Chapter 1

Philip had at least two good reasons for being in high feather that
morning. The first of these was that barely a week ago, with a
magnificent new quill pen, he had signed the Roll, had shaken august
hands, and was now Philip Esdaile, A.R.A., probably the most gifted
among the younger generation of painters of the pictorial phenomena of
Light.

I and his second reason for contentment happened to arrive almost
simultaneously at the wrought-iron gate that opened on to his little
front garden. We all knew that for many months past our barrister
friend, Billy Mackwith, had been tracking down and buying in again on
Philip's behalf a number of Philip's earlier pictures--prodigal
pictures, parted with for mere bread-and-butter during the years of
struggle, and now very well worth Philip's re-purchase if he could get
them into his possession again. (I may perhaps say at once that I don't
think Philip owed his Associateship to his pictures of that period. It
is far more likely that the artist thus honored was Lieutenant Esdaile,
R.N.V.R., sometime one of the Official Painters to the Admiralty.)

A carrier's van stood drawn up opposite the gate, and I saw Mackwith's
slim, silk-hatted and morning-coated figure jump down from the seat next
to the driver. Evidently Philip had seen the arrival of the van too, for
he ran down the short flagged path to meet us.

"You don't mean to say you've brought them all?" he cried eagerly.

"The whole lot. Fourteen," Mackwith replied. "Glad I just caught you
before you left."

Esdaile and his family were leaving town that morning for some months on
the Yorkshire Coast, and it was this departure that was the occasion of
the farewell breakfast.

The three of us carried the recovered canvases through the small annexe,
where the breakfast-table was already laid, and into the large studio
beyond. There we stood admiring them as they leaned, framed and
unframed, against easels and along the walls. No doubt you remember
Esdaile's paintings of that period--the gay white and gray of his
tumultuous skies, the splash and glitter of his pools and fountains,
the crumbling wallflowered masonry of his twentieth-century
_fêtes-champêtre_. There is nothing psychical or philosophic about them.
He simply has that far rarer possession, an eye in his head to see
straight with.

"Well, which of 'em are you going to have for yourself, just by way of
thank-you, Billy?" the painter asked. "Any you like; I owe you the best
of them and more.... And of course here comes Hubbard. Always does blow
in just as things are being given away, if it's only a pink gin. How are
you, Cecil?"

The new-comer wore aiguillettes and the cuff-rings of a Commander, R.N.
He was a comparatively new friend of mine, but for two years off and on
had been a shipmate of Esdaile's, and I liked the look of his honest red
face and four-square and blocklike figure. We turned to the pictures
again. I think their beauties were largely thrown away on Hubbard.
Somebody ought to have told him that their buying-in meant a good
thousand pounds in Esdaile's pocket. Then he would have looked at them
in quite a different manner.

In the middle of the inspection Joan Merrow's white frock and
buttercupped hat appeared in the doorway, and we were bidden to come in
to breakfast. Monty Rooke and Mrs. Cunningham had just arrived, which
made our party complete.

The little recess in which we breakfasted was filled with the sunlight
reflected from the garden outside. Everything in it--the napkins and
fruit and chafing-dishes on the table, the spring flowers in the bowls,
the few chosen objects on the buff-washed walls, the showery festoon of
the chandelier overhead--had the soft irradiation of a face seen under a
parasol. Little shimmers of light, like love-making butterflies, danced
here and there whenever glasses or carafes were moved, and the
stretches of shining floor almost looked as if trout might have lurked
beneath them.

And where the tall French windows stood wide open the light seemed to be
focused as if by a burning-glass on the two little Esdaile boys who
played beneath the mulberry that rose above the studio roof.

I don't suppose the whole of Chelsea could have shown a merrier
breakfast-party than we made that May morning. For, in addition to our
host's new Associateship and those fourteen wandering pictures safely
back home again, we had a further occasion for light-heartedness that I
haven't mentioned yet. This was the wedding, to take place that day
week, of Mrs. Cunningham and Monty Rooke. Philip was generously lending
them his house and studio for the summer. Monty we had all known for
years, but Mrs. Cunningham I for one set eyes on for the first time that
morning. Later I got a much more definite impression of her. For the
present I noticed only her slender and beautiful black-chiffon-covered
arms, the large restless dark eyes that seemed to disengage themselves
from under the edge of her black satin turban hat, and her manicured
fingers that reminded you of honeysuckle. The Esdailes had received her
"on the ground floor," so to speak, and it obviously pleased Monty that
Philip had called her Audrey straight away.

So we talked of the approaching wedding, and the Associateship, and the
painting-cottage in Yorkshire, and so back to the pictures again. On
this subject Commander Hubbard unhesitatingly took the lead.

"Well, it's certainly Art for mine my second time on earth," he
good-humoredly railed, the aiguillettes swinging gently on his breast.
"Fancy going out of town this weather! Taking away all that gear behind
the bulkhead there,"--he jerked his head to where Philip's painting
paraphernalia lay ready packed in the hall--"a few yards of raw canvas
bent on battens--and bringing it back again worth twenty pounds an
inch!"

Hubbard had a Whitehall job that summer, and loathed it. Esdaile
laughed.

"Can't see why they didn't make me a full Academician while they were
about it," he said.

"_And_ he's grumbling!" Hubbard retorted. "Perfectly revolting fellow.
That's too much lunching with Admirals. Listen, Mrs. Esdaile, and I'll
tell you the kind of thing we mere senior officers had to put up with. A
hoist breaks out from the flagship, and every glass in the Squadron is
glued to it. You'd think at least we were to proceed to sea immediately.
Nothing of the sort! It's the Admiral presenting his compliments to this
wretched wavy-ringed fellow your husband, and would he give him the
pleasure--would Lieutenant Esdaile, R.N.V.R., condescend--stoop--to take
luncheon with him! The Admiral, if you please! And that's what it is to
be an Official Painter!"

Esdaile laughed again. He was trying to remove in one unbroken piece the
paring of an apple for Joan Merrow.

"Give him a smile now and then and he'll eat out of your hand, Mollie,"
he said. "Now, Joan, the last little bit--this is where a steady hand
comes in--there!" He held up in triumph the wiggle of apple paring.
"Throw it over your left shoulder and see what initial it makes on the
floor. Here's my guess on this bit of paper under my napkin--'C for
Ch' ... Ah, clumsy infant!" The strip had fallen in two pieces. "There
goes your luck. Allee done gone finish. I'll have the apple myself;
you'd better go and write the rest of those labels."

The Esdailes had to all intents and purposes adopted Joan Merrow now
that she was alone in the world. On the day when Philip, half scared by
the risks he was taking, had informed his private pupils that their
tuition took up too much of his painting-time, he had not included Joan.
She had continued to prime his canvases and to make use of his models at
long range from odd corners of the studio; and then, during his absence
on Service, she had come to live in the house, had taught and mended for
the children, and had been companion and friend to Mollie. By an
affectionate fiction, her former fees were supposed to cover the cost of
her board, and a proper arrangement was to be come to one of these days.
She was twenty, had only lately ceased to have the stripling figure that
is all youth and no sex, and was already acquiring that mystery of
physical shape and of mind and emotion that causes men's heads to turn
behind and their lips to murmur, "Ah--in another year or so----"

There was still the faint echo of chattering schoolrooms in the repartee
that came from her pretty lips. Pertly and with little tosses of her
head she enumerated the duties she had discharged that morning.

"The labels are all distinctly written, with the name at the top, then a
space, and 'Santon, Yorks' quite at the bottom so you can tear it off
and use the label again for somewhere else. Both the taxis are ordered
for one-thirty, and Mr. Rooke won't have to send on letters because
they're all being re-addressed at the Post Office. The doors and windows
are all fastened, and I've shown Mrs. Cunningham where everything is
for after the wedding. And I didn't want the apple, and you've no
business to write things about me on your horrid bits of paper!"

And we all laughed as she suddenly twitched Philip's napkin away and
tucked the horrid bit of paper safely away into her bosom.