Chapter XVIII

AT THE ACADEMY.

Alec had not, indeed, forgotten Laura Mowbray; though he had long since awakened from his first dream of love. Now, at twenty-two, he looked back on himself at nineteen as not only very young, but very foolish. He had half forgotten the episode of his wild declaration of love; but when he heard that Laura was near him once more, he was filled with a variety of emotions. At one time he determined to do nothing, to forget her if he could; at another time he was almost ready to set out and begin an insane search for her through the streets of London. He confessed to himself that though he had been intimate with Miss Mowbray he really knew her very slightly. He wanted to see her again, to learn something more of her; and yet he hesitated about deliberately setting to work to renew the old acquaintance.

As often happens in such a case, chance decided the matter for him. Two or three days after hearing that Laura was in town, Alec received a letter from his sister, in which she told him that their uncle James and his family had taken a furnished house in London, No. 21, Claremont Gardens, W., and meant to stay there some months.

The old man had become much more feeble during the last three years. And instead of making the best of things, and meeting the inevitable weakness of old age with a cheerful courage, he chose to consider himself a great invalid, and made his health the chief consideration of his life. This, of course, did not tend to improve either his health or his temper; and he had been for the last two years dragging his family about from one watering-place to another, to Aunt Jean’s great disgust. She, good woman, was made of sterner stuff than her rich cousin. She did not approve of the unsettled life she was forced to lead; and she did not believe that her relative was even as much in need of care and attention as he really was.

As for Laura Mowbray, she possessed that enviable disposition (shared by people of all sorts and conditions) of making the best of things. She took care to keep out of her guardian’s way when he was in a specially irritable mood; she flattered and soothed him not unsuccessfully now and then; she avoided Miss Lindsay as much as possible; and she seized upon every opportunity of amusing herself. She was by no means sorry to visit first one spa and then another, though she was forced to witness from the outside gaieties which no one asked her to share.

‘One day,’ she would say to herself, drawing her lips over her set teeth, as she sat listening to the band to which the other guests in the hotel were dancing. But she often received attentions from stray visitors, which helped in some degree to console her for the lack of amusements. When she heard that Mr. Lindsay had determined to spend some months in London, so as to secure the services of the famous Dr. Sheepshanks, Laura was overjoyed.

Of course Alec called to ask for his uncle, and he was quite shocked to find him looking so ill. His face was pinched and haggard, his hand thin and trembling; so that, to Alec’s inexperienced eyes, it seemed as if death had already set his seal upon him. Old Mr. Lindsay was secretly pleased with Alec’s demeanour. The young man could not express his concern, but it appeared plainly enough in his face and manner. He evidently believed that his great-uncle was in a condition demanding great care, sympathy, and consideration; and that was exactly what Mr. Lindsay wanted the world to believe concerning him. He made Alec sit down beside him, and asked him many questions in a feeble, piping voice, about his work, his prospects, and his ultimate aims. James Lindsay was entirely changed from the fussy, consequential, conceited being of three or four years before. Alec was almost touched by the meekness and painfulness (so to speak) of the old man’s manner.

‘That’ll do now, Alec, my man,’ he said, when he was at length tired of his companion. ‘Go downstairs and see your aunt Jean.’ (Here he sighed and lifted his eyebrows as if the very mention of that lady’s name gave him an opportunity of exercising the virtue of patience.) ‘Come and see me again soon. Good-day;’ and he lay back as if exhausted, and closed his eyes.

Alec stole on tiptoe from the room, and went down to the drawing-room, where he found his aunt (as he called her) seated alone.

‘I was very sorry to see Uncle James so poorly,’ said Alec, as he took her hand.

Aunt Jean said nothing; but her sniff and look of contempt were sufficiently expressive.

‘Don’t you think my uncle very ill?’ asked Alec, opening his eyes.

‘He micht be waur,’ said Aunt Jean.

She always spoke a broader dialect abroad than she did at home, as a protest against what she deemed the affectation and ‘mimmou’d’ character of the English utterance.

‘He seemed very weak,’ said Alec, surprised and a little shocked at the old lady’s want of sympathy.

‘Maist fowk’s no as strang at seventy-fower as they were at seventeen,’ replied Aunt Jean, smoothing out her apron as she spoke.

Then the conversation turned upon other matters; and Alec began to fear that he would have to leave without seeing Laura. But just as he was preparing to go a knock was heard at the hall-door, and Laura came in from a stroll in the gardens.

She looked, it seemed to Alec, exactly the same as she had done when he last saw her. But he had not time to think of her looks. It was she herself, after these years—and three years are a long period to us all before we are four-and-twenty—standing before him. His heart beat as he took her hand, and though he was able to speak and look as if she were a mere ordinary acquaintance, each knew that it was not so. How far her old power over Alec was broken, Laura did not know; but she saw quite plainly, from a hundred little indications, that he was not indifferent to her. There was very little conversation, and such as there was was chiefly about trifles—the respective merits of Harrogate, Buxton, and Aix-le-Bains, the welfare of Alec’s sister, and so on. Alec could not afterwards remember what they talked about, but he remembered the picture which Laura made, as she sat in a small, low chair at the window, playing with one of her gloves, and looking, Alec thought, more sweet and graceful than any human being had looked since his eyes had last rested upon her.

The next time Alec went to ask after his uncle, he found that his cousin, James Semple, had arrived from Glasgow, and was staying in the house. After a short visit to his uncle’s sick-room, he was passing through the hall, when he met Semple and Miss Lindsay.

‘You’ll stay to lunch, Alec, and go with us to the Academy?’ said Semple, when they had shaken hands. Miss Mowbray has had a friend come to see her—she is rather a swell at painting, and that sort of thing, I believe—and we intend going to the Academy as soon as we have finished lunch.

Alec thought it was very good-natured of Semple to propose that he should join the party, and he consented at once to stay. In a few minutes Laura and her friend, Miss Sewell, made their appearance; and only Alec’s native sense of propriety prevented his staring at Miss Sewell with all his might. She was very tall, very pale, and very thin, and she was dressed in a rather exaggerated form of the ‘Greek’ costume. A broad scarf of the same material as her dress was carried across her breast, and fastened in some way upon her left shoulder. Her hair was gathered into a great knot at the back of her head; and her sleeves were as tight as sleeves could by any possibility be. When she spoke it was in a languid, deliberate way, suggestive of refinement, and a superior delicacy of organization. Miss Lindsay regarded this young lady with mingled amazement and dislike; and only a strong sense of her duty as hostess kept her from openly expressing her condemnation.

The conversation at table was not very brilliant.

‘Are you fond of pictures, Miss Sewell?’ inquired Mr. Semple from the foot of the table.

Miss Sewell glanced slowly round at Laura, as if for enlightenment as to the purpose of so absurd a question, before she tranquilly replied:

‘Everyone is, I suppose, Mr. Semple.’

But it was nearly impossible to make that gentleman feel that one was even trying to snub him.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied; ‘I know a lot of men, very intelligent men, who don’t know a single one of the points of a picture. But art has made vast strides of late years: there’s no denying that.’

Miss Sewell slowly and impressively turned her shoulder on Mr. Semple, and thenceforward ignored his existence.

It was not till the little party reached Burlington House that Alec understood the reason why he had been asked to join the party. Semple monopolized Laura, and Alec was expected to look after Miss Sewell.

The care of that young lady on such an occasion was no sinecure. She was full of enthusiasm, which was about one-tenth part real; and she found in nearly every picture some indication of genius.

‘What an admirable tone there is in that little bit!’ she would say.

Alec was dumb.

‘Don’t you think the breadth of effect there is perfectly wonderful?’ she asked, stopping before a great, aimless, carelessly-painted canvas.

‘I’m afraid I—I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alec.

‘The breadth, the feeling of vastness, of superiority to—to—you understand?’ replied Miss Sewell, in a very intense tone.

But Alec was staring at the picture.

‘I don’t know what a picture should be,’ said he, very deliberately; ‘but I know what a hillside is, and that thing has no resemblance to it whatever.’

‘Oh, we must educate you, Mr. Lindsay,’ said the girl, with a little laugh.

‘I don’t want to be educated!’ said Alec stoutly. ‘I think half the things here are coarse, stupid daubs, and half the rest are pretty, but senseless. They have no meaning. They don’t help you to love beauty or nature more—not one bit.’

‘Pray, sir,’ said a caustic voice behind Alec, ‘did you ever try to paint a picture?’

An old man, with keen black eyes, deep-set under bushy gray eyebrows, was the speaker.

‘Never in my life,’ said Alec.

‘Then you don’t know how difficult it is to paint a good one.’

‘I think it is wonderful that they are half as good as they are,’ returned Alec.

The stranger stared, and the young man went on:

‘I think it is wonderful that a man should be able to make likenesses of mountains, and seas, and clouds. But as men have learned how to do it, I think those who can’t do it better than this,’ pointing at a picture as he spoke, ‘had better leave their work at home till they can make it more like nature. And at least they might choose beautiful or picturesque subjects, and not waste their time over tables and chairs, curtains and rugs, ladies’ dresses and knickknacks.’

The old man smiled grimly, and nodded once or twice as he turned away.

‘Do find out who that is,’ said Miss Sewell; ‘I feel certain he is somebody.’

Miss Sewell was right. It was Sir Theodore Carson, the greatest painter of the day; and Miss Sewell at once resolved to profit by her experience and abandon enthusiasm for depreciation.

Meanwhile Semple had been asking his companion:

‘Why does Miss Sewell dress in that absurd way?’

‘You mustn’t speak disrespectfully of my friend, sir,’ said Laura. ‘But dear Alice was always given to fancies. First she was learned and literary; then she was a regular athlete—she nearly ruined her health, trying to walk from London to Bath in two days—or five days, I forget which. Then she became original and classical, and slightly æsthetic. Next time I see her, she is sure to be something different.’

It was rather a tiresome afternoon for Alec; but it came to an end at last.

‘What a handsome cousin you have, Laura!’ said Alice Sewell to her friend in the privacy of her bedroom that afternoon.

‘Do you think so? I never thought of Mr. Semple as particularly handsome.’

‘I don’t mean that fat, disagreeable-looking creature, you stupid girl! I mean the tall one, Mr. Alec Lindsay. He has beautiful eyes, and such a strong, independent way of speaking.’

‘What a curious girl you are, Alice! I thought he would have been far too unconventional for you.’

‘Don’t you like him?’ asked Alice in reply.

‘Yes,’ said Laura, in a hesitating way. She was on the point of telling her friend that she had had Alec at her feet; but she refrained.

‘They are both in love with you,’ said Alice tranquilly. ‘Which do you mean to take?’

‘I’m afraid it must be the other one,’ said Laura, turning away with a little sigh.

‘Why?’

‘Oh, Alec has so little sense. He might have been his uncle’s heir, I believe; and he has simply neglected his interests. He will always be a poor man.’ And the girl sighed again.

‘And this Mr. Semple?’

‘Oh, he is pretty sure to be rich.’

‘Don’t decide too hastily, Laura, my dear,’ said the elder girl. And Laura smiled, as much as to say that she perfectly understood the situation, and felt quite competent to direct her own affairs.

And in holding this opinion she only did herself justice.