A Comedy of Masks | Page 2

and an inferior
pudding, residence even in a less salubrious quarter than Blackpool
would have been amply justified, in view of the many charming

effects--for the most part coldly sad and white--which the river offered,
towards evening, from the window of his friend's dining-room.
After his first visit, he availed himself eagerly of Rainham's invitation
to make his property the point of view from which he could most
conveniently transfer to canvas his impressions; and he worked hard for
months, with an industry that came upon his friend as a surprise, at the
uneven outlines of the Thames warehouses, and the sharp-pointed
masts that rose so trenchantly above them. He had generated an habit of
coming and going, as he pleased, without consideration of his host's
absences; and latterly, in the early spring--whose caprices in England
Rainham was never in a hurry to encounter--the easel and painting tools
of the assiduous artist had become an almost constant feature of the
landscape.
Now, towards the close of an exceptionally brilliant day in the finish of
May, he was putting the last touches to a picture which had occupied
him for some months, and which he hoped to have completed for
Rainham's return. As he stood on the wharf, which ran down to the
river-side, leaning back against a crane of ancient pattern, and viewing
his easel from a few yards' distance critically, he could not contemplate
the result without a certain complacency.
"It's deuced good, after all," he said to himself, with his head poised a
little on one side. "Yes, old Rainham will like this. And, by Jove! what
matters a good deal more, the hangers will like it, and if it's sold--and,
confound it! it must be sold--it will be a case of three figures."
He had one hand in his pocket, and instinctively--it may have been the
result of his meditation--he fell to jingling some coins in it. They were
not very many, but just then, though he was a young gentleman keenly
alive to the advantages of a full purse, their paucity hardly troubled him.
He felt, for the nonce, assured of his facility, and doubtless had a vista
of unlimited commissions and the world at his feet, for he drew himself
up to his full height of six feet and looked out beyond the easel with a
smile that had no longer its origin in the fruition of the artist. Indeed, as
he stood there, in his light, lax dress and the fulness of his youth, he
had (his art apart) excuse for self-complacency. He was very pleasant

to look upon, with an air of having always been popular with his
fellows, and the favourite of women; this, too, was borne out by his
history. Not a beautiful man, by any means, but the best type of English
comeliness: ruddy-coloured, straight, and healthy; muscular, but
without a suggestion of brutality. His yellow moustache, a shade lighter
than his hair--which, although he wore it cropped, showed a tendency
to be curling--concealed a mouth that was his only questionable feature.
It was not the sensitive mouth of the through and through artist, and the
lines of it were vacillating. The lips, had they not been hidden, would
have surprised by their fulness, contradicting, in some part, the curious
coldness of his light blue eyes. All said, however, he remained a
singularly handsome fellow; and the slight consciousness which he
occasionally betrayed, that his personality was pleasing, hardly
detracted from it; it was, after all, a harmless vanity that his friends
could afford to overlook. Just then his thoughts, which had wandered
many leagues from the warehouses of Blackpool, were brought up
sharply by the noise of an approaching footstep. He started slightly, but
a moment later greeted the new-comer with a pleasant smile of
recognition. It was Rainham's foreman and general manager, with
whom the artist, as with most persons with whom he was often in
contact, was on excellent, and even familiar, terms.
"Look here, Bullen," he said, twisting the easel round a little, "the
picture is practically finished. A few more strokes--I shall do them at
home--and it is ready for the Academy. How do you like it?"
Mr. Bullen bent down his burly form and honoured the little canvas
with a respectful scrutiny.
"That is Trinidad Wharf, sir, I suppose?" he suggested, pointing with a
huge forefinger at the background a little uncertainly.
"That is Trinidad Wharf, Bullen, certainly! And those masts are from
the ships in the Commercial Docks. But the river, the
atmosphere--that's the point--how do they strike you?"
"Well, it's beautiful, sir," remarked Bullen cordially; "painted like the
life, you may say. But isn't it just a little smudgy, sir?"

"That's the beauty of it, Bullen. It's impressionism, you Philistine!--a
sort of modified impressionism, you