The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
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pines on the heights of Coniston.
The next summer, was the first which the painter--pioneer of summer visitors there--spent at Coniston. He was an unsuccessful painter, who became, by a process which he himself does not to-day completely understand, a successful writer of novels. As a character, however, he himself confesses his inadequacy, and the chief interest in him for the readers of this narrative is that he fell deeply in love with Cynthia Wetherell at nineteen. It is fair to mention in passing that other young men were in love with Cynthia at this time, notably Eben Hatch--history repeating itself. Once, in a moment of madness, Eben confessed his love, the painter never did: and he has to this day a delicious memory which has made Cynthia the heroine of many of his stories. He boarded with Chester Perkins, and he was humored by the village as a harmless but amiable lunatic.
The painter had never conceived that a New England conscience and a temper of no mean proportions could dwell together in the body of a wood nymph. When he had first seen Cynthia among the willows by Coniston Water, he had thought her a wood nymph. But she scolded him for his impropriety with so unerring a choice of words that he fell in love with her intellect, too. He spent much of his time to the neglect of his canvases under the butternut tree in front of Jethro's house trying to persuade Cynthia to sit for her portrait; and if Jethro himself had not overheard one of these arguments, the portrait never would have been painted. Jethro focussed a look upon the painter.
"Er--painter-man, be you? Paint Cynthy's picture?"
"But I don't want to be painted, Uncle Jethro. I won't be painted!"
"H-how much for a good picture? Er--only want the best--only want the best."
The painter said a few things, with pardonable heat, to the effect--well, never mind the effect. His remarks made no impression whatever upon Jethro.
"Er---paint the picture--paint the picture, and then we'll talk about the price. Er--wait a minute."
He went into the house, and they heard him lumbering up the stairs. Cynthia sat with her back to the artist, pretending to read, but presently she turned to him.
"I'll never forgive you--never, as long as I live," she cried, "and I won't be painted!"
"N-not to please me, Cynthy?" It was Jethro's voice.
Her look softened. She laid down the book and went up to him on the porch and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Do you really want it so much as all that, Uncle Jethro?" she said.
"Callate I do, Cynthy," he answered. He held a bundle covered with newspaper in his hand, he looked down at Cynthia.
He seated himself on the edge of the porch and for the moment seemed lost in revery. Then he began slowly to unwrap the newspaper from the bundle: there were five layers of it, but at length he disclosed a bolt of cardinal cloth.
"Call this to mind, Cynthy?"
"Yes," she answered with a smile.
"H-how's this for the dress, Mr. Painter-man?" said Jethro, with a pride that was ill-concealed.
The painter started up from his seat and took the material in his hands and looked at Cynthia. He belonged to a city club where he was popular for his knack of devising costumes, and a vision of Cynthia as the daughter of a Doge of Venice arose before his eyes. Wonder of wonders, the daughter of a Doge discovered in a New England hill village! The painter seized his pad and pencil and with a few strokes, guided by inspiration, sketched the costume then and there and held it up to Jethro, who blinked at it in astonishment. But Jethro was suspicious of his own sensations.
"Er--well--Godfrey--g-guess that'll do." Then came the involuntary: "W-wouldn't a-thought you had it in you. How about it, Cynthy?" and he held it up for her inspection.
"If you are pleased, it's all I care about, Uncle Jethro," she answered, and then, her face suddenly flushing, "You must promise me on your honor that nobody in Coniston shall know about it, 'Mr. Painter-man'."
After this she always called him "Mr. Painter-man,"--when she was pleased with him.
So the cardinal cloth was come to its usefulness at last. It was inevitable that Sukey Kittredge, the village seamstress, should be taken into confidence. It was no small thing to take Sukey into confidence, for she was the legitimate successor in more ways than one of Speedy Bates, and much of Cynthia and the artist's ingenuity was spent upon devising a form of oath which would hold Sukey silent. Sukey, however, got no small consolation from the sense of the greatness of the trust confided in her, and of the uproar she could make in Coniston if she chose. The painter, to do him justice, was the real dressmaker, and did everything except cut the cloth and sew it together. He sent to friends of his in the city for certain paste jewels and ornaments, and one day Cynthia stood in the old tannery shed--hastily transformed into a studio--before a variously moved audience. Sukey, having adjusted the last pin, became hysterical over her handiwork, Millicent Skinner stared openmouthed, words having failed her for once, and Jethro thrust his hands in his pockets in a quiet ecstasy of approbation.
"A-always had a notion that cloth'd set you off, Cynthy," said he, "er--next time I go to the state capital you come along--g-guess it'll surprise 'em some."
"I guess it would, Uncle Jethro," said Cynthia, laughing.
Jethro postponed two political trips of no small importance to be present at the painting of that picture, and he would sit silently by the hour in a corner of the shed watching every stroke of the brush. Never stood Doge's daughter in her jewels and seed pearls amidst stranger surroundings,--the beam, and the centre post around which the old white horse had toiled in times gone by, and all the piled-up, disused machinery of forgotten days. And never was Venetian lady more unconscious of her environment than Cynthia.
The portrait was of the head and shoulders alone, and when he had given it the last touch, the painter knew that, for once in his life, he had done a good thing. Never before; perhaps, had the fire of such inspiration been given him. Jethro, who expressed himself in terms (for him) of great enthusiasm, was for going to Boston immediately to purchase a frame commensurate with the importance of such a work of art, but the artist had his own views on that subject and sent to New York for this also.
The day after the completion of the picture a rugged figure in rawhide boots and coonskin cap approached Chester Perkins's house, knocked at the door, and inquired for the "Painter-man." It was Jethro. The "Painter-man" forthwith went out into the rain behind the shed, where a somewhat curious colloquy took place.
"G-guess I'm willin' to pay you full as much as it's worth," said Jethro, producing a cowhide wallet. "Er--what figure do you allow it comes to with the frame?"
The artist was past taking offence, since Jethro had long ago become for him an engrossing study.
"I will send you the bill for the frame, Mr. Bass," he said, "the picture belongs to Cynthia."
"Earn your livin' by paintin', don't you--earn your livin'?"
The painter smiled a little bitterly.
"No," he said, "if I did, I shouldn't be--alive. Mr. Bass, have you ever done anything the pleasure of doing which was pay enough, and to spare?"
Jethro looked at him, and something very like admiration came into the face that was normally expressionless.
He put up his wallet a little awkwardly, and held out his hand more awkwardly.
"You be more of a feller than I thought for," he said, and strode off through the drizzle toward Coniston. The painter walked slowly to the kitchen, where Chester