Free Sir William by David Stacton

only what he saw. And who could get a woman to sit still long enough to show her character? She knows better. As soon as you begin to get close, she begins to fidget. As for sharing the canvas with anyone less undifferentiated than a child, that was out of the question, so there went composition. Even Reynolds had been constrained to draw the Waldegrave sisters separately.
    Hayley wanted a portrait of Serena, engravable for a new edition of the Triumphs of Temper, and therefore an excellent advertisement for them both. The Triumphs of Temper is a poem of ideas. Where another poet would match words, therefore, Hayley matched wool. “He is a workbasket poet,” said Farrington, just as catty as Northcote and every inch the R.A. “His verses are upon every girl’s sofa.” And so they were, laid face down. A fresh edition appeared every year, at Confirmation time.
    “But can she sit still?” asked Romney. “I am slow to compose.”
    “I fear she sits still for quite long periods of time,” said Hayley. “She is a sweet thing, and has little else to do. Greville keeps her, you see.”
    “Oh Greville,” said Romney, with a contemptuoussnort. He, too, had had to deal with the purity and exactitude of Greville’s taste. “Very well, bring her along, and we’ll take a look at her.” It was Greville who had told him he was not quite ready yet. He decided to up his price, should a commission be forthcoming.
    And so the second lesson began, with the first one as yet unlearned.

II
    T HOUGH AMORAL in important matters, Greville was strict in trifles, and insisted upon a duenna, so Mrs. Cadogan went along.
    As the sittings progressed, and there were to be more than three hundred of them, she spent most of her time reorganizing the kitchen. Romney came from their own part of the world. The three of them understood each other at once. No matter what their vices, they were all innocent in a most venal town, and if Mrs. Cadogan was perhaps less innocent than they were, why that only improved her cooking, which was a blessing, considering what Romney generally ate. Within the confines of the studio they were quite gay, like prisoners in Bedlam, who do not care where they are.
    “And where is your wife, Mr. Romney?” asked Mrs. Cadogan, a woman’s first question to any seemingly single man.
    “At home where she belongs, I trust.” Romney liked women well enough. It was only their company he could not abide. Their company fell short of the ideal. And answering a woman’s second question before it was put, with a glance at the stack of portraits in the corner, waiting for delivery, he added: “She is well provided for.”
    “And your children?” Mrs. Cadogan persisted.
    “With my wife. I would prefer that in their youngeryears they had some experience of the country, which is wholesome, so I am told.” Though it was all very well for Reynolds to do the Honourable This or That as the Infant Samuel, that was by no means the same as having the pudgy things pewling about underfoot. No doubt Reynolds loved children, but Reynolds was a bachelor, and so could well afford the sentiment. Sentiment is not the same as rocks in one’s best asphaltum, and three pounds’ worth of chrome yellow expended upon the funeral of a dead cat.
    “Sir, you need a woman’s care,” said Mrs. Cadogan, unimpressed.
    “The char comes in every second Wednesday. I also need peace and quiet.”
    Neither one of them had won. It was therefore necessary, as it is after inconclusive battles, to declare an entente cordiale. Mrs. Cadogan sailed off to the kitchen. He was, she confided afterward, a dear old gentleman.
    He was nothing of the sort. He was merely a boy tortured by a vision he could not even see, who drew very badly, and who was forty-eight; in short, as lonely as a genius, even if he was not one.
    “Ah,” he said, “the music of the spheres,” for he had heard a kettle boiling. Inside of two weeks the studio reeked of boiled cabbage,