A Delicate Trial

I.

THE smoky atmosphere of a Western city darkens the windows of a gray stone building in which the local Art Students’ League is housed, — on the second floor, over, under, and side by side with the quieter sort of business offices. A cheerless place, even at noon, is the principal room of this league, and now, at the approach of night, in the silence that pervades the entire building after business hours, the plaster casts and the unfinished drawings abandoned on easels are like spectres in the twilight watching the agony of the only real person here present.

This solitary occupant, a man not more than twenty-four or twenty-five years old, has been drawing a head of Dante and quarreling desperately with his own work; as yet, however, suppressing outward signs of this conflict. You will notice merely that the hollows in his cheeks are deepened by the firm set of a resolute jaw, and that under the spectacles, which look almost grotesquely large on his thin, smooth-shaven face, his eyes are burning with concentrated purpose, or fever, or both. It is the culmination of a long struggle of the will to have its way, in spite of failing strength and the assaults of a rabble of cares (taking advantage of this weakness) upon his heart,— which “citadel of courage ” is in imminent danger of being captured by the enemy. The decisive moment in the career of an artist has arrived.

If one of us, now, should be able to steal forward unperceived into the room, impelled by sympathy, it would be to hear, on coming nearer, the art student’s short, quick breathing, and to notice that his whole frame is shaken from time to time by a tremor, though this may be only the natural effect of the chilly air upon his overworked and, I fear, half-starved body. And, in fact, while we cannot interpose, something which amounts to an actual diversion does take place, a familiar counselor of the young man — none other than common sense — beginning to advise him almost as distinctly as though a separate person had entered into conversation with him.

“You have set a task for yourself that’s far beyond your powers, ” this counselor begins. “Your own head is crowded with the people of Dante’s Inferno; but must you try to suggest in the expression of the poet’s face, as you draw it, his vision of hell? Be content to draw his features as they are shown in the bust before you, — really an excellent piece of work; and do not even go on with that moderate task until you have had dinner and a good night’s sleep.”

The young man grins unpleasantly when the expression “dinner and a good night’s sleep, ” a formula with rather different and not very recent associations, slips into his thoughts. The counselor goes on: —

“I may as well tell you, since you are bent on showing Dante face to face with all those ingeniously tortured souls he has described, that after years of patient study, provided you have genius, such things may be done. But do you insist that it is of the essence of portraiture to interpret your subject so completely, and that you must and will do it immediately ? Nonsense, my dear boy! A few years of waiting are nothing at all to a young man like you. Come away to rest.”

By way of reply to this easy-going plan the art student’s face takes on an immovable look; it is set like another grim image opposite Dante’s. From time to time he adds to the drawing.

Presently he directs a perplexed and startled look toward his right hand.

“Go on! ” he commands, but it will not budge in the work. “Not another line,” it replies in effect, by falling at his side.

For a little while the demons his fancy conceives, with Fear and Despair in the lead, have him at their mercy. Mutiny among the members he has experienced often enough before this moment, but now his will stands alone, with no servant to do its bidding, deserted by its forces ; still he does not yield, with gallant unreason refusing to accept defeat, even when defeat is proved.

And now, without any conscious effort, but as though by some extraneous force, his hand is lifted up; and while it goes on with the interrupted work still under this extraneous guidance, he listens to a voice of authority, most agreeably distinguished from that of the first counselor, a voice so full of confidence that its accent is well - nigh humorous: —

“A few knowing touches with pencil, crayon, or brush are all we need. Omit this line; put one here. Strengthen this shadow. Here, nothing at all: give the imagination its chance. There a rub — so : a little laying on of hands, as though you would conjure the work to grow, not compel or drive it.

“Now is n’t he almost alive! See how the old fellow stares and wonders. Does n’t it make you glance over your shoulder in the direction his eyes take, expecting to see Count Ugolino of the gruesome repast, poor Francesca, and the rest ? At any rate, your portrait is finished.”

“My portrait! ” cries the art student. “ You made it.”

“But you made me,” says the other.

“I believe you are the devil,” says the art student.

“My name,” the newcomer replies, “is Genius, and I have come at the command of your will, to serve you always. ”

II.

Genius and the art student have such a time of it as you might expect when they look for professional advancement in New York. The former, being unseen, at first naturally counts for nothing in the metropolis, while the latter, though actually ready (thanks to his invisible and now inseparable associate) to give abundantly, has the appearance of a Western person in need of everything. So the best part of Edward Lawton, artist, is ignored, and the obvious part shunned for a little while. He paints as though to save his soul every day while there is light, and after dark with equal passionateness studies music. He is painter by day, musician by night, working at art, playing with music.

III.

Another resident in New York who devotes his evenings to music (and his days, too, whenever he is out of work) is a gentleman past middle life, Mr. Charles Brentford. There is no hint of foreign ancestry in his name, but in New York we must always reckon with the possibility that a Latin strain, prone to art and supine to music, may lurk under a sterling Anglo-Saxon patronym.

As our story runs, Mr. Brentford used to take his little daughter to the opera even if there had been no meat for dinner; nor did Charlotte suppose that this was a mere coincidence, although nothing was ever said on the subject. To the child, as well as to her father, the tickets admitting them to the gallery seemed infinitely more important than a hearty meal, especially since this deprivation and indulgence did not occur every evening.

At the time we have now reached she is still her father’s companion, with the heart and simple manners of a child, but, in an emergency, coming to the rescue with something of the wisdom of a mature woman, as beseems a maiden of fifteen or sixteen years.

On one occasion the music of an opera which they are hearing for the first time is so delightful, and Mr. Brentford’s enjoyment of it becomes so apparent, that Charlotte begins to look uneasy. Finally, when he takes a lead pencil from his pocket, she clutches his arm and whispers, —

“Where is the writing paper you promised to bring? ”

“I forgot it,” he whispers in reply, swiftly jotting down notes of the music on his cuff; and Charlotte nearly laughs aloud as she recalls the akimbo request of an Irish laundress who had asked Miss Charlie, dear, to tell her father he must shtop writin’ on his linen shurrts, that were all wore out with scrubbin’ av the pencil marks.

There are so many fetching arias that the white cuff is soon dotted all over with notes, and then the point of Mr. Brentford’s nimble pencil continues its records on his shirt-bosom. Charlotte fears these marks will be rather too conspicuous, and, indeed, they do attract the attention of a man in the next row of seats who leans forward, putting out his hand and tapping his thumb with the fore and middle fingers, to show that he wants the pencil.

Mr. Brentford looks at him gravely and makes up his mind about him before complying.

“Allow me,” says this critic, leaning still nearer and adding a little stroke to the cluster of notes written on the shirt-front. “ A half note, ” he explains, and raises his eyebrows behind his spectacles, and smiles.

Mr. Brentford looks down at the correction; then nods and smiles in his turn.

And now, as Mr. Brentford and his critic, who introduces himself as Edward Lawton, have thus met on the common ground of a knowledge and love of music, it comes to pass quite naturally that others sitting near are subject, without knowing or caring why, to a certain contagion of friendliness. It is not long before the children of an Italian family party, who have brought a quantity of oranges and bananas (which they eat quite fearlessly in this part of the house), share their fruit with Carlotta: very easily they persuade the pretty stranger, whose big eyes seem to promise all the future for her thrilling slip of a body, to take her part in the feast. Moreover the spectacles of the young man who understands music so well beam upon her at short intervals.

So then, at the end of the opera, Charlotte laughs merrily as she says to her father, “ I ’m glad you did not bring writing paper! ”

IV.

During the months that follow father and daughter have small occasion to be glad about anything. The former loses the use of his eyes almost entirely, as the result of a malady which does not yield to simple treatment; he is forced to give up his business position and to grope around in search of some new employment which may be compatible with his infirmity. For days together they are wholly without money, and once Charlotte has a rather severe illness.

Never mind the other dreary happenings of these months; we may learn all that is worth knowing if we give our attention to the two people for just one minute in a single day.

It is the evening of Mr. Brentford’s birthday, and Charlotte has been suffering because she has no birthday gift for him, — suffering, too, from the thought that in her illness and weakness she is a burden to him; and he cannot persuade her that the burden is light because she would rather break her heart in silence than challenge his affection by expressing what is in her mind.

The dim-sighted man, waiting on the sick girl, brings her a bottle of some sparkling tonic water that the doctor has prescribed ; and now her bedside becomes a borderland between discouragement and native cheerfulness. Nor can I tell which of the two people resists discouragement most unselfishly. Their conversation we must hear just as it is caught from their lips, with its characteristic blending of humor and pathos.

First she says that he must have a glass of the precious water; and then she cannot finish her own glass because the thought of the expense of it chokes her; and will he not drink it for her ? It will spoil otherwise.

And he begins, “You dear little girl ” —

But she stops him with “Don’t say anything kind, Charles Brentford, Charles ” — reaching out through the oppression of their circumstances to find a strange pleasure in the use of his given name. “I shall cry if you do.”

And he says, “Sleep well; ” but immediately corrects himself: “ No, that’s too kind. Be as uncomfortable as you can.”

Then she: “Will you kiss me goodnight ? ”

And he: “Not for worlds. Nothing kind, you know.”

“ Oh, Charles Brentford — father! ” she says, pulling his head down on the coverlet and laying her finger tips on his eyelids.

So they part for the night, each to pray for the other’s happiness.

V.

Mr. Brentford is amazed every day at his good fortune in having managed to pay the rent of their apartment until now. The cheap rooms become so endeared to him through fear of their loss that when he comes home in the evening after his day’s groping, he presses his breast against the walls and caresses the shabby old chairs.

He will not play connectedly now, but at most improvises things which hurt one’s feelings incredibly. Lawton, when he comes to see these friends of his, is made utterly miserable by such unconscious confessions of suffering; still he comes again and again, for the sake of receiving from Charlotte and making to her another confession, — a confession of mutual trust, perfect understanding and sympathy, with some element in the feeling which is unfamiliar to both the young people, and more delightful than anything they will ever again experience: it is like entering a luminous cloud of sentiments — all generous — when they are near each other. There is never a word of love spoken, partly because they have not yet discovered that this common little word may define emotions which seem to them absolutely without a precedent.

One afternoon when father and daughter are alone Mr. Brentford’s improvisation fairly dies of its own misery ; he stops playing in order to express himself to Charlotte in words so full of regret and longing not clearly defined that they may fairly be called a translation from the music, — in words such as these: —

“It seems to me (and you must imagine this, Charlotte) that you and I are walking hand in hand through all this little world, looking for happiness. And on the earth there are houses, houses, more than we have ever seen before ; and they all stand empty, though crowded one against another, with scarce room for them upon the ground. And there is no living creature except ourselves. Then we say, ‘ We will look in the sea; perhaps the happy creatures are there.’ And on the seashore are heaped shells, shells, more than we have ever seen before. And we look again, and the water is full of sea-houses, all the shells that ever were. And they are all empty. There is not another living creature in the sea or on the shore.

“ Then a great storm arises, so that ocean and land are blended and become one distressful place.

“And then we see, very far away, a wide-roofed house. It stands straining against wind and rain, like a man, with its shoulders hunched and its hat-brim drawn over its windows to keep off the pelting weather. And a little light and warmth and life begin within the sheltering walls of that house. The other houses disappear, and all the shells vanish. That one familiar house, your birthplace, stands for them all.

“ But when we join hands more firmly and run toward our old home it also vanishes; and where we had fancied it stood, we come upon your mother’s grave.”

After this outburst both are silent for a minute or two. Then Charlotte says very gently, —

“I think I understand,father. When we went out to see the house agent this morning, and came back so much earlier than usual, he told you that he had rented our apartment to some one else, and we must move out. Is that the trouble ? ”

“Yes.”

“How soon ? ”

“Within a few days.”

Charlotte fetches her father’s hat and stick, and next she makes her own preparations for going out.

“ I want you to take a walk with me, ” she says.

VI.

As they are walking slowly up Park Avenue, just beyond the crest of the hill, people who pass them, as well as the shopkeepers and their gossiping customers, turn to look at them in a fashion far removed from the usual free, staring curiosity; and yet this marked deference is not occasioned by the elderly man’s gentle dignity or his evident weakness, nor has it any relation to his companion’s delicate beauty. Nearly everybody in this neighborhood can tell at a glance that the young lady is saying in her heart, over and over again, “Dear Saint Anne, hear my prayer. Good Saint Anne, help my poor father ! ”

For the whole neighborhood is attentive during this week in July to the storiea of miraculous cures which the relic of Saint Anne, enshrined in the little church of Saint Jean Baptiste, is said to work. Hundreds of the blind, the deaf, the lame, arrive every day, to utter a prayer kneeling before the altar in the crypt, to kiss the relic, to touch it with their hands, to press against it (as the priest holds it out to them in a small circular box with a glass cover) their foreheads, their eyes.

“I read about it in the paper, ” Charlotte says, “and yesterday I went to see for myself. It is really wonderful what a stack of crutches the lame people have left behind; and all the candles that are kept burning — every one of them a sign of somebody’s faith. I saw mothers bring their sick babies in their arms; perhaps that is n’t so important, but grown men were there, too, — crowds of them, — helping their parents up to the railing; not young parents like you, dearest, but really old people. Oh, father, don’t you think it is worth trying ? ”

(“Dear Saint Anne, help my poor father. . . . You must ! ”)

Her eyes are aflame.

They have reached the corner of Seventy-sixth Street. The church and the crowd in front of it, with groups of sight-seers across the way, are in plain view. Mr. Brentford hesitates.

“I certainly want ray eyesight badly enough,” he says; “but, child, we are not even Catholics.”

“I said that to the priest,” she answers eagerly. “He told me that Jesus and his disciples worked almost exclusively among non-Catholics. And he laughed: he is a nice man. ”

(“Dear Saint Anne, hear me, help us! ”)

VII.

Even while they stand at the corner waiting till Mr. Brentford shall recover from his hesitancy, a glad voice calls out, “ Hello! ” and “ What luck! — I was just starting out to see you. But who ever heard of your being so far up town at this hour of the day ? ”

Mr. Brentford begins to say something in a rather frightened undertone, but Lawton will not let him finish.

“Come along. Oh, come along with me, ” he continues. “ I live in the very next street, and I ’ve good news to tell you.” Placing himself between them, he takes Mr. Brentford’s arm, and has them moving off toward his studio before there is time to protest.

“You know those pictures of mine ? ” he suggests, confident that they will remember the subject of their last talk together.

Of course they do know precisely which ones he means.

“ Sold — for a price so large I am afraid to mention it. I did n’t suppose I should ever have so much money. And, better still, Fairlie—you know Fairlie ? ”

“Oh yes,” says Mr, Brentford.

— “has given me an order. That makes the future all right: his approval is a fortune in itself. Besides, he ’s been saying such things about my work. . . .

“ Well, here we are already, and I am mighty glad to have you. — Look out for this broken step.”

VIII.

Several hours later they are still in the studio, which is Lawton’s home as well. Evidently some pleasant understanding has been arrived at, for Mr. Brentford is contentedly smoking, when he is not dozing, in his chair beside a table which even now bears up the last course of a splendid and protracted feast, — such a feast as only happiness knows how to enjoy from beginning to end, though when such happiness as this is present the nearest German caterer can send in food and drink for the gods, not forgetting that smallest divinity whose appetite is well known to be in proportion to his size.

Precisely how the young people have employed every minute of these hours, important though they are, I do not know, nor do they; but at the moment we have now reached it happens that Lawton (not at the table) is speaking as reasonably as any one could wish on a subject no less technical and — as one not initiated might suppose — unsuited to the occasion than that of diseases of the eyes; though, to tell the truth, it may convey a false impression if I let the word “speaking” stand as just written, without adding that Lawton’s voice, and Charlotte’s, too, when she questions or answers in words, resembles whispering or murmuring rather than the clear tones of ordinary speech, and the whisperers seem to be drawn to each other uncommonly by this subject, of all others. Lawton is saying, as we contrive to hear by straining our attention, —

“You know my own eyes were none of the best for a while, and I’m sure I can’t imagine what I should have done if I had not found this ” — (The name of the oculist escapes us.) “A wonderful fellow! set me right in no time at all. No, with his skill, you see, and rest and nursing, there ’s no reason to doubt that ” — (Here again his voice is an inarticulate murmur to us, but we notice that both glance toward the silent figure at the table.) The girl throws back her head as though she would like to reply, but her lip trembles, and she keeps that word in reserve for use at another moment.

Presently Lawton’s voice grows more distinct as he asks pointedly, “Where were you yesterday, in the morning? ”

“At church — or, rather, at a church. ”

“Rather a funny thing happened,” he goes on. “I fancied you were— it came into my head that you were in distress of some kind, and called out to me. Did you think of me ? ”

“Perhaps, a little, now and then.”

“A curious experience, any how. It startled me, and made me so uneasy I could n’t keep on working. So, to cure my restlessness, I went to ask Fairlie to come around and look at my things; and that was the beginning of the — beginning.

“And so,” he continues, musing, “it appears you were just quietly at church. I do not see the connection — What’s more, to-day — this afternoon, in fact — I felt something like a force stronger than my will, or a will stronger than my own, drawing me to you ; and that, even more than just wanting to tell the good news, made me start away to see you. And there you were with your — our — blessed old dad at the corner of Seventy-sixth Street, taking a mighty long walk for such warm weather . . . Can’t see the connection. Are you sure you were not thinking of me or wanting me somehow ? ”

Charlotte puts an arm around his neck and begins to cry at last. “Oh, Anne, Anne, thank you! ” she says, and again, “thank you.”

Now Lawton has still to learn the occasion for her choice of such a curious pet name, and for her offering of thanks to him (who fairly goes down on his knee to her at the thought, and says that must be a mistake); nor will he be more free from the obligation to learn why, having once pronounced this name so deliciously, she never will apply it to him again, but will only laugh (as deliciously and as irrelevantly, he will think) whenever he asks her for her good reason.

Marrion Wilcox.