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Katharine Lauderdale Volume 1

<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> Crowdie stepped backward from her, as she laid her hat and veil upon her knee. He slowly twisted a bit of crayon between his fingers, as though to help his thoughts, and he looked at her critically. “How are you going to paint me?” she asked, regretting that she had spoken so very coldly a moment earlier. “That’s one of those delightful questions that sitters always ask,” answered the artist, smiling a little. “That’s precisely what I’m asking myself—how in the world am I going to paint you?” “Oh—that isn’t what I meant! I meant—full face or side face, you know.” “Oh, yes,—of course. I was only laughing at myself. You have no idea what an extraordinary change taking off your hat makes, Miss Lauderdale. It would be awfully rude to talk to a lady about her face under ordinary circumstances. In detail, I mean. But you must forgive me, because it’s my profession.” He moved about with sudden steps, stopping and gazing at her each time that he obtained a new point of view. “How does my hat make such a difference?” asked Katharine. “What sort of difference?” “It changes your whole expression. It’s quite right that it should. When you have it on, one only sees the face—the head from the eyes downwards—that means the human being from the perceptions downwards. When you take your hat off, I see you from the intelligence upwards.” “That would be true of any one.” “No doubt. But the intelligence preponderates in your case, which is what makes the contrast so strong.” “I didn’t know I was as intelligent as all that!” Katharine laughed a little at what she took for a piece of rather gross flattery. “No,” answered Crowdie, thoughtfully. “That is your peculiar charm. Do you mind the light in your eyes? Just to try the effect? So? Does that tire you?” He had changed the arrangement of some of the shades so as to throw a strong glare in her face. She looked up and the white light gleamed like fire in her grey eyes. “I couldn’t stand it long,” she said. “Is it necessary?” “Oh, no. Nothing is necessary. I’ll try it another way. So.” He moved the shades again. “What a funny speech!” exclaimed Katharine. “To say that nothing is necessary—” “It’s a very true speech. Nothing is the same as Pure Being in some philosophies, and Pure Being is the only condition which is really absolutely necessary. Now, would you mind letting me see you in perfect profile? I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s only at first. When we’ve made up our minds—if you’d just turn your head towards the fireplace, a little more—a shade more, please—that’s it—one moment so—” He stood quite still, gazing at her side face as though trying to fix it in his memory in order to compare it with other aspects. “I want to paint you every way at once,” he said. “May I ask—what do you think, yourself, is the best view of your face?” “I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Katharine, with a little laugh. “What does Hester think? As it’s to be for her, we might consult her.” “But she doesn’t know it’s for her—she thinks it’s for you.” “We might ask her all the same, and take her advice. Isn’t she at home?” “No,” answered Crowdie, after a moment’s hesitation. “I think she’s gone out shopping.” Katharine was not naturally suspicious, but there was something in the way Crowdie hesitated about the apparently insignificant answer which struck <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/ill_pg_203_sml.jpg" width-obs="257" height-obs="414" alt="“ ‘What have you decided?’ she enquired.”—Vol. I., p. 203." /> “ ‘What have you decided?’ she enquired.”—Vol. I., p. 203.</div> her as odd. She had made the suggestion because his mere presence was so absurdly irritating to her that she longed for Hester’s company as an alleviation. But it was evident that Crowdie did not want his wife at that moment. He wanted to be alone with Katharine. “You might send and find out,” said the young girl, mercilessly. “I’m pretty sure she’s gone out,” Crowdie replied, moving up an easel upon which was set a large piece of grey pasteboard. “Even if she is in, she always has things to do at this time.” He looked steadily at Katharine’s face and then made a quick stroke on the pasteboard, then looked again and then made another stroke. “What have you decided?” she enquired. “Just as you are now, with your head a little on one side and that clear look in your eyes—no—you were looking straight at me, but not in full face. Think of what you were thinking about just when you looked.” Katharine smiled. The thought had not been flattering to him. But she did as he asked and met his eyes every time he glanced at her. He worked rapidly, with quick, sure strokes, using a bit of brown chalk. Then he took a long, new, black lead pencil, with a very fine point, from the breast-pocket of his jacket, and very carefully made a few marks with it. Instead of putting it back when he used the bit of pastel again, he held the pencil in his teeth. It was long and stuck out on each side of his bright red lips. Oddly enough, Katharine thought it made him look like a cat with black whiskers, and the straight black line forced his mouth into a wide grin. She even fancied that to increase the resemblance his eyes looked green when he gazed at her intently, and that the pupils were not quite round, but were turning into upright slits. She looked away for a moment and almost smiled. His legs were a little in-kneed, as those of a cat look when she stands up to reach after anything. There was something feline even in his little feet, which were short with a very high instep, and he wore low shoes of dark russet leather. “There is a smile in your eyes, but not in your face,” said Crowdie, taking the pencil from between his teeth. “I suppose it’s rude to ask you what you are thinking about?” “Not at all,” answered Katharine. “I was thinking how funny you looked with that pencil in your mouth.” “Oh!” Crowdie laughed carelessly and went on with his work. Katharine noticed that when he next wished to dispose of the pencil he put it into his pocket. As he had chosen a position in which she must look directly at him, she could not help observing all his movements, while her thoughts went back to her own interests and to Ralston. It was much more pleasant to think of John than of Crowdie. “I’m discouraged already,” said Crowdie, suddenly, after a long silence, during which he had worked rapidly. “But it’s only a first attempt at a sketch. I want a lot of them before I begin to paint. Should you like to rest a little?” “Yes.” Katharine rose and came forward to see what he had been doing. She felt at once a little touch of disappointment and annoyance, which showed that she was not altogether deficient in vanity, though of a pardonable sort, considering what she saw. To her unpractised eye the sketch presented a few brown smudges, through which a thin pencil-line ran here and there. “You don’t see any resemblance to yourself, I suppose,” said Crowdie, with some amusement. “Frankly—I hope I’m better looking than that,” laughed Katharine. “You are. Sometimes you’re divinely beautiful.” His voice grew exquisitely caressing. Katharine was not pleased. “I didn’t ask for impossible compliments,” she said coolly. “Now look,” answered Crowdie, taking no notice of the little rebuke, and touching the smudge with his fingers. “You mustn’t look too close, you know. You must try and get the effect—not what you see, but what I see.” Without glancing at her face he quickly touched the sketch at many points with his thumb, with his finger, with his bit of crayon, with his needle-pointed lead pencil. Katharine watched him intently. “Shut your eyes a little, so as not to see the details too distinctly,” he said, still working. The face began to stand out. There was very little in the sketch, but there was the beginning of the expression. “I begin to see something,” said Katharine, with increasing interest. “Yes—look!” He glanced at her for a moment. Then, holding the long pencil almost by the end and standing well back from the pasteboard, he drew a single line—the outline of the part of the face and head furthest from the eye, as it were. It was so masterly, so simple, so faultless, and yet so striking in its effect, that Katharine held her breath while the point moved, and uttered an exclamation when it stopped. “You are a great artist!” Crowdie smiled. “I didn’t ask for impossible compliments,” he said, repeating her own words and imitating her tone, as he stepped back from the easel and looked at what he had done. “She’s not so bad-looking, is she?” He fumbled in his pocket and found two or three bits of coloured pastels and rubbed a little of each upon the pasteboard with his fingers. “More life-like, now. How do you like that?” “It’s wonderful!” “Wonderfully like?” “How can I tell? I mean that it’s a wonderful performance. It’s not for me to judge of the likeness.” “Isn’t it? In spite of proverbs, we’re the only good judges of ourselves—outwardly or inwardly. Will you sit down again, if you are rested? Do you know, I’m almost inclined to dab a little paint on the thing—it’s a lucky hit—or else you’re a very easy subject, which I don’t believe.” “And yet you were so discouraged a moment ago.” “That’s always my way. I don’t know about other artists, of course. It’s only amateurs that tell each other their sensations about their daubs. We don’t. But I’m always in a fit just before I’m going to succeed.” Katharine said nothing as she went back to her seat, but the expression he had just used chilled her suddenly. She had received a vivid impression from the account Hester had given her of his recent attack, and she had unconsciously associated the idea of a fit with his ailment. Then she was amused at her own folly. Crowdie looked at her keenly, then at his drawing, and then seemed to contemplate a particular point at the top of her head. She was not watching him, as she knew that he was not yet working again. There was an odd look in his beautiful eyes which would not have pleased her, had she seen it. He left the easel again and came towards her. “Would you mind letting me arrange your hair a little?” he asked, stopping beside her. Katharine instinctively raised one hand to her head, and it unexpectedly met his fingers, which were already about to touch her hair. The sensation was so inexpressibly disagreeable to her that she started, lowering her head as though to avoid him, and speaking sharply. “Don’t!” she cried. “I can do it myself.” “I beg your pardon,” said Crowdie, drawing back. “It’s the merest trifle—but I don’t see how you can do it yourself. I didn’t know you were so nervous, or I would have explained. Won’t you let me take the end of my pencil and just lift your hair a little? It makes such a difference in the outline.” It struck Katharine that she was behaving very foolishly, and she sat up straight in her chair. “Of course,” she said, quite naturally. “Do it in any way you like. I’ve a horror of being touched unexpectedly, that’s all. I suppose I really am nervous.” Which was not at all true in general, though as regards Crowdie it was not half the truth. “Thank you,” he answered, proceeding to move her hair, touching it very delicately with his pointed white fingers. “It was stupid of me, but most people don’t mind. There—if you only knew what a difference it makes. Just a little bit more, if you’ll let me—on the other side. Now let me look at you, please—yes—that’s just it.” Katharine suffered intensely during those few moments. Something within her, of which she had never been conscious before, but which was most certainly a part of herself, seemed to rise up in fury, outraged and insulted, against something in the man beside her, which filled her with a vague terror and a positive disgust. While his soft and womanish fingers touched her hair, she clasped her hands together till they hurt, and repeated to herself with set lips that she was foolish and nervous and unstrung. She could not help the sigh of relief which escaped her lips when he had finished and went back to his easel. Perhaps he noticed it. At all events he became intent on his work and said nothing for fully five minutes. During that time she looked at him and tried to solve the mystery of her unaccountable sensations. She thought of what her mother had said—that Crowdie was like a poisonous flower. He was so white and red and soft, and the place was so still and warm, with its masses of rich drapery that shut off every sound of life from without. And she thought of what Miner had said—oddly enough, in exactly the same strain, that he was like some strange tropical fruit—gone bad at the core. Fruit or flower, or both, she thought. Either was apt enough. The air was perfectly pure. It was only warm and still. Possibly there was the slightest smell of turpentine, which is a clean smell and a wholesome one. Whatever the perfumes might be which he occasionally burned, they left no trace behind. And yet Katharine fancied they were there—unholy, sweet, heavy, disquieting, offending that something which in the young girl had never been offended before. The stillness seemed too warm—the warmth too still—his face too white—his mouth was as scarlet and as heavy as the blossom of the bright red calla lily. There was something repulsively fascinating about it, as there is in a wound. “You’re getting tired,” he said at last. “I’m not surprised. It must be much harder to sit than to paint.” “How did you know I was tired?” asked Katharine, moving from her position, and looking at a piece of Persian embroidery on the opposite wall. “Your expression had changed when I spoke,” he said. “But it’s not at all necessary to sit absolutely motionless as though you were being photographed. It’s better to talk. The expression is like—” He stopped. “Like what?” she asked, curious to hear a definition of what is said too often to be undefinable. “Well—I don’t know. Language isn’t my strong point, if I have any strong point at all.” “That’s an affectation, at all events!” laughed Katharine, becoming herself again when not obliged to look at him fixedly. “Is it? Well—affectation is a good word. Expression is not expression when it’s an affected expression. It’s the tone of voice of the picture. That sounds wild, but it means something. A speech in print hasn’t the expression it has when it’s well spoken. A photograph is a speech in print. It’s the truth done by machinery. It’s often striking at first sight, but you get tired of it, because what’s there is all there—and what is not there isn’t even suggested, though you know it exists.” “Yes, I see,” said Katharine, who was interested in what he said, and had momentarily forgotten his personality. “That shows how awfully clever you are,” he answered with a silvery little laugh. “I know it’s far from clear. There’s a passage somewhere in one of Tolstoi’s novels—‘Peace and War,’ I think it is—about the impossibility of expressing all one thinks. It ought to follow that the more means of expression a man has, the nearer he should get to expressing everything in him. But it doesn’t. There’s a fallacy somewhere in the idea. Most things—ideas, anything you choose to call them—are naturally expressible in a certain material—paint, wood, fiddle-strings, bronze and all that. Come and look at yourself now. You see I’ve restrained my mania for oils a few minutes. I’m trying to be conscientious.” “I wish you would go on talking about expression,” said Katharine, rising and coming up to the easel. “It seems very much improved,” she added as she saw the drawing. “How fast you work!” “There’s no such thing as time when things go right,” replied Crowdie. “Excuse me a moment. I’ll get something to paint with.” He disappeared behind the curtain in the corner, to the out-built closet in which he kept his colours and brushes, and Katharine was left alone. She stood still for a few moments contemplating the growing likeness of herself. There was as yet hardly any colour in the sketch, no more, in fact, than he had rubbed on while she had watched him do it, when she had rested the first time. It was not easy to see what he had done since, and yet the whole effect was vastly improved. As she looked, the work itself, the fine pencil-line, the smudges of brown and the suggestions of colouring seemed all so slight as to be almost nothing—and yet she felt that her expression was there. She thought of her mother’s laborious and minutely accurate drawing, which never reached any such effect as this, and she realized the almost impossible gulf which lies between the artist and the amateur who has tried too late to become one—in whom the evidence of talent is made unrecognizable by an excess of conscientious but wholly misapplied labour. The amateur who has never studied at all may sometimes dash off a head with a few lines, which would be taken for the careless scrawling of a clever professional. But the amateur who, too late, attempts to perfect himself by sheer study and industry is almost certainly lost as an artist—a fact which is commonly interpreted to mean that art itself comes by inspiration, and that so-called genius needs no school; whereas it only means that if we go to school at all we must go at the scholar’s age and get the tools of expression, and learn to handle them, before we have anything especial to express. “Still looking at it?” asked Crowdie, coming out of his sanctum with a large palette in his left hand, and a couple of brushes in his right. “Now I’m going to begin by spoiling it all.” There were four or five big, butter-like squeezings of different colours on the smooth surface of the board. Crowdie stuck one of his brushes through the thumb-hole of the palette, and with the other mixed what he wanted, dabbing it into the paints and then daubing them all together. Katharine sat down once more. “I thought painters always used palette-knives,” she said, watching him. “Oh—anything answers the purpose. I sometimes paint with my fingers—but it’s awfully messy.” “I should think so,” she laughed, taking her position again as he looked at her. “Yes—thank you,” he said. “If you won’t mind looking at me for a minute or two, just at first. I want your eyes, please. After that you can look anywhere you like.” “Do you always paint the eyes first?” asked Katharine, idly, for the sake of not relapsing into silence. “Generally—especially if they’re looking straight out of the picture. Then they’re the principal thing, you know. They are like little holes—if you look steadily at them you can see the real person inside. That’s the reason why a portrait that looks at you, if it’s like at all, is so much more like than one that looks away.” “How naturally you explain things!” exclaimed the young girl, becoming interested at once. “Things are so natural,” answered the painter. “Everything is natural. That’s one of my brother-in-law’s maxims.” “It sounds like a truism.” “Everything that is true sounds like a truism—and is one. We know everything that’s true, and it all sounds old because we do know it all.” “What an extraordinary way of putting it—to say that we know everything! But we don’t, you know!” “Oh, yes, we do—as far as we ever can know at all. I don’t mean little peddling properties of petroleum and tricks with telephones—what they call science, you know. I mean about big things that don’t change—ideas.” “Oh—about ideas. You mean right and wrong, and the future life and the soul, I suppose.” “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. In a hundred thousand ages we shall never get one inch further than we are now. A little bit more to the right, please—but go on looking at me a moment longer, if you’re not tired.” “I’ve only just sat down again. But what you were saying—you meant to add that we know nothing, and that it’s all a perfectly boundless uncertainty.” “Not at all. I think we know some things and shan’t lose them, and we don’t know some others and never shall.” “What kind of things, for instance?” asked Katharine. “In the first place, there is a soul, and it is immortal.” “Lucretius says that there is a soul, but that it isn’t immortal. There’s something, anyhow—something I can’t paint. People who deny the existence of the soul never tried to paint portraits, I believe.” “You certainly have most original ideas.” “Have I? But isn’t that true? I know it is. There’s something in every face that I can’t paint—that the greatest painter that ever lived can’t paint. And it’s not on account of the material, either. One can get just as near to it in black and white as in colours,—just near enough to suggest it,—and yet one can see it. I call it the ghost. I don’t know whether there are ghosts or not, but people say they’ve seen them. They are generally colourless, apparently, and don’t stay long. But did you ever notice, in all those stories, that people always recognize the ghost instantly if it’s that of a person they’ve known?” “Yes. Now I think of it, that’s true,” said Katharine. “Well, that’s why I call the recognizable something about the living person his ghost. It’s what we can’t get. Now, another thing. If one is told that the best portrait of some one whom one knows is a portrait of some one else instead, one isn’t much surprised. No, really—I’ve tried it, just to test the likeness. Most people say they are surprised, but they’re not. They fall into the trap in a moment, and tell you that they see that they were mistaken, but that it’s a strong resemblance. That couldn’t happen with a real person. It happens easily with a photograph—much more easily than with a picture. But with a real person it’s quite different, even though he may have changed immensely since you saw him—far beyond the difference between a good portrait and the sitter, so far as details are concerned. But the person—you recognize him at once. By what? By that something which we can’t catch in a picture. I call it the ghost—it’s a mere fancy, because people used to believe that a ghost was a visible soul.” “How interesting!” exclaimed Katharine. “And it sounds true.” “A thing must sound true to be interesting,” said Crowdie. “Excuse me a moment. I want another colour.” He dived into the curtained recess, and Katharine watched the disagreeable undulation of his movements as he walked. She wondered why she was interested as soon as he talked, and repelled as soon as he was silent. Much of what he said was more or less paradoxical, she thought, and not altogether unlike the stuff talked by cynical young men who pick up startling phrases out of books, and change the subject when they are asked to explain what they mean. But there was something more in what he said, and there was the way of saying it, and there was the weight a man’s sayings carry when he is a real master of one thing, no matter how remote from the subject of which he is speaking. Crowdie came back almost immediately with his paint. “Your eyes are the colour of blue fox,” he remarked, dabbing on the palette with his brush. “Are they? They’re a grey of some sort, I believe. But you were talking about the soul.” “Yes, I know I was; but I’m glad I’ve done with it. I told you that language wasn’t my strong point.” “Yes—but you may be able to say lots of interesting things, besides painting well.” “Not compared with people who are good at talking. I’ve often been struck by that.” He stopped speaking, and made one or two very careful strokes, concentrating his whole attention for the moment. “Struck by what?” asked Katharine. “By the enormous amount some men know as compared with what they can do. I believe that’s what I meant to say. It wasn’t particularly worth saying, after all. There—that’s better! Just one moment more, please. I know I’m tiring you to death, but I’m so interested—” Again he executed a very fine detail. “There!” he exclaimed. “Now we can talk. Don’t you want to move about a little? I don’t ask you to look at the thing—it’s a mere beginning of a sketch—it isn’t the picture, of course.” “But I want to see it,” said Katharine. “Oh, of course. But you won’t like it so much now as you did at first.” Katharine saw at once that he was right, and that the painting was not in a stage to bear examination, but she looked at it, nevertheless, with a vague idea of learning something about the art by observing its processes. Crowdie stood at a little distance behind her, his palette and brushes still in his hand. Indeed, there was no place but the floor where he could have laid them down. She knew that he was there, and she was certain that he was looking at her. The strange nervousness and sense of repulsion came over her at once, but in her determination not to yield to anything which seemed so foolish, she continued to scrutinize the rough sketch on the easel. Crowdie, on his part, said nothing, as though fearing lest the sound of his voice should disturb the graceful lines of her figure as she stood there. At last she moved and turned away, but not towards him. Suddenly, from feeling that he was looking at her, she felt that she could not meet his eyes. She knew just what they would be like, long, languishing and womanish, with their sweeping lashes, and they attracted her, though she did not wish to see them. She walked a few steps down the length of the great room, and she was sure that those eyes were following her. An intense and quite unaccustomed consciousness overcame her, though she was never what is called shy. She was positively certain that his eyes were fixed on the back of her head, willing her to turn and look at him; but she would not. Then she saw that she was reaching the end of the room, and that, unless she stood there staring at the tapestries and embroideries, she must face him. She felt the blood rush suddenly to her throat and just under her ears, and she knew that she who rarely blushed at all was blushing violently. She either did not know or she forgot that a blush is as beautiful in most dark women as it is unbecoming and even painful to see in fair ones. She was only conscious that she had never, in all her many recollections, felt so utterly foolish, and angry with herself, and disgusted with the light, as she did at that moment. Just as she reached the wall, she heard his footstep, and supposing that he had changed his position, she turned at once with a deep sense of relief. Crowdie was standing before his easel again, studying what he had done, as unconcernedly as though he had not noticed her odd behaviour. “I feel flushed,” she said. “It must be very warm here.” “Is it?” asked Crowdie. “I’ll open something. But if you’ve had enough of it for the first day, I can leave it as it is till the next sitting. Can you come to-morrow?” “Yes. That is—no—I may have an engagement.” She laughed nervously as she thought of it. “The afternoon will do quite as well, if you prefer it. Any time before three o’clock. The light is bad after that.” “I think the day after to-morrow would be better, if you don’t mind. At the same hour, if you like.” “By all means. And thank you, for sitting so patiently. It’s not every one who does. I suppose I mustn’t offer to help you with your hat.” “Thanks, I can easily manage it,” answered Katharine, careful, however, to speak in her ordinary tone of voice. “If you had a looking-glass anywhere—” She looked about for one. “There’s one in my paint room, if you don’t mind.” He led the way to the curtain behind which he had disappeared in search of his colours, and held it up. There was an open door into the little room—which was larger than Katharine had expected—and a dressing-table and mirror stood in the large bow-window that was built out over the yard. Crowdie stood holding the curtain back while she tied her veil and ran the long pin through her hat. It did not take more than a minute, and she passed out again. “That’s a beautiful arrangement,” she said. “A looking-glass would spoil the studio.” “Yes,” he answered, as he walked towards the door by her side. “You see there isn’t an object but stuffs and cushions in the place, and a chair for you—and my easels—all colour. I want nothing that has shape except what is human, and I like that as perfect as possible.” “Give my love to Hester,” said Katharine, as she went out. “Oh, don’t come down; I know the way.” He followed her, of course, and let her out himself. It was past twelve o’clock, and she felt the sun on her shoulders as she turned to the right up Lafayette Place, and she breathed the sparkling air with a sense of wild delight. It was so fresh and pure, and somehow she felt as though she had been in a contaminating atmosphere during the last three quarters of an hour. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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