” Lord Badgery was pleased.
”What bright harmonious colours! Like Etty's, only stronger, not so obviously pretty. And there's an energy about it that reminds one of Haydon. Only Haydon could never have done anything so impeccable in taste. Who is it by?” Spode turned to his host inquiringly.
”You were right in detecting Haydon,” Lord Badgery answered, ”It's by his pupil, Tillotson. I wish I could get hold of more of his work. But n.o.body seems to know anything about him. And he seems to have done so little.”
This time it was the younger man who interrupted.
”Tillotson, Tillotson....” He put his hand to his forehead. A frown incongruously distorted his round, floridly curved face. No ... yes, I have it. He looked up triumphantly with serene and childish brows.
”Tillotson, Walter Tillotson--the man's still alive.”
Badgery smiled. ”This picture was painted in 1846, you know.”
”Well, that's all right. Say he was born in 1820, painted his masterpiece when he was twenty-six, and it's 1913 now; that's to say he's only ninety-three. Not as old as t.i.tian yet.”
”But he's not been heard of since 1860,” Lord Badgery protested.
”Precisely. Your mention of his name reminded me of the discovery I made the other day when I was looking through the obituary notices in the archives of the _World's Review_.(One has to bring them up to date every year or so for fear of being caught napping if one of these t old birds chooses to shuffle off suddenly.) Well, there, among them--I remember my astonishment at the time--there I found Walter Tillotson's biography.
Pretty full to 1860, and then a blank, except for a pencil note in the early nineteen hundreds to the effect that he had returned from the East. The obituary has never been used or added to. I draw the obvious conclusion: the old chap isn't dead yet. He's just been overlooked somehow.”
”But this is extraordinary,” Lord Badgery exclaimed. ”You must find him, Spode--you must find him. I'll commission him to paint frescoes round this room. It's just what I've always vainly longed for a real nineteenth-century artist to decorate this place for me. Oh, we must find him at once--at once.”
Lord Badgery strode up and down in a state of great excitement.
”I can see how this room could be made quite perfect,” he went on. ”We'd clear away all these cases and have the whole of that wall filled by a heroic fresco of Hector and Andromache, or 'Distraining for Rent', or f.a.n.n.y Kemble as Belvidera in 'Venice Preserved' anything like that, provided it's in the grand manner of the 'thirties and 'forties. And here I'd have a landscape with lovely receding perspectives, or else something architectural and grand in the style of Belshazzar's feast.
Then we'll have this Adam fireplace taken down and replaced by something Mauro-Gothic. And on these walls I'll have mirrors, or no! let me see....”
He sank into meditative silence, from which he finally roused himself to shout:
”The old man, the old man! Spode, we must find this astonis.h.i.+ng old creature. And don't breathe a word to anybody. Tillotson shall be our secret. Oh, it's too perfect, it's incredible! Think of the frescoes.”
Lord Badgery's face had become positively animated. He had talked of a single subject for nearly a quarter of an hour.
II
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