Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (167 page)

Valentine accepted this offer with great gratitude. “By-the-bye, Zack,” he said, placing himself comfortably in his host’s chair, between the table and the wall — ”I was going to ask a favor of our excellent friend here, when you suggested that wonderful and matchless trial of strength which we have just had. You have been of such inestimable assistance to me already, my dear sir,” he continued, turning towards Mat, with all his natural cordiality of disposition now fully developed, under the fostering influence of the Squaw’s Mixture. “You have laid me under such an inexpressible obligation in saving my picture from destruction — ”

“I wish you could make up your mind to say what you want in plain words,” interrupted Mat. “I’m one of your rough-handed, thick-headed sort,
I
am. I’m not gentleman enough to understand parlarver. It don’t do me no good: it only worrits me into a perspiration.” And Mat, shaking down his shirt-sleeve, drew it several times across his forehead, as a proof of the truth of his last assertion.

“Quite right! quite right!” cried Mr. Blyth, patting him on the shoulder in the most friendly manner imaginable. “In plain words, then, when I mentioned, just now, how much I admired your arms in an artistic point of view, I was only paving the way for asking you to let me make a drawing of them, in black and white, for a large picture that I mean to paint later in the year. My classical figure composition, you know, Zack — you have seen the sketch — Hercules bringing to Eurystheus the Erymanthian boar — a glorious subject; and our friend’s arms, and, indeed, his chest, too, if he would kindly consent to sit for it, would make the very studies I most want for Hercules.”

“What on earth
is
he driving at?” asked Mat, addressing himself to young Thorpe, after staring at Valentine for a moment or two in a state of speechless amazement.

“He wants to draw your arms — of course you will be only too happy to let him — you can’t understand anything about it now — but you will when you begin to sit — pass the cigars — thank Blyth for meaning to make a Hercules of you-and tell him you’ll come to the painting-room whenever he likes,” answered Zack, joining his sentences together in his most offhand manner, all in a breath.

“What painting-room? Where is it?” asked Mat, still in a densely stupefied condition.

“My painting-room,” replied Valentine. “Where you saw the pictures, and saved Columbus, yesterday.”

Mat considered for a moment — then suddenly brightened up, and began to look quite intelligent again. “I’ll come,” he said, “as soon as you like — the sooner the better,” clapping his fist emphatically on the table, and drinking to Valentine with his heartiest nod.

“That’s a worthy, good-natured fellow!” cried Mr. Blyth, drinking to Mat in return, with grateful enthusiasm. “The sooner the better, as you say. Come to-morrow evening.”

“All right. To-morrow evening,” assented Mat. His left hand, as he spoke, began to work stealthily round and round in his pocket, molding into all sorts of strange shapes, that plastic substance, which had lain hidden there ever since his shopping expedition in the morning.

“I should have asked you to come in the day-time,” continued Valentine; “but, as you know, Zack, I have the Golden Age to varnish, and one or two little things to alter in the lower part of Columbus; and then, by the latter end of the week, I must leave home to do those portraits in the country which I told you of, and which are wanted before I thought they would be. You will come with our friend, of course, Zack? I dare say I shall have the order for you to study at the British Museum, by to-morrow. As for the Private Drawing Academy — ”

“No offense; but I can’t stand seeing you stirring up them grounds in the bottom of your glass any longer,” Mat broke in here; taking away Mr. Blyth’s tumbler as he spoke, throwing the sediment of sugar, the lemon pips, and the little liquor left to cover them, into the grate behind; and then, hospitably devoting himself to the concoction of a second supply of that palatable and innocuous beverage, the Squaw’s Mixture.

“Half a glass,” cried Mr. Blyth. “Weak — remember my wretched head for drinking, and pray make it weak.”

As he spoke, the clock of the neighbouring parish church struck.

“Only nine,” exclaimed Zack, referring ostentatiously to the watch which he had taken out of pawn the day before. “Pass the rum, Mat, as soon as you’ve done with it — put the kettle on to boil — and now, my lads, we’ll begin spending the evening in earnest!”

             
* * * * * *

If any fourth gentleman had been present to assist in “spending the evening,” as Zack chose to phrase it, at the small social
soiree
in Kirk Street; and if that gentleman had deserted the festive board as the clock struck nine — had walked about the streets to enjoy himself in the fresh air — and had then, as the clock struck ten, returned to the society of his convivial companions, he would most assuredly have been taken by surprise, on beholding the singular change which the lapse of one hour had been sufficient to produce in the manners and conversation of Mr. Valentine Blyth.

It might have been that the worthy and simple-hearted gentleman had been unduly stimulated by the reek of hot grog, which in harmonious association with a heavy mist of tobacco smoke, now filled the room; or it might have been that the second brew of the Squaw’s Mixture had exceeded half a glassful in quantity, had not been diluted to the requisite weakness, and had consequently got into his head; but, whatever the exciting cause might be, the alteration that had taken place since nine o’clock, in his voice, looks, and manners, was remarkable enough to be of the nature of a moral phenomenon. He now talked incessantly about nothing but the fine arts; he differed with both his companions, and loftily insisted on his own superior sagacity, whenever either of them ventured to speak a word; he was by turns as noisy as Zack, and as gruff as Mat; his hair was crumpled down over his forehead, his eyes were dimmed, his shirt collar was turned rakishly over his cravat: in short, he was not the genuine Valentine Blyth at all, — he was only a tipsy counterfeit of him.

As for young Thorpe, any slight steadiness of brain which he might naturally possess, he had long since parted with, as a matter of course, for the rest of the evening. Mat alone remained unchanged. There he sat, reckless of the blazing fire behind him, still with that left hand of his dropping stealthily every now and then into his pocket; smoking, drinking, and staring at his two companions, just as gruffly self-possessed as ever.

“There’s ten,” muttered Mat, as the clock struck. “I said we should be getting jolly by ten. So we are.”

Zack nodded his head solemnly, and stared hard at one of the empty bottles on the floor, which had rolled out from the temporary store-room under the table.

“Hold your tongues, both of you!” cried Mr. Blyth. “I insist on clearing up that disputed point about whether artists are not just as hardy and strong as other men. I’m an artist myself, and I say they are. I’ll agree with you in everything else; for you’re the two best fellows in the world; but if you say a word against artists, I’m your enemy for life. You may talk to me, by the hour together about admirals, generals, and prime ministers — I mention the glorious names of Michael Angelo and Raphael; and down goes your argument directly. When Michael Angelo’s nose was broken do you think he minded it? Look in his Life, and see if he did — that’s all! Ha! ha! My painting-room is forty feet long (now this is an important proof). While I was painting Columbus and the Golden Age, one was at one end — north; and the other at the other — south. Very good. I walked backwards and forwards between those two pictures incessantly; and never sat down all day long. This is a fact — and the proof is, that I worked on both of them at once. A touch on Columbus — a walk into the middle of the room to look at the effect — turn round — walk up to The Golden Age opposite — a touch on The Golden Age — another walk into the middle of the room to look at the effect-another turn round — and back again to Columbus. Fifteen miles a-day of in-door exercise, according to the calculation of a mathematical friend of mine; and
not
including the number of times I had to go up and down my portable wooden steps to get at the top parts of Columbus. Isn’t a man hardy and strong who can stand that? Ha! ha! Just feel my legs, Zack. Are they hard and muscular, or are they not?”

Here Mr. Blyth, rapping young Thorpe smartly on the head with his spoon, tried to skip out of his chair as nimbly as usual; but only succeeded in floundering awkwardly into an upright position, after he had knocked down his plate with all the greasy remains of the liver and bacon on it. Zack roused himself from muddled meditation with a start; and, under pretense of obeying his friend’s injunction, pinched Valentine’s leg with such vigorous malice, that the painter fairly screamed again under the infliction. All this time Mat sat immovably serene in his place next to the fire. He just kicked Mr. Blyth’s broken plate, with the scraps of liver and bacon, and the knife and fork that had fallen with them, into the temporary storeroom under the table — and then pushed towards him another glass of the squaw’s mixture, quietly concocted while he had been talking.

The effect on Valentine of this hospitable action proved to be singularly soothing and beneficial. He had been getting gradually more and more disputatious for the last ten minutes; but the moment the steaming glass touched his hand, it seemed to change his mood with the most magical celerity. As he looked down at it, and felt the fragrant rum steaming softy into his nostrils, his face expanded, and while his left hand unsteadily conveyed the tumbler to his lips, his right reached across the table and fraternally extended itself to Mat. “My dear friend,” said Mr. Blyth affectionately, “how kind you are! Pray how do you make the Squaw’s mixture?”

“I say, Mat, leave off smoking, and tell us something,” interposed Zack. “Bowl away at once with one of your tremendous stories, or Blyth will be bragging again about his rickety old legs. Talk, man! Tell us your famous story of how you lost your scalp.”

Mat laid down his pipe, and for a moment looked very attentively at Mr. Blyth — then, with the most uncharacteristic readiness and docility, began his story at once, without requiring another word of persuasion. In general, the very reverse of tedious when he related any experiences of his own, he seemed, on this occasion, perversely bent on letting his narrative ooze out to the most interminable length. Instead of adhering to the abridged account of his terrible adventure, which he had given Zack when they first talked together on Blackfriars Bridge, he now dwelt drowsily on the minutest particulars of the murderous chase that had so nearly cost him his life, enumerating them one after the other in the same heavy droning voice which never changed its tone in the slightest degree as he went on. After about ten minutes’ endurance of the narrative-infliction which he had himself provoked, young Thorpe was just beginning to feel a sensation of utter oblivion stealing over him, when a sound of lusty snoring close at his back startled him into instant wakefulness. He looked round. There was Mr. Blyth placidly and profoundly asleep, with his mouth wide open and his head resting against the wall.

“Stop!” whispered Mat, as Zack seized on a half-squeezed lemon and took aim at Valentine’s mouth. “Don’t wake him yet. What do you say to some oysters?”

“Give us a dish, and I’ll show you,” returned young Thorpe. “Sally’s in bed by this time — I’ll fetch the oysters myself from over the way. But, I say, I must have a friendly shot with something or other, at dear old Blyth’s gaping mouth.”

“Try him with an oyster, when you come back,” said Mat, producing from the cupboard behind him a large yellow pie-dish. “Go on! I’ll see you down stairs, and leave the candle on the landing, and the door on the jar, so as you can get in quietly. Steady, young ‘un! and mind the dish when you cross the road.” With these words Mat dismissed Zack from the street-door to the oyster shop; and then returned immediately to his guest upstairs.

Valentine was still fast asleep and snoring vehemently. Mat’s hand descended again into his pocket, reappearing, however, quickly enough on this occasion, with the piece of wax which he had purchased that morning. Steadying his arms coolly on the table, he detached the little chain which held the key of Mr. Blyth’s bureau, from the watchguard to which it was fastened, took off on his wax a perfect impression of the whole key from the pipe to the handle, attached it again to the sleeper’s watchguard, pared away the rough ends of the piece of wax till it fitted into an old tin tobacco-box which he took from the chimney-piece, pocketed this box, and then quietly resumed his original place at the table.

“Now,” said Mat, looking at the unconscious Mr. Blyth, after he had lit his pipe again; “Now, Painter-Man! wake up as soon as you like.”

It was not long before Zack returned. A violent bang of the street-door announced his entry into the passage — a confused clattering and stumbling marked his progress up stairs — a shrill crash, a heavy thump, and a shout of laughter indicated his arrival on the landing. Mat ran out directly, and found him prostrate on the floor, with the yellow pie-dish in halves at the bottom of the stairs, and dozens of oyster.-shells scattered about him in every direction.