The Strand Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 3/Making an Angel
Making an Angel.
By J. Harwood Panting.
ROTESQUE—yes, that is the word for the gathering.
An ogre cannot always enjoy the regal society of a king; nor can it be said that the features of Hodge are usually to be seen glancing, with grinning condescension, upon a grave Prime Minister. There were other anomalies, too numerous to mention, in the room; for this was one of the workshops of the curious Kingdom of Make-Believe, of which, at the present time, if we may except the aforesaid company, John Farley was the solitary occupant.
John Farley, nicknamed "Daubs," was scene-painter of the Comedy Theatre, Porchester, and this was the room whence proceeded those marvellous designs that stirred the gallery to enthusiastic applause, the boxes to derisive laughter.
"Daubs."
It was the season of pantomime. The curtain had been rung down upon the "grand phantasmagorical, allegorical, and whimsicorical" legend of "King Pippin," and the denizens of that monarch's court—or, rather, their faces—were resting peacefully from their labours on the wall. John Farley, too, was presumably resting from his labours, for he was sitting upon a wooden stool, smoking vigorously, and gazing, with a far-away glance, into the region of Nowhere. It was not a satisfied expression, this of John Farley's—no, decidedly not. It appeared to have a quarrel with the world, but did not seem to know precisely at which quarter of it to commence hostilities. Truth to tell, he was a disappointed man. He had started life, as many another, with high aims and ambitions, and they had brought him no better fruit than scenepainter to the Porchester Theatre, with, instead of academic diplomas and honours, the unflattering title of "Daubs!" Do you wonder, then, that sitting there, a man verging upon the "thirties," he looked upon life with little love, and upon the constituents of its big constituency with little admiration?
John had a private grievance as well as a public. He lived in a flat of a block of houses situate in Seymour-street, about a quarter of an hour's walk from the theatre. For some days past he had determined on making another bid for fame and fortune by painting a grand picture. He had commenced various designs for this "masterpiece," but none of them had proved entirely satisfactory. And now, as though to frustrate all his hopes, a new source of disturbance had arisen. John possessed one of those mercurial, nervous temperaments, born principally of a morbid, solitary life, which demanded absolute quiet for any profitable employment of the intellect. For this reason he detested the atmosphere of a theatre, and for this reason he yet more detested the fate that had cast his fortunes in its midst. In the apartments where he lived, mean as they were, he usually found tranquillity. He at least could think, smoke, sketch, or write, as the fit took him, without disturbance. But now, just at the time when he most desired and needed quiet, the bugbear he fled had attacked him in his very stronghold.
In the rooms beneath those he occupied lived a poor widow with her two children, a boy and girl. John knew this much from the landlady. He knew, too, that the boy was employed at the Comedy Theatre. Further than this he had not cared to inquire. Usually they were as quiet as the proverbial mouse, but latterly John's ears had been afflicted with groans and cries of pain, proceeding from the widow's apartments, and kept up with aggravating regularity throughout the night. They were the cries of a child—no doubt about that and a child in great suffering. A person less centred in his own projects than John might have at least felt some sympathy with the sufferer, but John had evidently lost kinship with the deeper emotions, and instead of sympathy he experienced only a feeling of annoyance and keen resentment against the widow and "her brats," as he styled them. Thus it was that, think as he would, the subject of this grand picture which was to take the world by storm and out-Raphael Raphael, persisted in evading him; and thus it is we find him, in a more cynical mood than usual, at the Comedy Theatre, in no haste to return to the scene of his failures.
"What is the use of striving?" mused John, as he slowly puffed his pipe. "One might as well throw up the sponge. Fate is too much for me. He follows at my elbow everywhere. His usual running-ground is not enough for him. Now he follows me home, and gives me a solo of his own peculiar music through one of his imps."
A timid knock sounded upon the door. John was busy with his thoughts, and did not hear it.
"That theory of Longfellow's is correct—art is long. In what sphere could you find a longer? Supportable might this be, but cold indifference to a poor devil aching for a gleam of sympathy is insupportable."
"It was an imp."
The knock at the door was repeated, but with the same effect as before.
"The grinning public—just tickle its side: that is all it needs. He who caters most to its stupidity in life is he who gains the proud distinction of a public mausoleum at his death. I have not got quite into the way, but still I see in perspective a monument dedicated to—'Daubs.'"
A sound, light as gossamer wing, was heard in the room. John Farley turned his head. Then he stared; then he rubbed his eyes; then he stared again. Well he might. Was this an offspring of the immortal whom he had just been apostrophising?
It was decidedly an imp—at least it had the apparel of one. It was clothed in scarlet; dependent from its haunches was a tail; on its head a Satanic cowl. But there was melancholy rather than mischief in its eye, and it was of a restful, confiding brown rather than an unrestful, flashing black.
John again inserted his knuckles in his eyes, and waved off the smoke from his pipe. And then he recognised his uncanny visitor. It was the little son of the widow who lived under his flat. He was one of the imps of King Pippin's kingdom in the pantomime, and doomed for a small pittance to indulge his apish tricks nightly with the gnomes and fairies of that fanciful realm.
"Daubs!" said the imp.
Yes, only that was necessary to incite John's wrath. A nickname that was supportable from the actors and scene-shifters was insupportable from a child.
"Daubs" therefore turned sharply upon the boy:—
"Are you referring to me?"
"Yes, sir."
John was on the point of brusquely informing the lad that he was not acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Daubs, and peremptorily showing him the door. A glance from the honest brown eyes, however, restrained him. It told him that what he had at first assumed to be impudence was really the result of ignorance—that, and only that.
"I would like to know you, Mr. Daubs. You don't mind knowing a little boy—do you?"
John opened his eyes in astonishment. What a curious imp! John was not aware that anybody had any particular desire for his society; in fact, the reverse had hitherto seemed the case. He was usually regarded as an unsociable being.
"I have not the least objection to making your acquaintance," said he, unreluctantly, it must be confessed.
"Oh, thank you," said the little fellow, drawing nearer, and putting his hand confidingly in John's, and looking up at him with bright, happy eyes. "Then perhaps I may—may I?"
What "may I" meant was gentle pressure of the lips upon the smoky cheek of John. If John had been astonished before he was still more astonished now—so much so that the pipe he was smoking fell from his fingers, and was broken into fragments on the floor. What had he, a grumpy bachelor, to do with kissing? Twenty years had passed since his cheek had felt the pressure of lips, and then they were the death-cold lips of a younger brother—surely about the size of this strange imp—who had left him with that dumb farewell for ever.
"What is your name, my lad?" said he, softly.
"Willie Maxwell. Mother calls me 'her Willie.' Dodo—that is my sister, you know when she is well" (here the little fellow sighed) "says that I'm her pet. But at the theatre I'm only known as 'Fourth Imp.' Mr. Billings"—Mr. Billings was the stage-manager of the Comedy—"has promised that, if I'm a good boy, I shall some day be First Imp!"
"That will be a rise in the world, and no mistake," remarked John.
"Well, Mr. Daubs, it will be a little more money for mother—threepence extra a night—but I shouldn't like to push out Teddy Morris. You know Teddy?"
John was obliged to confess that he had not the honour of that young gentleman's acquaintance. He never troubled himself with anything or anybody outside his own department.
"Teddy Morris is First Imp. He doesn't like me, you know, because he thinks I'm—what do you call it, Mr. Daubs?"
"Ambitious?"
"Yes, 'bitious, that's the word."
John's crusty humour was gradually melting, and he smiled—first, at anyone disliking this frank, affectionate boy; next, at the rivalry of the imps. "All the world," thought he, "is indeed a stage, and the struggle for a position on it extends to strange quarters."
"But I'm not 'bitious, Mr. Daubs"—here Willie paused, and deliberately climbed on John's knee—"no, I really ain't, 'cept of you!"
John started at this bold confession. He was on the point of exploding into loud laughter, but the brown eyes were looking earnestly into his, and with these searching witnesses before him John thought that such an ebullition of mirth would be little short of profanation.
"Oh, you're ambitious of me, are you? Well, my little man, if it's your intention to supplant me as scene-painter to the Comedy Theatre, I'm exceedingly grateful to you for giving me due notice of the fact. Only let me know when you think I ought to resign my position, won't you?"
"Yes," assented Willie, with childish naïveté; and then, putting his head nearer to John's, as though to take him into still closer confidence—"Do you know, I've often seen you, and wanted to speak to you, but somehow I've not liked to. I've watched you when you weren't looking, and you've always seemed to look like—you don't mind a little boy saying it, Mr. Daubs—like that." Willie pointed to a mask of one of the ogres. John did not think the comparison very flattering, and felt very uncomfortable. The next instant the child was nestling closer to him; a pair of thin arms were clasped tightly round John's neck; and the lips which again pressed his whispered softly: "But you're not a bit like that now, Mr. Daubs."
Then the comparison was forgiven, but not forgotten.
"Tell me, Willie, why you are ambitious of me? Ambitious of me," John mentally added, "who thought myself the least envied mortal in the world!"
Willie's only answer was to take John's big hand into his small one; then he instituted a minute comparison between the two; then he patted it fondly; then he dropped it suddenly, and remained buried in deep thought. John gave himself up to the child's whim. It was a delicious experience—the more delicious because unexpected. This was an infantile world, made up of quaint ideas and actions, of which even the memory had been almost obliterated from his mind. Thought took him back to its last link—that which had been rudely snapped by the death of his brother. He sighed, and the sigh was echoed.
"It will be a long while—many years, I suppose, Mr. Daubs—before my hand gets like yours?"
"Painting's very hard, Sir—ain't it?"
Mr. Daubs thought it would be. Willie sighed again. "Painting's very hard, sir—ain't it?"
"Oh, no, my boy; it's the easiest thing in the world," said the artist bitterly; "and the world accepts it at its right value, for it is never inclined to pay very dearly for it. Just a few paints, a brush, and there you are."
"Well, Mr. Daubs, I hardly think that's quite right—you don't mind my saying so, do you?—'cause I saved up a shilling and bought a paint-brush and some paints, and tried ever so hard to make a picture, but it was no use. No, it was nothing like a picture—all smudge, you know—so I thought that p'raps God never meant little boys should make pictures, and that I would have to wait till I grew up like you, Mr. Daubs."
"It's as well somebody should think I can paint pictures; but do you know, my young art critic, that many persons have no higher estimate of my efforts than you have of yours—that is to say," seeing the eyes widening in astonishment, "their term for them is 'smudge!'"
"No, do they say that? No, Mr. Daubs, they wouldn't dare," said Willie, indignantly. "Why, you paint lovely horses and flowers, and trees, and mountains, and your birds, if they could only sing, like the little bird Dodo once had, they would seem quite alive."
John had never had so flattering, nor so unique a criticism of his art. "Molière," thought he, "used to read his plays to the children, and gather something from their prattle. Why should I disdain opinion from a like source, especially as it chimes in so beautifully with what my vanity would have had me acknowledge long since?"
"Well, youngster, admitting that I am the fine artist you would make of me, what then? In what way do you expect to convert a world which prefers real horses, real trees, and real birds? See, now, even here at the Comedy Theatre we have only to announce on the playbills that a real horse, a real steam-engine, or a real goose or donkey, for that matter, will be exhibited, and the best efforts of my artistic genius are thrown into the shade. You are a case in point. Could I draw an imp that would meet with half the success that you do? But what nonsense I am talking—you don't understand a word of it."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Daubs, I do—something. Do you know what I think?"
"Say on, youngster."
"I think we don't often know or think what is best for us. Mother says little boys don't always know what is best for them. Real' is a live thing—ain't it? I used to think, Mr. Daubs, you were a real live ogre once. But now I know you ain't—are you?" This with a pressure of the arms again round John's neck. What could the "real live ogre" say to such an appeal? After a pause: "Mr. Daubs, can I tell you something—may I?"
John assented, wondering what was the next strange thing this curious sprite would ask.
"And will you say 'yes' to what I ask?"
John again assented, though he thought that possibly his assent might necessitate a journey to Timbuctoo.
"Well, I want you to make me—an angel!" And then he quickly added, seeing the startled expression on John's face, "You are so clever!"
"An angel!"
"Yes, an angel. You won't say no?"
There was a quiver of anxiety in the boy's tones. "It's for Dodo."
"For Dodo! But, child, I'm not a manufacturer of angels!"
"But you can draw birds. Birds have wings, and so have angels, and it's for Dodo," he again repeated.
The logic of Willie's reasoning was irrefutable. Where was John standing? He scarcely knew. He had caught the boy's conception. This, then, was the reason of his anxiety to become an artist. Never imp was surely such a seraph! The angel was for his sister. They were her moans and cries John had heard in his lonely chamber these three nights past, and it was with an angel her brother hoped, in his childish imagination, to bring relief from pain and suffering. With one quick flash of inspiration John saw it all—the intense longing, the all-embracing love, the unselfishness, the exquisite sense of bringing to suffering its one great alleviation. And as he thought, John's head dropped, and a tear fell on the eager, youthful face upturned to his.
"Mother says that all angels are in heaven, and Dodo's always talking about angels. She says she wants to see one, and would like one to come to her. But they can't, Mr. Daubs, unless we first go to them. And I don't want—no, no, I don't want"—with a big sob—"Dodo—to—go—away. If I could take it to her she would stay here."
John's heart was full—full to overflowing. He could scarcely speak.
"Go—go, and change your clothes, youngster, and we will try to make you an angel."
"Oh, thank you so much."
In a flash Willie was gone, and John was left alone. "Heaven help me!" he said, with a tender, pathetic glance in the direction whence the little figure had vanished; "Heaven help me!" and John did what he had not done since his own brother died. He fell upon his knees, and sent a hasty prayer heavenward for inspiration. Then he took a large piece of cardboard, and some crayons, and commenced—making an angel! He worked as one inspired. With nervous, skilful fingers he worked. All was silent in the great city below; the stillness lent inspiration to the artist's imagination. Never had he seemed in closer touch with Heaven. To give John his due, the petty contentions of men had always been beneath him, but the "peace which passeth understanding " had never been his, because of the selfishness by which his better nature had been warped. Now, through this child's unselfishness, he almost heard the flapping of angelic wings, and he depicted them, in all their softened beauty, upon his cardboard, with a face between that seemed to look out in ineffable love upon a guilt-laden world. This was what the artist wrought.
"Oh, Mr. Daubs!"
The exclamation was pregnant with meaning. Willie had returned, and was devouring with open mouth and eyes the sketch of the angel.
"Well, youngster, do you think that will do for Dodo?"
"And that's for Dodo?" was the only answer, for the boy was still absorbed in the artist's creation.
"Have you ever seen an angel, Mr. Daubs? Ah, you must have. I knew you were clever at horses, and trees, and birds, and skies, but I didn't guess you were so good at angels. It's just what mother said they were!"
"There, don't make me vain, but take it; and"—added John partly to himself, "may the King of Cherubim hold in reserve his messenger, not for a death-warrant, but a blessing!"
"Thank you, so much. But I'm going to pay you, you know." And Willie drew out proudly an old pocket-handkerchief, and, applying his teeth vigorously to a special corner of it, took therefrom a sixpence.
John smiled, but took the coin without a word. Then he lifted the boy up, and kissed him tenderly. The next moment he was alone; Willie had departed with his angel. The artist listened to the pattering footsteps as they descended the stairs, then bowed his head upon his arms, and what with his three nights of unrest, and thinking over what he had been and might have been, fell into a profound sleep.
Not long had he been in the land of counterpane, when of a sudden there was a stir from without.
The night air was quick with cries, and a childish treble seemed to echo and re-echo above them all. There was something familiar in this latter sound. It was as a harsh note on a diapason that had but recently brought him sweetest music.
In a moment John had gained the street. He had connected the cry with one object—Willie. That object had for him a value infinite, so quick in its power of attraction is the spark of sympathy when once kindled. John's view of life had seemed, in this last half-hour, to have greatly widened. It took account of things previously unnoticed; it opened up feelings long dormant. His ear was strangely sensitive to the beat of this new pulse—so much so that a vague terror shaped itself out of that night-cry. It seemed to him to portend disaster.
"What is that?"
But surely his worst fears are realised! What is that moving mass away in the distance? Soon John has reached the spot. He hears a hum of sympathy, and then there is a reverential silence: John's ears have caught the pitying accents of a bystander, "Poor lad! Heaven help him!"
"Help him! Help whom?"
John's mind is quick at inference. He parts the crowd, and with certain glance looks upon its point of observation. He knew it no need of words to tell him. A little form is there, mangled with the hoofs of a horse. Its life-blood is slowly oozing out on the pavement. The face has the hue of death—no mistaking that—and yet it has around it something of the halo of saintship. John gazes as one distraught. The face he sees, now pinched with the agonies of death, is that of Willie Maxwell!
"Good God, is it possible?"
But a brief moment or two since, it seemed to John, this poor boy was in the bloom of health, full of the radiant sunshine of life. Now the finger of death had touched him, and he stood on the threshold of the Kingdom of Shadows.
For an instant John was ready to launch again his maledictions against Fate. The presence of this child had cast a ray of sunshine on a sunless existence—had given to it a brief gleam of happiness, which was flickering out in this tragic way on the roadside. John had so frequently taken a selfish estimate of life, that even in this supreme crisis that feeling was momentarily uppermost, but only momentarily. The child was resting in the arms of a rough carman, and as John looked a spasm of returning consciousness passed over the little sufferer's frame. Then there was a faint moan. Was there a chance of saving the boy's life? John came closer, and as he did so a light seemed to radiate from the child's face on to his.
Now the eyes are looking at him in a pained, dazed way. There is a gleam of recognition, and about the mouth flickers a smile of content..
"Mr. Da—Da—Daubs,—I'm—so—glad—you've—come."
John kneels on the ground, and kisses the pale, cold lips of the sufferer. The little arms are nervously at work; then with an effort they are extended towards him "Will you please take this, Mr. Daubs?"
John looked. It was the sketch of the angel! "I'm so glad I didn't drop it. I held it tight, you see, Mr. Daubs—oh, so tight! I was afraid Dodo wouldn't get it. No one knows Dodo, you see. I can't—take—it—to her—to-night; so—will you—please?"
John's tears are falling fast upon the pavement. He seems to hear the stifled sobs of the bystanders as he takes in his hand the sketch of the angel. "I shall—see her—again—when the—light comes. Now—it is—so dark—and cold—so cold!" John mechanically takes off his coat, and wraps it around the little form.
"Thank you—Mr. Daubs—you're—a—kind gentleman. May I—may I?"—John had heard a similar request before that evening, and thanked God that he knew what it meant. He bent his face forward. "That for dear—dear mother, and that for—darling—sister—sister Dodo."
As John's lips received the death-cold kisses, a strange thing happened. The picture of the angel was suddenly wrested from his grasp, and flew upward and upward, in shape like a bat. There was a moment of mystery—of intense darkness and solemn silence. Then the heavens were agleam with sunshine, and John seemed to see radiant forms winging their way earthward. One of these outsped the rest. Nearer and nearer it came, and John in wonderment fixed his gaze intently thereon. He had never seen a real angel before, but he recognised this one. It was the angel he had sketched, transfigured into celestial life. It came to where the child rested, and John fell backward, dazzled with its light. When he looked up again the child and the angel had both vanished, and all was again dark.
"Daubs, Daubs! Wake up, wake up!"
John looked up with sleepy eyes. Where the deuce was he? Not in any angelic presence, that was certain. The voice was not pitched in a very heavenly key, and wafted odours of tobacco and beer rather than frankincense and myrrh. John pinched himself to make sure he was awake. This was assuredly no celestial visitor, but Verges—that was his theatrical nickname—the Comedy Theatre watchman.
"Is it you, Verges? Will you have the kindness to tell me where I am?" John looked around him in bewilderment. The masks seemed grinning at him in an aggravating way.
"Well, you are at present, Mister, in the Comedy Theatre; but you was just now very soundly in the land of Nod, I guess. You'd make a splendid watchman, you would!"
Verges' denunciation came with beautiful appropriateness, as he had just come from the public-house opposite, where he had been indulging in sundry libations for this hour past at the expense of some of its customers.
"It is a dream, then—not a hideous reality? Thank God, thank God!"
"What's a dream?" said Verges, looking with some apprehension at John. When he saw that gentleman begin to caper round the room his fears were not lessened, for he thought that John had taken leave of some of his senses.
"Am I awake now, Verges?"
"Well, you look like it.'
"You are certain?" and he put a shilling into Verges' hand.
"I never knew you to be more waker. You can keep on being as wide-awake as you please at the same price, Mister!"
"Wake up, wake up!"
"Give me my hat and coat, Verges. Thank you," and John passed rapidly out at the door with a hasty "Good night!" Verges looked after him with wide-mouthed astonishment; then he looked at the piece of money in his hand; then he tapped his forehead, and shook his head ominously, muttering, "Daubs is daft—clean daft!"
John would not trust his waking senses till he reached the corner of the street at which he had seen so vividly in his dream the incidents just recorded. A solitary policeman was walking up and down, and not so much as a vehicle was to be seen. And then another fear took possession of John. Was his dream a presentiment of danger, and had an accident befallen Willie in some other form?
He soon reached his lodgings, hurried up the staircase, and listened fearfully outside the widow's door. Nobody seemed astir, but he could see that a light was burning within. Should he knock? What right had he, a perfect stranger, to intrude at this unreasonable hour? He remembered, too, his bitter thoughts and words about the widow and her children—her "brats!" So he mounted reluctantly to his apartments. How the silence—previously so much desired—oppressed him! He would eagerly have welcomed at that moment a cry, a sob, or any sound of life from the room below. But the sufferer gave no token, and John, in turn, became the sufferer in the worst form of suffering—that of mental anguish.
He could stand it no longer. John determined, at any cost, to see whether or not Willie had returned in safety. So he descended, and knocked at Mrs. Maxwell's door.
"Come in," said a quiet voice, and John opened the door. The first thing that met his gaze was his picture of the angel hanging at the head of a child's cot. Beneath it, calmly asleep, was Dodo—Willie's sister. A frail morsel of humanity she seemed, with pale, almost transparent, complexion—the paler by its contrasting framework of golden hair. Mrs. Maxwell was busily engaged at needlework. She hastily rose when she saw her visitor. "I thought it was Mrs. Baker" (Mrs. Baker was the landlady), she said. "She usually looks in the last thing."
"Pardon me for intruding, but I was anxious to know whether your son had arrived here in safety?"
"Yes, oh yes; some time since. Are you the gentleman who gave him the angel?"
"Yes," said John, simply.
"Thank you so much; you have made my little girl so happy. Children have strange fancies in sickness, and she has been talking about nothing but angels for days past. See," pointing to the sleeping child, it is the first night she has slept soundly for a whole week."
The holiest feeling John had ever experienced since he knelt as a child at his mother's knee passed over him. He had never before felt so thoroughly that a good action was its own reward.
"May I crave one great favour as a return for so trivial a service? Will you let me see your son?"
The widow immediately arose, took a lamp, and beckoned John to follow her into the next room. There was little Willie fast asleep in his cot. His lips, even in his sleep, were wreathed in a happy smile, and as John bent and reverently kissed them, they murmured softly: "Mr. Daubs!"
When John again mounted to his chamber it was with a light heart. His evil angel—dissatisfaction—had gone out of him, and his good angel—contentment—reigned in its stead.
From that time forth he shared the widow's vigils; he was to her an elder son—to the children, a loving brother. His heart, too, expanded in sympathy for his fellows, and under this genial influence his energies, previously cramped, expanded also. The best proof I can give of this, if proof be necessary, is that the picture which he shortly afterwards exhibited, entitled "The Two Angels," was the picture of the year, and brought to him the fame which had previously so persistently evaded him. One of the happiest moments in his life was when he took Dodo—now quite recovered—and Willie to view his "masterpiece."
