Mrs. Severn’s society was of a peculiar kind,—it had something of the ease of French society, with the homeliness of the true Briton. Very rarely, indeed, did she make calls. She never gave parties of any description whatever; and yet there was always a little flow and current of human minds and faces about her. The class which in London is perhaps more at liberty to please itself than any other class,—at least in England,—was that to which she belonged, both in right of her husband and of herself, and which circulated about her, very independent of rule, and very full of life. I do not know if I should call it the artist-class, for that is a wide world, and has many divisions, and fine people abound in that as in every other division of society. The padrona’s friends were painters, authors, journalists, people with crotchets, public reformers, persons of every kind to whom intellect, as they called it, clearness and brightness, and talk, and the absence of ceremony, were sweeter than any other{265} conditions of society. They came to her studio, some of them, with only a knock at the door,—but these were intimates,—and chatted while she went on with her work. They dropped in in the evening, and chatted again sometimes till midnight; they filled the rooms with discussion of everything in earth and heaven,—art news, political news, society news, a little of everything; they held hot discussions on social questions with the zeal of people immediately concerned, not with the languor of good society. The padrona ‘received’ almost every evening in this way after her work was done; and it was people whose work was done also who came to see her,—with fresh air in their faces, and all the eagerness and commotion of fresh life in their minds. I do not mean to say that the intelligence of these visitors was of the highest class, or that anything like the tone of a French salon,—the salon which has now become almost as much a tradition as Mrs. Montague’s drawing-room with its feather hangings,—pervaded the grey-green drawing-room in Fitzroy Square; but only that the people there came together to talk, and kept up an unfailing stream of comments, not merely on the people of their acquaintance, but on everything that was going on. It was easier work for a stranger to get on with them than it was in society where conversation is so personal, and the doings of that small class which calls itself the world, are so uppermost in everybody’s thoughts. Nobody{266} asked, ‘Did you hear what Lady Drum said to Lady Fife last night at the Clarionett’s ball?’ or went into raptures over the dear Duchess, or discussed the causes which led to that unfortunate separation between Sir Edward and his wife. To be sure, you might get just as tired, perhaps more so, listening to discussions about the ‘sweet feeling’ of this or that picture, or its bad drawing, or the uncertainty of its meaning, or about whether this exhibition was better than the last, or what Horton had said about it in the ‘Sword,’ or about spiritualism,—of which there were many distinguished professors in the padrona’s circle, or about social science, or women’s work, or the Arch?ological Society; but still it was a different sort of thing from the common languor and the common wit.
When Laurie had played with the children, and taken his cup of tea, and the lamp was carried into the large drawing-room, he did not care to leave the easy-chair in which he had placed himself and undertake that long walk to Kensington Gore. A certain sensation of ease had stolen over him. He had thrown down his pack of troubles at his neighbour’s door, as old Welby had said, and, with a certain soft exhaustion, stretched himself at full length in the low chair, with his feet at the other end of the hearth-rug. There was no fire, and it was dark at that end of the room; and the lamp had been placed on a table near the opposite wall, where the ladies sat working.{267} The padrona herself was making something up with lace and ribbons, and Miss Hadley, not yet gone home, but with her bonnet on ready to start, had returned to her knitting. Alice had gone up with the children to see them put to bed. It would be difficult to tell why Laurie lingered at the other end of the room in comparative darkness. Perhaps because he meant still to ask closer counsel from the padrona,—perhaps because his artist eye was pleased with the effect of that spark of light, with her head fully revealed in it. They let him alone, that being the fashion of the house. ‘He is tired and sad, poor boy!’ Mrs. Severn said to her friend; and they went on with their talk, and left him to come to himself when he pleased. Laurie was in no hurry to come to himself. He lay back lazily resting from thought, and let the picture, as it were, steal into him and take possession of him. The room was so large that it was quite dim everywhere but round that one table, and the furniture looked a little ghostly in the obscurity, the chairs placing themselves, as chairs have such a way of doing, in every sort of weird combination, as though unseen beings sat and chattered around the vacant tables. And in the distance the white, bright light of the lamp came out with double force. There was, perhaps, a touch of carelessness in the padrona’s coiffure, or else it was that she could not help it, her hair being less manageable than those silken, lovely curls of her child’s; but she was{268} different in black silk gown and her lace collar from what she was in her blouse. Laurie sat dreamily with his eyes turned towards the light, and listened to the hum of the voices, and sometimes caught a word or two of what they said. No doubt some one would come in presently to break up this quiet, but in the meantime there was a charm in the stillness, in the dimness, in the presence of the women, and motion of their hands as they worked; such soft sounds, scarcely to be called sounds at all, and yet they gave Laurie a certain languid pleasure as he sat exhausted in his easy chair.
‘Work does not suit everybody,’ he heard Mrs. Severn say. ‘We think so just as we think people who are always ill must be enjoying bad health;—because we are fond of work, and never have headaches. It is unjust.’
‘I thought we were born to labour in the sweat of our brow!’ said Miss Hadley, who was a little strong-minded, and had her doubts about Genesis.
‘Not born,’ said the padrona, with a soft laugh; ‘only after Eden, you know; and there are some people who have never come out of Eden; for instance, my child.’
‘Ah, Alice!’ Miss Hadley answered, with a little wave of her head, as if Alice was understood to be exceptional, and exempted from ordinary rule.
‘Fancy the child having to work as I do!’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘Fancy her being trained to my pro{269}fession, as some people tell me I should do. I think it would be nothing less than profane.’
‘My dear, you know I think all girls should know how to work at something,’ said the governess, ‘when they have no fortunes; and you will never save money. You couldn’t, if your pictures were to sell twice as well; and though you are young and strong, still——’
‘I might die,’ said the padrona. ‘I often think of it. It is a frightful thought when one looks at these little things; but I have made up my mind for a long time that it is best never to think. One can’t live more than a day at a time, were one to try ever so much; and there is always God at hand to take care or the rest.’
‘But generally, so far as I know,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘God gives the harvest only when the farmer has sown the seed.’
‘Which means I am to bring up my child to do something,’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘And so she does,—a hundred things,—now, doesn’t she?—and makes the whole house go to music. I can’t train Alice to a trade. If necessity comes upon her, some work or other will drop into her hands. I was never trained to it myself,’ the padrona added, with a half-conscious smile about the corners of her mouth, and perhaps just a touch of innocent complacency in her own success, ‘and yet I get on,—as well as most.’
‘Better than most, my dear; better than most,{270}’ the governess said, with a little enthusiasm. ‘But you know how much you have been worried about your drawing, and how sensitive you are to what those wretched men say in the “Sword.” Do you think I don’t notice? You take it quite sweetly when they talk about the colour, or texture, or the rest of their jargon; but you flush up the moment they mention your drawing. Now, if you had been trained to it, don’t you see, as a girl——’
The padrona grew very red as her friend spoke. It was clear that the criticism touched even when thus put, and Laurie, in the background, felt an overwhelming inclination to wring the neck of the strong-minded woman. But then she laughed very softly, with a certain sound of emotion that might have brought tears just as well.
‘When I was a girl,’ she said, ‘how every one would have stared to think I should ever be a painter, making my living!—how they would have laughed! “What, our Mary!” they would all have said. It came so natural to do one’s worsted work, and read one’s books, and go to one’s parties! And I suppose, as you say, I should have been working from the round, and studying anatomy,—faugh!—my child to do that! I would rather work my fingers to the bone!’
‘I think you are wrong, my dear,’ the governess said; and Laurie hated her, listening to the talk.
As for the padrona, she shook something like a{271} tear from her eyelash. Laurie thought it was pretty to see her hands moving among the lace and the ribbon, with that look of power in them, knowing exactly how to twist it, how to make the lace droop as it ought. Not a very monstrous piece of work, to be sure. ‘Hush!’ she said, ‘here are some people coming up-stairs. Most likely Bessie Howard, who will tell us what the spirits are doing; or the Suffolks from over the way, who are great friends of hers. They have just come home from Dresden, and I want to hear what they have been about there.’
‘I hate travel-talk,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘and I detest the spirits, so I’ll go; and though it is not the first time, nor the second, we have spoken on t............