Charles Lever - The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)

“What need have I of other friends than such as these?” cried she, passionately. “ They understand me, and I them; and as for the great world, we are not made for each other!”

“My own sentiments to a ‘T,’ miss,” said a soft, mincing voice behind her; and Mary turned and beheld Mr. Crow. He had arrayed himself in a small velvet skull-cap and a blouse, and stood mixing the colors on his palette in perfect composure. “I ‘m afraid, Miss Martin, there ‘s an end of the great ‘Historical.’ Your uncle will scarcely be persuaded to put on the robes again, and it’s a downright pity. I was getting a look of weariness – imbecility I might call it – into his features that would have crowned the work.”

“I don’t think I ever knew what your subject was!” said she, half indolently.

“The Abdication of Charles V., Miss Martin,” said he, proudly. “This is the fourteenth time I have depicted it; and never, I am bound to say, with more favorable ‘studies.’ Your uncle is fine; my Lady gorgeous; I don’t say what I ‘d like of another lovely and gifted individual; but even down to that old rogue of a butler that would insist on taking snuff through the bars of his helmet, they were all grand, miss, – positively grand!” Seeing that she appeared to bestow some attention to him, Mr. Crow went on: “You see, miss, in the beginning of a great effort of this kind there is no progress made at all. The sitters keep staring at one another, each amused at some apparent absurdity in costume or attitude; and then, if you ask them to call up a look of love, hate, jealousy, or the like, it’s a grin you get, – a grin that would shame a hyena. By degrees, however, they grow used to the situation; they ‘tone down,’ as one might say, and learn to think less of themselves, and be more natural. It was sheer fatigue, downright exhaustion, and nothing else, was making your uncle so fine; and if he could have been kept on low diet, – I did n’t like to mention it, though I often wished it, – I ‘d have got a look of cadaverous madness into his face that would have astonished you.”

By this time Mr. Crow had approached his canvas, and was working away vigorously, the action of his brush appearing to stimulate his loquacity. Mary drew near to observe him, and insensibly felt attracted by that fascination which the progress of a picture invariably possesses.

“This is the Queen,” continued he; “she’s crying, – as well she might; she doesn’t rightly know whether the old fellow’s out of his mind or not; she has her misgivings, and she does n’t half like that old thief of a Jesuit that’s whispering in the King’s ear. This was to be you, Miss Martin; you were betrothed to one of the young princes; but somehow you weren’t quite right in your head, and you are looking on rather more amused, you perceive, than in any way moved; you were holding up your beautiful petticoat, all covered with gold and precious stones, as much as to say, ‘Ain’t I fine this morning?’ when you heard the herald’s trumpet announce the Prince of Orange; and there he is, – or there he ought to be, – coming in at the door. There’s a chap pulling the curtain aside; but I suppose, now,” added he, with a sigh, “we ‘ll never see the Prince there!”

“But where could you have found a study for your Prince, Mr. Crow?”

“I have him here, miss,” said Crow, laying down his brush to take a small sketch-book from the pocket of his blouse. “I have him here; and there wouldn’t have been a finer head in the canvas, – pale, stern-looking, but gentle withal; a fellow that would say, ‘Lead them to the scaffold,’ as easy as winking, and that would tremble and falter under the eye of a woman he loved. There he is, now, – the hair, you know, I put in myself, and the bit of beard, just for a little Titian effect; but the eyes are his own, and the mouth not as good as his own.”

“It’s a striking head, indeed,” said Mary, still contemplating it attentively.

“That’s exactly what it is; none of your common brain-boxes, but a grand specimen of the classic head, civilized down to a mediaeval period; the forty-first descendant of an Emperor or a Proconsul, living at the Pincian Hall, or at his villa on the Tiber, sitting for his likeness to Giordano.”

“There’s a painful expression in the features, too,” added she, slowly.

“So there is; and I believe he ‘s in bad health.”

“Indeed!” said Mary, starting. “I quite forgot there was an original all this time.”

“He’s alive; and what’s more, he’s not a mile from where we ‘re standing.” Mr. Crow looked cautiously about him as he spoke, ac if fearful of being overheard; and then approaching close to Miss Martin, and dropping his voice to a whisper, said, “I can venture to tell you what I dare n’t tell my Lady; for I know well if she suspected who it was would be the Prince of Orange, begad, I might abdicate too, as well as the King. That young man there is-the son of a grocer in Oughterard, – true, every word of it, – Dan Nelligan’s son! and you may fancy now what chance he ‘d have of seeing himself on that canvas if her Ladyship knew it.”

“Is this the youth who has so distinguished himself at college?” asked Mary.

“The very one. I made that sketch of him when he was reading for the medal; he did n’t know it, for I was in a window opposite, where he couldn’t see me; and when I finished he leaned his chin in his hand and looked up at the sky, as if thinking; and the expression of his up-turned face, with the lips a little apart, was so fine that I took it down at once, and there it is,” said he, turning over the page and presenting a few pencil lines lightly and spiritedly drawn.

“A young gentleman left this packet, Miss Mary, and said it was for you,” said a servant, presenting a small sealed enclosure. Mary Martin blushed deeply, and she opened the parcel, out of which fell her own glove, with a card.

“The very man we were talking of,” said Mr. Crow, lifting it up and handing it to her, – “Joseph Nelligan. That’s like the old proverb; talk of the – ” But she was gone ere he could finish his quotation.

“There she goes,” said Crow, sorrowfully; “and if she ‘d have stayed ten minutes more I ‘d have had her all complete!” and he contemplated with glowing satisfaction a hasty sketch he had just made in his book. “It’s like her, – far more than anything I have done yet; but after all – ” And he shook his head mournfully as he felt the poor pretension of his efforts. “Small blame to me to fail, anyhow,” added he, after a pause. “It would take Titian himself to paint her; and even he couldn’t give all the softness and delicacy of the expression, – that would take Raffaelle; and Vandyke for her eyes, when they flash out at times; and Giordano for the hair. Oh, if he could have seen it just as I did a minute ago, when the wind blew it back, and the sunlight fell over it! “Arrah!” cried he, impatiently, as with a passionate gesture he tore the leaf from his book and crushed it in his hand, – “arrah! What right have I even to attempt it?” And he sat down, covering his face with his hands, to muse and mourn in silence.

Simpson – or as he was more generally known, Simmy Crow – was neither a Michael Angelo nor a Raffaelle; but he was a simple-minded, honest-hearted creature, whose life had been a long hand-to-hand fight with fortune. Originally a drawing-master in some country academy, the caprice – for it was little else – of a whimsical old lady had sent him abroad to study; that is, sent him to contemplate the very highest triumphs of genius with a mind totally unprepared and uncultivated, to gaze on the grandest conceptions without the shadow of a clew to them, and to try and pick up the secrets of art when he stood in utter ignorance of its first principles. The consequence was, he went wild in the enthusiasm of his admiration; he became a passionate worshipper at the shrine, but never essayed to be priest at the altar. Disgusted and dispirited by his own miserable attempts, he scarcely ever touched a pencil, but roved from city to city, and from gallery to gallery, entranced, – enchanted by a fascination that gradually insinuated itself into his very being, and made up the whole aim and object of his thoughts. This idolatry imparted an ecstasy to his existence that lifted him above every accident of fortune. Poor, hungry, and ill-clad, he still could enter a gallery or a church, sit down before a Guido or a Rembrandt, and forget all, save the glorious creation before him. By the sudden death of his patroness, he was left, without a shilling, hundreds of miles from home. Humble as his requirements were, he could not supply them; he offered to teach, but it was in a land where all have access to the best models; he essayed to copy, but his efforts were unsalable. To return home to his country was now his great endeavor; and after innumerable calamities and reverses, he did arrive in England, whence he made his way to Ireland, poorer than he had quitted it.