But latterly she had learned to seize the salient parts of a narrative; her voice had compass, and, like all fine speakers, she traveled over a great many notes in speaking; her low tones were gorgeously rich, her upper tones full and sweet; all this, and her beauty, made the hours she gave him very sweet to our poor artist.
He was wont to bask in her music, and tell her in return how he loved her, and how happy they were both to be as soon as he had acquired a name, for a name was wealth, he told her. And although Christie Johnstone did not let him see how much she took all this to heart and believed it, it was as sweet music to her as her own honeysuckle breath to him.
She improved him.
He dropped cigars, and medical students, and similar abominations.
Christie's cool, fresh breath, as she hung over him while painting, suggested to him that smoking might, peradventure, be a sin against nature as well as against cleanliness.
And he improved her; she learned from art to look into nature (the usual process of mind).
She had noticed too little the flickering gold of the leaves at evening, the purple hills, and the shifting stories and glories of the sky; but now, whatever she saw him try to imitate, she learned to examine. She was a woman, and admired sunset, etc., for this boy's sake, and her whole heart expanded with a new sensation that softened her manner to all the world, and brightened her personal rays.
This charming picture of mutual affection had hitherto been admired only by those who figured in it.
But a visitor had now arrived on purpose to inspect it, etc., attracted by report.
A friend had considerately informed Mrs. Gatty, the artist's mother, and she had instantly started from Newcastle.
This was the old lady Christie discovered on the stairs.
Her sudden appearance took her son's breath away.
No human event was less likely than that she should be there, yet there she was.
After the first surprise and affectionate greetings, a misgiving crossed him, "she must know about the writ"--it was impossible; but our minds are so constituted--when we are guilty, we fear that others know what we know. Now Gatty was particularly anxious she should not know about this writ, for he had incurred the debt by acting against her advice.
Last year he commenced a picture in which was Durham Cathedral; his mother bade him stay quietly at home, and paint the cathedral and its banks from a print, "as any other painter would," observed she.
But this was not the lad's system; he spent five months on the spot, and painted his picture, but he had to borrow sixty pounds to do this; the condition of this loan was, that in six months he should either pay eighty pounds, or finish and hand over a certain half-finished picture.
He did neither; his new subject thrust aside his old one, and he had no money, ergo, his friend, a picture-dealer, who had found artists slippery in money matters, followed him up sharp, as we see.
"There is nothing the matter, I hope, mother. What is it?"
"I'm tired, Charles." He brought her a seat; she sat down.
"I did not come from Newcastle, at my age, for nothing; you have formed an improper acquaintance."
"I, who? Is it Jack Adams?"
"Worse than any Jack Adams!"
"Who can that be? Jenkyns, mother, because he does the same things as Jack, and pretends to be religious."
"It is a female--a fishwife. Oh, my son!"
"Christie Johnstone an improper acquaintance," said he; "why! I was good for nothing till I knew her; she has made me so good, mother; so steady, so industrious; you will never have to find fault with me again."
"Nonsense--a woman that sells fish in the streets!"
"But you have not seen her. She is beautiful, her mind is not in fish; her mind grasps the beautiful and the good--she is a companion for princes! What am I that she wastes a thought or a ray of music on me?
Heaven bless her. She reads our best authors, and never forgets a word; and she tells me beautiful stories--sometimes they make me cry, for her voice is a music that goes straight to my heart."
"A woman that does not even wear the clothes of a lady."
"It is the only genuine costume in these islands not beneath a painter's notice."
"Look at me, Charles; at your mother."
"Yes, mother," said he, nervously.
"You must part with her, or kill me."
He started from his seat and began to flutter up and down the room; poor excitable creature. "Part with her!" cried he; "I shall never be a painter if I do; what is to keep my heart warm when the sun is hid, when the birds are silent, when difficulty looks a mountain and success a molehill? What is an artist without love? How is he to bear up against his disappointments from within, his mortification from without? the great ideas he has and cannot grasp, and all the forms of ignorance that sting him, from stupid insensibility down to clever, shallow criticism?"
"Come back to common sense," said the old lady, coldly and grimly.
He looked uneasy. Common sense had often been quoted against him, and common sense had always proved right.
"Come back to common sense. She shall not be your mistress, and she cannot bear your name; you must part some day, because you cannot come together, and now is the best time."
