Part 7

The morning before his departure he called Olivia and Adam, and the three made a tour of the rooms in search of a suitable place where his easel could be set up and the work begun. All three admitted that the study was too dark, and so was the library unless the vines were cleared from the windows, which was, of course, out of the question, the Judge's choice finally resting on one corner of the drawing-room, where a large window let in a little more light. In acquiescence the young painter drew back the curtains and placed his subject first on the sofa and then in an arm-chair, and again standing by the sash, and once more leaning over the window-sill; but in no position could he get what he wanted.

"Suit yourselves, then," said the Judge, "and pick out your own place, and make yourselves as comfortable as you can--only don't hurry over it. I shall not be back for a month, and if that is not time enough, why, we have all summer before us. As to your other comforts, my dear Adam--and I rejoice to see you know a good bottle of wine when you taste it--I have given Bundy express orders to decant for you some of the old Tiernan of '28, which is a little dryer than even that special bottle of the Madeira you liked so well. My only regret is that I cannot share it with you. And now one word more before I say good-by, and that is that I must ask you, my dear Gregg, to do all you can to keep Mrs. Colton from becoming lonely. You will, of course, as usual, accompany her in her afternoon rides, and I need not tell you that my own horses are at your disposal. When I return I hope to be welcomed by two Olivias; one which by your genius you will put on canvas, and the other"--and he bowed grandiloquently to his wife--"I leave in your charge."

The young painter took the first opportunity to discharge his duty--an opportunity afforded him when the Judge, after kissing his wife and shaking hands with Adam the morning he left, had stepped into his gig, his servant beside him, and with a lifting of his hat in punctilious courtesy, had driven down between the lilacs. It may have been gallantry or it may have been the pathetic way in which she waved her handkerchief in return that roused the boyish sympathy in his heart:

"Don't worry," he said in a voice full of tenderness. "He won't be long gone--only a month, he says; and don't be unhappy--I'm going to do everything to cheer you up."

"But I'm never lonely," she answered with an air of bravado, "and I try never to be unhappy. I always have Phil. And now," and she broke out into a laugh, "I have you, and that makes me feel just as I did as a girl when one of the boys came over to play with me. Come upstairs, right away, and let me show you the big garret. I'm just crazy to see you begin work, and I really believe that's the best place, after all. It's full of old trunks and furniture, but there's a splendid window----"

"On which side of the house, north or south? I must have a north light, you know."

"Yes--north; looking straight up into your freezing cold country, sir! This way! Come along!" she cried joyously as she mounted the stairs, little Phil, as usual, tumbling after them.

Adam entered first and stood in the middle of the floor looking about him.

"Superb!" he cried. "Just the very place! What a magnificent light--so direct, and not a reflection from anything."

It was, indeed, an ideal studio to one accustomed to the disorder of beautiful things. Not only was there a hip roof, with heavy, stained beams and brown shingles, but near its crotch opened a wide, round-topped window which shed its light on the dilapidated relics of two generations--old spinning-wheels, hair trunks, high-post, uncoupled bedsteads; hair-cloth sofas, and faded curtains of yellow damask, while near the door rested an enormous jar brought up from the garden to catch the drip of a leaky shingle--all so much lumber to Olivia, but of precious value to the young painter, especially the water jar, which reminded him of those he had seen in Sicily when he was tramping through its villages sketching.

"Just the place--oh, wonderful! Wonderful! Let me shout down for Bundy and we'll move everything into shape right away."

"Are you going to take them out or push them back?" exclaimed Olivia, her eyes growing wide with wonder as she watched him begin work.

"No, not going to move out one of them. You just wait--I'll show you!" The boy in him was coming out now.

And Olivia did wait, uttering little cries of delight or inquiry meanwhile, as she tripped after him, her skirts lifted above her dainty ankles to keep them from the dust. "Oh, that ugly old bureau; shan't we send it away?" followed by "Yes, I do think that's better." And, "Oh, are you going to put that screen there!" gouty old Bundy joining in with "Well, fo' de Lawd, Miss 'Livy, I neber did see no ol' trunk come to life agin befo' by jes' shovin' it 'roun'."

"And now get a sheet!" cried Adam, when everything had been arranged to his liking. "We'll tack it across the lower half of the window. Then Bundy, please go down and bring up two buckets of water and pour it into this jar. Now, Mrs. Colton, come along, you and I will bring up blossoms enough to fill it," and the two dashed downstairs and out into the orchard with a swoop of two swallows out for an airing.

Even Bundy had to admit to old Dinah, when he had returned to the kitchen, that the transformation of a lumber-room into a cosy studio was little less than miraculous.

"Dat painter gemman do beat de lan'," he chuckled. "Got dat ol' garret lookin' like a parlor fixed up for comp'ny. Ye oughter see dem ol' hair-backs wid de bottoms busted--got 'em kivered up wid dem patchwork bedspreads an' lookin' like dey was fit for de ol' mist'ess's bedroom. An' he's got dem ol' yaller cut'ains we useter hab in de settin'-room hung on de fo'-posters as sort o' screens fencin' off one corner ob de room jes' by de do'. Dat ol' carpet's spread out; dat one-legged spinnin'-wheel's propped up and standin' roun'; dem ol' stable lanterns is hung to de rafters. I clar' to goodness, ye wouldn't believe! Now dey jes' sont me down for two buckets o' water to fill dat ol' jar we useter hab settin' out here on de po'ch. He and de young mist'ess is out now lookin' for peach blossoms to fill it. He's a wonder, I tell ye!"

The masses of blossoms arranged in the big jar--the tops of their branches reaching the water-stained roof; a canvas for a half-length tacked on a stretcher and placed on an improvised easel, Adam began prying into the dark corners for a seat for his model, Olivia following his every movement, her eyes twice their usual size in her ever-increasing astonishment and delight.

"Hello, here's just the thing!" he shouted, dragging out a high-back chair with some of the lower rungs gone, and dusting it off with his handkerchief. "Sit here and let me see how the light falls. No, that isn't good; that dress won't do at all." (The gown came too far up on her neck to suit this artistic young gentleman's ideas regarding the value of curved lines in portraiture.) "That collar spoils everything. Can't you wear something else? I'd rather see you in full dress. I want the line of the throat ending in the sweep of the shoulder, and then I want the long curl against the flesh tones. You haven't worn your hair that way since I came; and where's the dress you had on the day I arrived? The colors suited you perfectly. I shall never forget how you looked--it was all blossoms, you and everything--and the background of the dark door, and the white of the porch columns, with just a touch of yellow ochre to break it--Oh, it was delicious! Please, now, put that dress on again and wear a low-neck waist with it. The flesh tones of the throat and shoulders will be superb and I know just how to harmonize them with this background."

It was the picture, not the woman, that filled his soul. Flesh tones heightened by a caressing, lingering curl, and relieved by green leaves and flowers, were what had made the Munich picture a success.

"But I haven't any low-necked gowns. Those I had when I was married are all worn out, and I've never needed any since. My nearest neighbors are ten miles away, and half the time I dine with only Phil."

"Well, but can't you fix something?" persisted Adam, bent on the composition he had in his mind. "Everybody's been so good to me here I want this portrait to be the very best I can do. What is in these trunks? There must be some old dresses belonging to somebody's grandmother or somebody's aunt. Do you mind my opening this one? It's unlocked."

Adam lifted the lid. A faded satin gown belonging to the Judge's mother lay on the top. The old lady had been born and brought up under this roof, and was still alive when the Judge's first wife died.

"Here's the very thing."

"And you really want that old frock? All right, Mr. Autocrat, I'll run down and put it on."

She was like a child dressing for her first party. Twice did her hair fall about her shoulders and twice must she gather it up, fingering carefully the long curl, patting it into place; hooking the bodice so that all its modesty would be preserved and yet the line of the throat show clear, shaking out the full, pannier-like skirt until it stood out quite to her liking. Then with a mock curtsey to herself in the glass, she dashed out of the room, up the narrow stairs and into the garret again before he had had time to sort over his brushes.

"Lovely!" he burst out enthusiastically when she had whirled round so he could see all sides of her. "It's more beautiful than the one I first saw you in. Now you look like a bit of old Dresden china--No, I think you look like a little French queen. No, I don't know what you do look like, only you're the loveliest thing I ever saw!"

The gown fitted her perfectly; part of her neck was bare, the single curl, just as he wanted it, straying over it. Then came the waist of ivory-white flowered satin with elbow sleeves, and then the puffy panniers drooped about the slender bodice. As he drank in her beauty the blood went tingling through his veins. He had thought her lovely that first morning when he saw her on the porch: then she was all blossoms; now she was a vision of the olden time for whose lightest smile brave courtiers fought and bled.

"That's it, keep your head up!" he cried, as with many steppings backward and forward, he conducted her to the old chair, and with the air of a grand chamberlain placed her upon it, adding in mock gallantry:

"Sit there, fair lady mine, while your humble slave makes obeisance. To touch the hem of your garment would be--Oh, but aren't you lovely! And the tone of old ivory in the satin, and the exquisite flesh notes--and the way the curl lies on the shoulder! You are adorable!"

And so the picture was begun.

The hours and the days that followed were hours and days of never-ending joy and frolic. While it was still "Mr. Gregg" and "Mrs. Colton," it was as often "Uncle Adam" by little Phil (the three were never separated) and now and then "Marse Adam" by old Bundy, who sought in this way to emphasize his master's injunction to "look after Mr. Gregg's comfort."

[Illustration: And so the picture was begun.]

Nor did the supervision stop here. Under Olivia's instructions and with Bundy's help, the big dining-room table, with the Judge's seat at one end, hers at the other, and little Phil in his high chair in the middle, was given up and moved out as being altogether too formal and the seats too far apart, and a small one, sprinkled daily with fresh damask roses that she herself had culled from the garden, was substituted. The great window in the library, which had always been kept closed by reason of a draught which carromed on the door of the study and struck the Judge somewhere between his neck and his shoulders, was now thrown wide and kept wide, and the porch chairs, three of them, which had precise positions fixed for them between the low windows, were dragged out under the big apple-tree shading the lawn and moved up to another table that Bundy had carried down from one of the spare rooms.

And then the joy of being for the first time the real head of the house when "company" was present--free to pour out her hospitality in her own way--free to fix the hours of breakfast, dinner, and supper, and what should be cooked, and how served; free to roam the rooms at her pleasure, in and out of the silent study without the never-infringed formality of a knock.

And the long talks in the improvised studio, she sitting under the big north window in the softened light of the sheet; the joy she took in his work; the charm of his sympathetic companionship. Then the long rides on horseback when the morning's work was over, she on Black Bess, he on his own mare; the rompings and laughter in the cool woods; the delight over the bursting of new blossoms; the budding of new leaves and tendrils, and the ceaseless song of the birds! Were there ever days like these!

And the swing and dash and freedom of it all! The perfect trust, each in the other. The absence of all coquetry and allurement, of all pretence or sham. Just chums, good fellows, born comrades; joining in the same laugh, stilled by the same thoughts; absorbed in the same incidents, no matter how trivial: the hiving of a swarm of bees, the antics of a pair of squirrels, or the unfolding of a new rose. He twenty-five, clean-souled, happy-hearted; lithe as a sapling and as graceful and full of spring. She twenty-two, soft-cheeked as a summer rose and as sweet and wholesome and as innocent of all guile as a fawn, drinking in for the first time, in unknown pastures, the fresh dew of the morning of life.

And the little comedy in the garret was played to the very end.

Each day my lady would dress herself with the greatest care in the flowered satin and coax the stray curl into position, and each day Adam would go through the ceremony of receiving her at the door with his mahlstick held before him like a staff of state. Then, bowing like a courtier, he would lead her past the yellow satin screen and big jar of blossoms and place her in the high-back chair, little Phil acting as page, carrying her train.

* * * * *

And so the picture was finished!

On that last day, as he stood in front of it, the light softened by the screening sheet falling full upon it, his heart swelled with pride. He knew what his brush had wrought. Not only had he given the exact pose he had labored for--the bent head, the full throat, the slope of the gently falling line from the ear to the edge of the corsage, the round of the white shoulders relieved by the caressing curl; but he had caught a certain joyous light in the eyes--a light which he had often seen in her face when, with a sudden burst of affection, she had strained little Phil to her breast and kissed him passionately.

"I'm not so beautiful as that," she had said to Adam with a deprecatory tone in her voice, as the two stood before it. "It's only because you think I am, and because you've kept on saying it over and over until you believe it. It's the gown and the peach blossoms in the jar behind my chair--not me."

The servants were none the less enthusiastic. Bundy screwed up his toad eyes and expressed the opinion that it was "de 'spress image," and fat old Aunt Dinah, who had stumbled up the garret stairs from the kitchen, the first time in years--her quarters being on the ground floor of one of the cabins--put on her spectacles, and lifting up her hands, exclaimed in a camp-meeting voice:

"De Lawd wouldn't know t'other from which if both on ye went to heaben dis minute! Dat's you, sho' nuff, young mist'ess."

Only one thing troubled the young painter: What would the Judge say when he returned in the morning? What alterations would he insist upon? He had been compelled so many times to ruin a successful picture, just to please the taste of the inexperienced, that he trembled lest this, the best work of his brush, should share their fate. Should the Judge disapprove Olivia's heart would well nigh be broken, for she loved the picture as much as he did himself.

* * * * *

The night before Judge Colton's return the two sat out on the porch in the moonlight. The air was soft and full of the coming summer. Fire-flies darted about; the croaking of tree-toads could be heard. From the quarters of the negroes came the refrain of an old song:

"Corn top's ripe and de meadow's in de bloom, Weep no mo' me lady."

"I feel as if I had been dreaming and had just waked up," sighed Olivia. "Is it all over?"

"Yes, I can't make it any better," he answered in a positive tone, his thoughts on his picture.

"Must you go away after you finish Phil's?" Her mind was not on the portrait.

"Yes, unless the Judge wants his own painted. I wish he would. I'd love to stay with you--you've been so kind to me. Nobody has ever been so good."

"And you've been very kind to me," Olivia sighed. "Oh, so kind!"

"And just think how beautiful it is here," he rejoined; "and the wonderful weather; and the lovely life we have led. You ought to be very contented in so beautiful a home, with everybody so good to you."

"It's all been very, very happy, hasn't it?" She had not listened, nor had she answered him. It was the refrain of the old song that filled her ears.

"Yes, the happiest of my life. If you'd been my own sister you couldn't have been lovelier to me."

"Where shall you go?" She was not looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on the group of trees breaking the sky line.

"Home, to my people," he answered slowly.

"How far away is it?"

"Oh, a long distance! It takes me three days' constant riding to get home."

"And you love them?"

"Yes."

"Do they love you?"

"Yes."

Again the song rolled out:

"Few mo' days to tote de weary load, Weep no mo' me lady."

II

The home-coming of the master brought everybody on the run to the porch: the men in the neighboring field; the gardener, who came bounding over his flower-beds; Aunt Dinah, drying her fat hands on her apron, to grasp her master's; Bundy, who helped him to alight; half a dozen pickaninnies and twice as many dogs, and last Adam and Olivia, who came flying down the front stairs, followed by little Phil.

The Judge alighted from the gig with some difficulty, Bundy guiding his foot so that it rested on the iron step, and helped him to the ground. The ride had been a trying one, and the heat and dust had left their marks on his face.

"And how about the portrait?" were his first words after kissing his wife and child and shaking hands with Gregg. "Is it finished, and are you pleased, my dear?"

"Yes, and it's lovely, only it's not me, I tell him."

"Not you? Who is it, then?"

"Oh, somebody twice as pretty!"

"No. It's not one-quarter, not one-tenth as beautiful!" There was a ring in Adam's voice that showed the tribute came from his heart.

"But that's the dress and the background; and the lovely blossoms. Oh, you'd never believe that old jar could look so well!"

"Background! Jar! Where did you sit?" He had changed his coat now, and Bundy was brushing the dust from his trousers and shoes.

"Oh, up in the garret. You wouldn't know the place. Mr. Gregg pulled everything round until it is the cosiest room you ever saw."

The Judge shot a quick, searching glance at Adam. Then his eye took in the lithe, graceful figure of the young man, so buoyant with health and strength.

"Up in the garret! Why didn't you paint it here, or in the front room?"

"I needed a north light, sir."

"And you could only find that in a garret? I should have thought the parlor was the place for a lady. And are you satisfied with the result?" he asked in a more formal tone, as he dropped into a chair and turned to Adam. The long ride had fatigued him more than he had thought possible.

"Well, it certainly is the best thing I have ever done. The flesh tones are purer, and the----"

The Judge looked up: "Of the face?"

"All the flesh tones--especially the tones around the curl where it lies on the bare shoulder."

He was putting his best foot forward, arguing his side of the case. Half of Olivia's happiness would be gone if her husband were disappointed in the portrait.

"Let us go up and look at it," the Judge said, as if impelled by some sudden resolve.

When he reached the garret--Adam and Olivia and little Phil had gone ahead--he stopped and looked about him.

"Well, upon my soul! You _have_ turned things upside down," he remarked in a graver tone. "And here's where you two have spent all these days, is it?" Again his eye rested on Adam's graceful figure, whose cheeks were flushed with his run upstairs. With the glance came a certain feeling of revolt, as if the lad's very youth were an affront.

"Only in the morning, sir, while the light lasted," explained Adam, noticing the implied criticism in the coldness of the Judge's tones.

"Turn the picture, please, Mr. Gregg."

For a brief moment the Judge, with folded arms, gazed into the canvas; then the straight lips closed, the brow tightened, and an angry glow mounted to the very roots of his gray hair.

"Mr. Gregg," said the Judge in the same measured tone with which he would have sentenced a criminal, "if I did not know you to be a gentleman, and incapable of dishonor, I should ask you to leave my house. You may not have intended it, sir, but you have abused my hospitality and insulted my home. My wife is but a child, and easily influenced, and you should have protected her in my absence, as I would have protected yours. The whole thing is most disturbing, sir--and I----"

"Why--why--what is the matter?" gasped Adam. The suddenness of the attack had robbed him of his breath.