# The Tillotson Banquet

    "... The obituary has never been used or added to. I draw the obvious conclusion: the old chap is n't dead yet. He's just been overlooked somehow." "But this is extraordinary," Lord Badgery exclaimed. "You must find him, Spode; you must find him. I 'll commission him to paint frescoes round this room. It's just what I 've always vainly longed for—a real nineteenth-century artist to decorate this place for me. Oh, we must find him at once—at once."
The Tillotson Banquet
By ALDOUS HUXLEY
Illustrations by J. C. Coll.
YOUNG Spode was not a snob; he was too intelligent for that, too fundamentally decent. Not a snob; but all the same he could not help feeling very well pleased at the thought that he was dining, alone and intimately, with Lord Badgery. It was a definite event in his life, a step forward, he felt, toward that final success, social, material, and literary, which he had come to London with the fixed intention of making. The conquest and capture of Badgery was an almost essential strategical move in the campaign. Edmund, forty-seventh Baron Badgery, was a lineal descendant of that Edmund, surnamed Le Blayreau, who landed on English soil in the train of William the Conqueror. Ennobled by William Rufus, the Badgerys had been one of the very few baronial families to survive the Wars of the Roses and all the other changes and chances of English history. They were a sensible and philoprogenitive race. No Badgery had ever fought in any war, no Badgery had ever engaged in any kind of politics. They had been content to live and quietly to propagate their species in a huge machicolated Norman castle, surrounded by a triple moat, only sallying forth to cultivate their property and to collect their rents. In the eighteenth century, when life had become relatively secure, the Badgerys began to venture forth into civilized society. From boorish squires they blossomed into grands seigneurs, patrons of the arts, virtuosi. Their property was large, they were rich; and with the growth of industrialism their riches also grew. Villages on their estate turned into manufacturing towns, unsuspected coal was discovered beneath the surface of their barren moorlands. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Badgerys were among the richest of English noble families. The forty-seventh baron disposed of an income of at least two hundred thousand pounds a year. Following the great Badgery tradition, he had refused to have anything to do with politics or war. He occupied himself by collecting pictures; he took an interest in theatrical productions; he was the friend and patron of men of letters, of painters, and musician. A personage, in a word, of considerable consequence in that particular world in which young Spode had elected to make his success.
Spode had only recently left the university. Simon Gollamy, the editor of "The World's Review" ("the best of all possible worlds") had got to know him,—he was always on the look out for youthful talent,—had seen possibilities in the young man, and appointed him art critic of his paper. Gollamy liked to have young and teachable people about him. The possession of disciples flattered his vanity, and he found it easier, moreover, to run his paper with docile collaborators than with men grown obstinate and case-hardened with age. Spode had not done badly at his new job. At any rate, his articles had been intelligent enough to arouse the interest of Lord Badgery. It was, ultimately, to them that he owed the honor of sitting to-night in the dining-room of Badgery House.
Fortified by several varieties of wine and a glass of aged brandy, Spode felt more confident and at ease than he had done the whole evening. Badgery was rather a disquieting host. He had an alarming habit of changing the subject of any conversation that had lasted for more than two minutes. Spode had found it, for example, horribly mortifying when his host, cutting across what was, he prided himself, a particularly subtle and illuminating disquisition on baroque art, had turned a wandering eye about the room and asked him abruptly whether he liked parrots. He had flushed and glanced suspiciously towards him, fancying that the man was trying to be offensive. But no; Badgery's white, fleshy, Hanoverian face wore an expression of perfect good faith. There was no malice in his small greenish eyes. He evidently did genuinely want to know if Spode liked parrots. The young man swallowed his irritation and replied that he did. Badgery then told a good story about parrots. Spode was on the point of capping it with a better story, when his host began to talk about Beethoven. And so the game went on. Spode cut his conversation to suit his host's requirements. In the course of ten minutes he had made a more or less witty epigram on Benvenuto Cellini, Queen Victoria, sport, God, Stephen Phillips, and Moorish architecture. Lord Badgery thought him the most charming young man, and so intelligent.
"If you 've quite finished your coffee," he said, rising to his feet as he spoke, "we 'll go and look at the pictures."
Spode jumped up with alacrity, and only then realized that he had drunk just ever so little too much. He would have to be careful, talk deliberately, plant his feet consciously, one after the other.
"This house is quite cluttered up with pictures," Lord Badgery complained. "I had a whole wagon-load taken away to the country last week; but there are still far too many. My ancestors would have their portraits painted by Romney. Such a shocking artist, don't you think? Why could n't they have chosen Gainsborough, or even Reynolds? I 've had all the Romneys hung in the servants' hall now. It's such a comfort to know that one can never possibly see them again. I suppose you know all about the ancient Hittites?"
"Well—" the young man replied, with befitting modesty.
"Look at that, then." He indicated a large stone head which stood in a case near the dining-room door. "It's not Greek, or Egyptian, or Persian, or anything else; so if it is n't ancient Hittite, I don't know what it is. And that reminds me of that story about Lord George Sanger, the Circus King—" and, without giving Spode time to examine the Hittite relic, he led the way up the huge staircase, pausing every now and then in his anecdote to point out some new object of curiosity or beauty.
"I suppose you know Deburau's pantomimes?" Spode rapped out as soon as the story was over. He was in an itch to let out his information about Deburau. Badgery had given him a perfect opening with his ridiculous Sanger. "What a perfect man, is n't he? He used to—"
"This is my main gallery," said Lord Badgery, throwing open one leaf of a tall folding-door. "I must apologize for it. It looks like a roller-skating rink." He fumbled with the electric switches and there was suddenly light—light that revealed an enormous gallery, duly receding into distance according to all the laws of perspective. "I dare say you 've heard of my poor father," Lord Badgery continued. "A little insane, you know; sort of mechanical genius with a screw loose. He used to have a toy railway in this room. No end of fun he had, crawling about the floor after his trains. And all the pictures were stacked in the cellars. I can't tell you what they were like when I found them: mushrooms growing out of the Botticellis. Now I'm rather proud of this Poussin; he painted it for Scarron."
"Exquisite!" Spode exclaimed, making with his hand a gesture as though he were modeling a pure form in the air. "How splendid the onrush of those trees and leaning figures is! And the way they 're caught up, as it were, and stemmed by that single god-like form opposing them with his contrary movement! And the draperies—"
But Lord Badgery had moved on, and was standing in front of a little fifteenth-century Virgin of carved wood.
"School of Rheims," he explained.
They "did" the gallery at high speed. Badgery never permitted his guest to halt for more than forty seconds before any work of art. Spode would have liked to spend a few moments of recollection and tranquillity in front of some of these lovely things. But it was not permitted.
The gallery done, they passed into a little room leading out of it. At the sight of what the lights revealed Spode gasped.
"It's like something out of Balzac," he exclaimed. "Un de ces salons dorés où se déploie un luxe insolent. You know."
"My nineteenth-century chamber," Badgery explained. "The best thing of its kind, I flatter myself, outside the State Apartments at Windsor."
Spode tiptoed round the room, peering with astonishment at all the objects in glass, in gilded bronze, in china, in leathers, in embroidered and painted silk, in beads, in wax, objects of the most fantastic shapes and colors, all the queer products of a decadent tradition, with which the room was crowded. There were paintings on the walls—a Martin, a Wilkie, an early Landseer, several Etties, a big Haydon, a slight pretty water-color of a girl by Wainewright, the pupil of Blake and arsenic poisoner, a score of others. But the picture which arrested Spode's attention was a medium sized canvas representing Troilus riding into Troy among the flowers and plaudits of an admiring crowd, and oblivious (you could see from his expression) of everything but the eyes of Cressida, who looked down at him from a window, with Pandarus smiling over her shoulder.
"What an absurd and enchanting picture!" Spode exclaimed.
"Ah, you 've spotted my Troilus." Lord Badgery was pleased.
"What bright harmonious colours! Like Ettie's, only stronger, not so obviously pretty. And there's an energy about it that reminds one of Haydon. Only Haydon could never have done anything so impeccable in taste. Who is it by?" Spode turned to his host inquiringly.
"You were right in detecting Haydon," Lord Badgery answered.
"It's by his pupil, Tillotson. I wish I could get hold of more of his work. But nobody seems to know anything about him. And he seems to have done so little."
This time it was the younger man who interrupted.
"Tillotson? Tillotson?" He put his hand to his forehead. A frown incongruously distorted his round, floridly curved face. No—yes; I have it. He looked up triumphantly with serene and childish brows. "Tillotson, Walter Tillotson; the man's still alive."
Badgery smiled.
"This picture was painted in 1846, you know."
"Well, that's all right. Say he was born in 1820, painted his masterpiece when he was twenty-six, and it's 1913 now; that's to say he's only ninety-three. Not as old as Titian yet."
"But he's not been heard of since eighteen sixty," Lord Badgery protested.
"Precisely. Your mention of his name reminded me of the discovery I made the other day when I was looking through the obituary notices in the archives of 'The World's Review'. One has to bring them up to date every year or so for fear of being caught napping if one of these old birds chooses to shuffle off suddenly. Well, there, among them,—I remember my astonishment at the time,—there I found Walter Tillotson's biography. Pretty full to eighteen sixty, and then a blank, except for a pencil note in the early nineteen hundreds to the effect that he had returned from the East. The obituary has never been used or added to. I draw the obvious conclusion: the old chap is n't dead yet. He's just been overlooked somehow."
"But this is extraordinary," Lord Badgery exclaimed. "You must find him, Spode; you must find him. I 'll commission him to paint frescoes round this room. It's just what I 've always vainly longed for—a real nineteenth-century artist to decorate this place for me. Oh, we must find him at once—at once."
Lord Badgery strode up and down in a state of great excitement.
"I can see how this room could be made quite perfect," he went on. "We'd clear away all these cases and have the whole of that wall filled by a heroic fresco of Hector and Andromache, or 'Distraining for Rent,' or Fanny Kemble as Belvidera in 'Venice Preserved'—anything like that, provided it's in the grand manner of the thirties and forties. And here I'd have a landscape with lovely receding perspectives, or else something architectural and grand in the style of Belshazzar's feast. Then we 'll have this Adam fireplace taken down and replaced by something Mauro-Gothic. And on these walls I 'll have mirrors, or—no, let me see." He sank into meditative silence, from which he finally roused himself to shout: "The old man! the old man! Spode, we must find this astonishing old creature. And don't breathe a word to anybody. Tillotson shall be our secret. Oh, it's too perfect, it's incredible! Think of the frescoes."
Lord Badgery's face had become positively animated. He had talked of a single subject for nearly a quarter of an hour.
Three weeks later Lord Badgery was aroused from his usual after-luncheon somnolence by the arrival of a telegram. The message was a short one. "Found. Spode." A look of pleasure and intelligence made human Lord Badgery's clayey face of surfeit. "No answer," he said. The footman padded away on noiseless feet.
Lord Badgery closed his eyes and began to contemplate. Found! What a room he would have! There would be nothing like it in the world. The frescoes, the fireplace, the mirrors, the ceiling, and a small, shriveled old man clambering about the scaffolding, agile and quick like one of those whiskered little monkeys at the Zoo, painting away, painting away. Fanny Kemble as Belvidera, Hector and Andromache, or why not the Duke of Clarence in the Butt, the Duke of Malmsey, the Butt of Clarence—Lord Badgery was asleep.
Spode did not lag long behind his telegram. He was at Badgery House by six o'clock. His lordship was in the nineteenth-century chamber, engaged in clearing away with his own hands the bric-à-brac. Spode found him looking hot and out of breath.
"Ah, there you are," said Lord Badgery. "You see me already preparing for the great man's coming. Now you must tell me all about him.
"He's older even than I thought," said Spode. "He's ninety-seven this year—born in 1816. Incredible, is n't it! There, I'm beginning at the wrong end."
"Begin where you like," said Badgery genially.
"I won't tell you all the incidents of the hunt. You've no idea what a job I had to run him to earth. It was like a Sherlock Holmes story, immensely elaborate, too elaborate. I shall write a book about it some day. At any rate, I found him at last."
"Where?"
"In a sort of respectable slum in Holloway, older and poorer and lonelier than you could have believed possible. I found out how it was he came to be forgotten, how he came to drop out of life in the way he did. He took it into his head, somewhere about the 'sixties, to go to Palestine to get local color for his religious pictures—scapegoats and things, you know. Well, he went to Jerusalem and then on to Mount Lebanon and on and on, and then, somewhere in the middle of Asia Minor, he got stuck. He got stuck for about forty years."
"But what did he do all that time?"
"Oh, he painted, and started a mission, and converted three Turks, and taught the local Pashas the rudiments of English, Latin, and perspective, and God knows what else. Then, in about 1904, it seems to have occurred to him that he was getting rather old and had been away from home for rather a long time. So he made his way back to England, only to find that everyone he had known was dead, that the dealers had never heard of him and would n't buy his pictures, that he was simply a ridiculous old figure of fun. So he got a job as a drawing-master in a girl's school in Holloway, and there he's been ever since, growing older and older, and feebler and feebler, and blinder and deafer, until finally the school has given him the sack. He had about ten pounds in the world when I found him. He lives in a kind of black hole in a basement full of beetles. When his ten pounds are spent, I suppose he 'll just quietly die there."
Badgery held up a white hand.
"No more, no more. I find literature quite depressing enough. I insist that life at least shall be a little gayer. Did you tell him I wanted him to paint my room?"
"But he can't paint. He's too blind and palsied."
"Can't paint?" Badgery exclaimed in horror. "Then what's the good of the old creature?"
" 'Can't paint?' Badgery exclaimed in horror. 'Then what's the good of the old creature?' "
"Well, if you put it like that—" Spode began.
"I shall never have my frescoes. Ring the bell, will you?"
Spode rang.
"What right has Tillotson to go on existing if he can't paint?" went on Lord Badgery petulantly. "After all, that was his only justification for occupying a place in the sun."
"He does n't have much sun in his basement."
The footman appeared at the door.
"Get someone to put all these things back in their places," Lord Badgery commanded, indicating with a wave of the hand the ravaged cases, the confusion of glass and china with which he had littered the floor, the pictures unhooked. "We 'll go to the library, Spode; it's more comfortable there."
He led the way through the long gallery and down the stairs.
"I'm sorry old Tillotson has been such a disappointment," said Spode sympathetically.
"Let us talk about something else; he ceases to interest me.
"But don't you think we ought to do something about him? He's only got ten pounds between him and the workhouse. And if you'd seen the black beetles in his basement!"
"Enough! enough! I 'll do everything you think fitting."
"I thought we might get up a subscription among lovers of the arts."
"There are n't any," said Badgery.
"No; but there are plenty of people who will subscribe out of snobisme."
"Not unless you give them something for their money."
"That's true. I had n't thought of that." Spode was silent for a moment. "We might have a dinner in his honor. The Great Tillotson Banquet. Doyen of the British art. A link with the past. Can't you see it in the papers? I'd make a stunt of it in 'The World's Review.' That ought to bring in the snobs."
"And we 'll invite a lot of artists and critics—all the ones who can't stand one another. It will be fun to see them squabbling." Badgery laughed. Then his face darkened once again. "Still," he added, "it 'll be a very poor second best to my frescoes. You 'll stay to dinner, of course."
"Well, since you suggest it. Thank's very much."
The Tillotson Banquet was fixed to take place about three weeks later. Spode, who had charge of the arrangements, proved himself an excellent organizer. He secured the big banqueting-room at the Café Bomba and was successful in bullying and cajoling the manager into giving fifty persons dinner at twelve shillings a head, including wine. He sent out invitations and collected subscriptions. He wrote an article on Tillotson in "The World's Review," one of those charming, witty articles couched in the tone of amused patronage and contempt with which one speaks of the great men of 1840. Nor did he neglect Tillotson himself. He used to go to Holloway almost every day to listen to the old man's endless stories about Asia Minor and the Great Exhibition of fifty-one and Benjamin Robert Haydon. He was sincerely sorry for this relic of another age.
Mr. Tillotson's room was about ten feet below the level of the soil of South Holloway. A little gray light percolated through the area bars, forced a difficult passage through panes opaque with dirt, and spent itself, like a drop of milk that falls into an ink-pot, among the inveterate shadows of the dungeon. The place was haunted by the sour smell of damp plaster and of woodwork that has begun to molder secretly at the heart. A little miscellaneous furniture, including a bed, a washstand, chest of drawers, a table and one or two chairs, lurked in the obscure corners of the den or ventured furtively out into the open. Hither Spode now came almost every day, bringing the old man news of the progress of the banquet scheme. Every day he found Mr. Tillotson sitting in the same place under the window, bathing, as it were, in his tiny puddle of light. "The oldest man that ever wore grey hairs," Spode reflected as he looked at him. Only there were very few hairs left on that bald, unpolished head. At the sound of the visitor's knock Mr. Tillotson would turn in his chair, stare in the direction of the door with blinking, uncertain eyes. He was always full of apologies for being so slow in recognizing who was there.
"No discourtesy meant," he would say, after asking. "It's not as if I had forgotten who you were. Only it's so dark and my sight is n't what it was."
After that he never failed to give a little laugh, and, pointing out of the window at the area-railings, would say:
"Ah, this is the place for somebody with good sight. It's the place for looking at ankles. It's the grand stand."
It was the day before the great event. Spode came as usual; Mr. Tillotson punctually made his little joke about the ankles, and Spode, as punctually laughed.
"Well, Mr. Tillotson," he said, after the reverberation of the joke had died away, "to-morrow you make your re-entry into the world of art and fashion. You 'll find some changes."
"I 've always had such extraordinary luck," said Mr. Tillotson, and Spode could see by his expression that he genuinely believed it; that he had forgotten the black hole and the black beetles and the almost exhausted ten pounds that stood between him and the workhouse. "What an amazing piece of good fortune, for instance, that you should have found me just when you did. Now, this dinner will bring me back to my place in the world. I shall have money, and in a little while—who knows?—I shall be able to see well enough to paint again. I believe my eyes are getting better, you know. Ah, the future is very rosy."
Mr. Tillotson looked up, his face puckered into a smile, and nodded his head in affirmation of his words.
"You believe in the life to come?" said Spode, and immediately flushed for shame at the cruelty of the words.
But Mr. Tillotson was in far too cheerful a mood to have caught their significance.
"Life to come," he repeated. "No, I don't believe in any of that stuff not since 1859. The 'Origin of Species' changed my views, you know. No life to come for me, thank you! You don't remember the excitement of course. You 're very young Mr. Spode."
"Well, I'm not so old as I was," Spode replied. "You know how middle-aged one is as a schoolboy and undergraduate. Now I'm old enough to know I'm young."
Spode was about to develop this little paradox further, but he noticed that Mr. Tillotson had not been listening. He made a note of the gambit for use in companies that were more appreciative of the subtleties.
"You were talking about the 'Origin of Species,' " he said.
"Was I?" said Mr. Tillotson, waking from reverie.
"About its effect on your faith, Mr. Tillotson."
"To be sure, yes. It shattered my faith. But I remember a fine thing by the poet laureate—something about there being more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in all the—all the—I forget exactly what. But you see the train of thought. Oh, it was a bad time for religion. I am glad my master Haydon never lived to see it. He was a man of fervor. I remember him pacing up and down his studio in Lisson Grove, singing and shouting and praying all at once. It used almost to frighten me. Oh, but he was a wonderful man, a great man. Take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again. As usual, the bard is right. But it was all very long ago, before your time, Mr. Spode."
"Well, I'm not as old as I was," said Spode, in the hope of having his paradox appreciated this time. But Mr. Tillotson went on without noticing the interruption.
"It's a very, very long time. And yet, when I look back on it, it all seems but a day or two ago. Strange that each day should seem so long and that many days added together should be less than an hour. How clearly I can see old Haydon pacing up and down! Much more clearly, indeed, than I see you, Mr. Spode. The eyes of memory don't grow dim. But my sight is improving, I assure you; it's improving daily. I shall soon be able to see those ankles." He laughed like a cracked bell,—one of those little old bells, Spode fancied, that ring, with much rattling of wires, in the far-off servants quarters of ancient houses. "And very soon," Mr. Tillotson went on, "I shall be painting again. Ah, Mr. Spode, my luck is extraordinary. I believe in it, I trust in it. And after all, what is luck? Simply another name for Providence, in spite of the 'Origin of Species' and the rest of it. How right the laureate was when he said that there was more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in all the—er, the —er—well, you know. I regard you, Mr. Spode, as the emissary of Providence. Your coming marked a turning-point in my life, and the beginning, for me, of happier days. Do you know, one of the first things I shall do when my fortunes are restored will be to buy a hedgehog."
"A hedgehog, Mr. Tillotson?"
"For the black beetles. There's nothing like a hedgehog for beetles. It will eat black beetles till it's sick, till it dies of surfeit. That reminds me of the time when I told my poor great master Haydon, in joke, of course, that he ought to send in a cartoon of King John dying of a surfeit of lampreys for the frescoes in the new Houses of Parliament. As I told him, it's a most notable event in the annals of British Liberty—the providential and exemplary removal of a tyrant."
Mr. Tillotson laughed again—the little bell in the deserted house; a ghostly hand pulling the cord in the drawing-room, and phantom footmen responding to the thin, flawed note.
"I remember he laughed—laughed like a bull in his old grand manner. But oh, it was a terrible blow when they rejected his designs! a terrible blow. It was the first and fundamental cause of his suicide."
Mr. Tillotson paused. There was a long silence. Spode felt strangely moved, he hardly knew why, in the presence of this man, so frail, so ancient, in body three parts dead, in the spirit so full of life and hopeful patience. He felt ashamed. What was the use of his own youth and cleverness? He saw himself suddenly as a boy with a rattle scaring birds rattling his noisy cleverness, waving his arms in ceaseless and futile activity, never resting in his efforts to scare away the birds that were always trying to settle in his mind. And what birds! wide-winged and beautiful, all those serene thoughts and faiths and emotions that only visit minds that have humbled themselves to quiet. Those gracious visitants he was for ever using all his energies to drive away. But this old man, with his hedgehogs and his honest doubts and all the rest of it—his mind was like a field made beautiful by the free coming and going, the unafraid alightings of a multitude of white, bright-winged creatures. He felt ashamed. But, then, was it possible to alter one's life? Was n't it a little absurd to risk a conversion? Spode shrugged his shoulders.
"I 'll get you a hedgehog at once," he said. "They 're sure to have some at Whiteley's."
Before he left that evening Spode made an alarming discovery. Mr. Tillotson did not possess a dress-suit. It was hopeless to think of getting one made at this short notice, and, besides, what an unnecessary expense!
"We shall have to borrow a suit, Mr. Tillotson. I ought to have thought of that before."
"Dear me! dear me!" Mr. Tillotson was a little chagrined by this unlucky discovery. "Borrow a suit?"
Spode hurried away for counsel to Badgery House. Lord Badgery surprisingly rose to the occasion. "Ask Boreham to come and see me," he told the footman, who answered his ring.
Boreham was one of those immemorial butlers who linger on, generation after generation, in the houses of the great. He was over eighty now, bent, dried up, shriveled with age.
"All old men are about the same size," said Lord Badgery. It was a comforting theory. "Ah, here he is. Have you got a spare suit of evening clothes, Boreham?"
"I have an old suit, my lord, that I stopped wearing in—let me see was it nineteen seven or eight?"
"That's the very thing. I should be most grateful, Boreham, if you could lend it to me for Mr. Spode here for a day."
The old man went out, and soon reappeared carrying over his arm a very old black suit. He held up the coat and trousers for inspection. In the light of day they were deplorable.
"You 've no idea, sir," said Boreham deprecatingly to Spode—"You 've no idea how easy things get stained with grease and gravy and what not. However careful you are, sir, however careful.
"I should imagine so." Spode was sympathetic.
"However careful, sir."
"But in artificial light they 'll look all right."
"Perfectly all right," Lord Badgery repeated. "Thank you, Boreham; you shall have them back on Thursday."
"You 're welcome, my lord, I'm sure." And the old man bowed and disappeared.
On the afternoon of the great day Spode carried up to Holloway a parcel containing Boreham's retired evening suit and all the necessary appurtenances in the way of shirts and collars. Owing to the darkness and his own feeble sight Mr. Tillotson was happily unaware of the defects in the suit. He was in a state of extreme nervous agitation. It was with some difficulty that Spode could prevent him, although it was only three o'clock, from starting his toilet on the spot.
"Take it easy, Mr. Tillotson, take it easy. We need n't start till half-past seven, you know."
Spode left an hour later, and as soon as he was safely out of the room Mr. Tillotson began to prepare himself for the banquet. He lighted the gas and a couple of candles, and, blinking myopically at the image that fronted him in the tiny looking-glass that stood on his chest of drawers, he set to work, with all the ardor of a young girl preparing for her first ball. At six o'clock, when the last touches had been given, he was not unsatisfied.
He marched up and down his cellar, humming to himself the gay song which had been so popular in his middle years:
"Oh, oh, Anna, Maria Jones! Queen of the tambourine, the cymbals, and the bones!"
Spode arrived an hour later in Lord Badgery's second-best car. Opening the door of the old man's dungeon, he stood for a moment, wide-eyed with astonishment, on the threshold. Mr. Tillotson was standing by the empty grate, one elbow resting on the mantel-piece, one leg crossed over the other in a jaunty and gentlemanly attitude. The effect of the candle-light shining on his face was to deepen every line and wrinkle with intense black shadow; he looked immeasurably old. It was a noble and pathetic head. On the other hand, Boreham's outworn evening suit was simply buffoonish. The coat was too long in the sleeves and the tail; the trousers bagged in elephantine creases about his ankles. Some of the grease-spots were visible even in candle-light. The white tie, over which Mr. Tillotson had taken infinite pains and which he believed in his purblindness to be perfect, was fantastically lopsided. He had buttoned up his waistcoat in such a fashion that one button was widowed of its hole and one hole of its button. Across his shirt front lay the broad green ribbon of some unknown Order.
"Queen of the tambourine, the cymbals, and the bones,"
Mr. Tillotson concluded in a gnat-like voice before welcoming his visitor. "Well, Spode, here you are. I'm dressed already, you see. The suit, I flatter myself, fits very well, almost as though it had been made for me. I am all gratitude to the gentleman who was kind enough to lend it to me; I shall take the greatest care of it. It's a dangerous thing to lend clothes, 'for loan oft loseth both itself and friend.' The bard is always right."
"Just one thing," said Spode. "A touch to your waistcoat." He unbuttoned the dissipated garment and did it up again more symmetrically.
Mr. Tillotson was a little piqued at being found so absurdly in the wrong.
"Thanks, thanks," he said, protestingly, trying to edge away from his valet. "It's all right, you know; I can do it myself. Foolish oversight. I flatter myself the suit fits very well."
"And perhaps the tie might—" Spode began tentatively. But the old man would not hear of it.
"No, no. The tie's all right. I can tie a tie, Mr. Spode. The tie's all right. Leave it as it is, I beg."
"I like your order."
Mr. Tillotson looked down complacently at his shirt front. "Ah, you 've noticed my order. It's a long time since I wore that. It was given me by the Grand Porte, you know, for services rendered in the Russo-Turkish War. It's the Order of Chastity, the second class. They only give the first class to crowned heads, you know—browned heads and ambassadors. And only Pashas of the highest rank get the second. Mine's the second. They only give the first class to crowned heads—"
"Of course, of course," said Spode.
"Do you think I look all right, Mr. Spode?" Mr. Tillotson asked, a little anxiously.
"Splendid, Mr. Tillotson; splendid. The order's magnificent."
The old man's face brightened once more.
"I flatter myself," he said, "that this borrowed suit fits me very well. But I don't like borrowing clothes, 'for loan oft loseth both itself and friend,' you know. And the bard is always right."
"Ugh, there's one of those horrible beetles!" Spode exclaimed.
Mr. Tillotson bent down and stared at the floor.
"I see it," he said, and stamped on a small piece of coal, which crunched to powder under his foot. "I shall certainly buy a hedgehog."
It was time for them to start. A crowd of little boys and girls had collected round Lord Badgery's enormous car. The chauffeur, who felt that honor and dignity were at stake, pretended not to notice the children, but sat gazing, like a statue, into eternity. At the sight of Spode and Mr. Tillotson emerging from the house a yell of mingled awe and derision went up. It subsided to an astonished silence as they climbed into the car. "Bomba's," Spode directed. The car gave a faintly stertorous sigh and began to move. The children yelled again, and ran along beside the car, waving their arms in a frenzy of excitement. It was then that Mr. Tillotson, with an incomparably noble gesture, leaned forward and tossed among the seething crowd of urchins his three last coppers.
"Mr. Tillotson, with an incomparably noble gesture, leaned forward and tossed among the seething crowd of urchins his three last coppers
In Bomba's big room the company was assembling. The long gilt-edged mirrors reflected a singular collection of people. Middle-aged Academicians shot suspicious glances at youths whom they suspected, only too correctly, of being iconoclasts, organizers of Post-Impressionist Exhibitions. Rival art critics, brought suddenly face to face, quivered with restrained hatred. Mrs. Nobes, Mrs. Cayman, and Mrs. Mandragore, those indefatigable hunters of artistic big game, came on one another all unawares in this well-stored menagerie, where each had expected to hunt alone, and were filled with rage. Through this crowd of mutually repellent vanities Lord Badgery moved with a suavity that seemed unconscious of all the feuds and hatreds. He was enjoying himself immensely. Behind the heavy waxen mask of his face, ambushed behind the Hanoverian nose, the little lusterless pig's eyes, the pale thick lips, there lurked a small devil of happy malice that rocked with laughter.
"So nice of you to have come, Mrs. Mandragore, to do honor to England's artistic past. And I'm so glad to see you 've brought dear Mrs. Cayman. And is that Mrs. Nobes, too? So it is! I had n't noticed her before. How delightful! I knew we could depend on your love of art."
And he hurried away to seize the opportunity of introducing that eminent sculptor, Sir Herbert Herne, to the bright young critic who had called him, in the public prints, a monumental mason.
A moment later the maître d'hôtel came to the door of the gilded saloon and announced, loudly and impressively, "Mr. Walter Tillotson." Guided from behind by young Spode, Mr. Tillotson came into the room slowly and hesitatingly. In the glare of the lights his eyelids beat heavily, painfully, like the wings of an imprisoned moth, over his filmy eyes. Once inside the door he halted and drew himself up with a conscious assumption of dignity. Lord Badgery hurried forward and seized his hand.
"Welcome, Mr. Tillotson! welcome in the name of English art!"
Mr. Tillotson inclined his head in silence. He was too full of emotion to be able to reply.
"I should like to introduce you to a few of your younger colleagues, who have assembled here to do you honor." Lord Badgery presented everyone in the room to the old painter, who bowed, shook hands, made little noises in his throat, but still found himself unable to speak. Mrs. Nobes, Mrs. Cayman, and Mrs. Mandragore all said charming things.
Dinner was served; the party took their places. Lord Badgery sat at the head of the table, with Mr. Tillotson on his right hand and Sir Herbert Herne on his left. Confronted with Bomba's succulent cooking and Bomba's wines, Mr. Tillotson ate and drank a good deal. He had the appetite of one who has lived on greens and potatoes for ten years among the black beetles. After the second glass of wine he began to talk, suddenly and in a flood, as though a sluice had been pulled up.
"In Asia Minor," he began, "it is the custom when one goes to dinner, to hiccough as a sign of appreciative fullness. Eructavit cor meum, as the Psalmist has it; he was an Oriental himself."
Spode had arranged to sit next to Mrs. Cayman; he had designs upon her. She was an impossible woman, of course, but rich and useful; he wanted to bamboozle her into buying some of his young friends' pictures.
"In a cellar?" Mrs. Cayman was saying, "with, black beetles? Oh, how dreadful! Poor old man! And he's ninety-seven, did n't you say? Is n't that shocking! I only hope the subscription will be a large one. Of course, one wishes one could have given more oneself. But then, you know, one has so many expenses, and things are so difficult now."
"I know, I know," said Spode, with feeling.
"It's all because of labor," Mrs. Cayman explained. "Of course, I should simply love to have him in to dinner sometimes; but, then, I feel he's really too old, too farouche and gâcheux; it would not be doing a kindness to him, would it? And so you are working with Mr. Gollamy now? What a charming man, so talented, such conversation!"
"Eructavit cor meum," said Mr. Tillotson for the third time. Lord Badgery tried to head him off the subject of Turkish etiquette, but in vain.
By half-past nine a kinder vinolent atmosphere had put to sleep the hatreds and suspicions of before dinner. Sir Herbert Herne had discovered that the young Cubist sitting next him was not insane and actually knew a surprising amount about the old masters. For their part these young men had realised that their elders were not at all malignant; they were just very stupid and pathetic. It was only in the bosoms of Mrs. Nobes, Mrs. Cayman, and Mrs. Mandragore that hatred still reigned undiminished. Being ladies and old-fashioned, they had drunk almost no wine.
The moment for speech-making arrived. Lord Badgery rose to his feet, said what was expected of him, and called upon Sir Herbert to propose the toast of the evening. Sir Herbert coughed, smiled and began. In the course of a speech that lasted twenty minutes he told anecdotes of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Leighton, Sir Alma Tadema, and the late Bishop of Bombay; he made three puns, he quoted Shakspere and Whittier, he was playful, he was eloquent, he was grave. At the end of his harangue Sir Herbert handed to Mr. Tillotson a silk purse containing fifty-eight pounds ten shillings, the total amount of the subscription. The old man's health was drunk with acclamation.
Mr. Tillotson rose with difficulty to his feet. The dry, snake-like skin of his face was flushed; his tie was more crooked than ever; the green ribbon of the Order of Chastity of the second class had somehow climbed tip his crumpled and maculate shirt-front.
" 'My Lords, ladies, and gentlemen ... the life of the artist is a hard one' "
"My Lords, ladies, and gentlemen—" he began in a choking voice, and then broke down completely. It was a very painful and pathetic spectacle. A feeling of intense discomfort afflicted the minds of all who looked upon that trembling relic of a man, as he stood there weeping and stammering. It was as though a breath of the wind of death had blown suddenly through the room, lifting the vapors of wine and tobacco-smoke, quenching the laughter and the candle-flames. Eyes floated uneasily, not knowing where to look. Lord Badgery, with great presence of mind, offered the old man a glass of wine. Mr. Tillotson began to recover. The guests heard him murmur a few disconnected words.
"This great honor—overwhelmed with kindness—this magnificent banquet—not used to it—in Asia Minor—eructuvit cor meum."
At this point Lord Badgery plucked sharply at one of his long coat-tails. Mr. Tillotson paused, took another sip of wine, and then went on with a newly won coherence and energy.
"The life of the artist is a hard one. His work is unlike other men's work, which may be done mechanically, by rote and almost, as it were, in sleep. It demands from him a constant expense of spirit. He gives continually of his best life, and in return he receives much joy, it is true much fame, it may be, but of material blessings, very few. It is eighty years since first I devoted my life to the service of art—eighty years, and almost every one of those years has brought me fresh and painful proof of what I have been saying: the artist's life is a hard one."
This unexpected deviation into sense increased the general feeling of discomfort. It became necessary to take the old man seriously, to regard him as a human being. Up till then he had been no more than an object of curiosity, a mummy in an absurd suit of evening- clothes with a green ribbon across the shirt front. People could not help wishing that they had subscribed a little more. Fifty-eight pounds ten—it wasn't enormous. But happily for the peace of mind of the company, Mr. Tillotson paused again, took another sip of wine, and began to live up to his proper character by talking absurdly.
"When I consider the life of that great man, Benjamin Robert Haydon, one of the greatest men England has ever produced—" The audience heaved a sigh of relief; this was all as it should be. There was a burst of loud bravoing and clapping. Mr. Tillotson turned his dim eyes round the room, and smiled gratefully at the misty figures he beheld. "That great man, Benjamin Robert Haydon," he continued, "whom I am proud to call my master and who, it rejoices my heart to see, still lives in your memory and esteem, that great man, one of the greatest that England has ever produced, led a life so deplorable that I cannot think of it without a tear."
And with infinite repetitions and divagations, Mr. Tillotson related the history of B. R. Haydon, his imprisonments for debt, his battle with the Academy, his triumphs, his failures, his despair, his suicide. Half-past ten struck. Mr. Tillotson was declaiming against the stupid and prejudiced judges who had rejected Haydon's designs for the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament in favor of the paltriest German scribblings.
"That great man, one of the greatest England has ever produced, that great Benjamin Robert Haydon, whom I am proud to call my master and who, it rejoices me to see, still lives on in your memory and esteem—at that affront his great heart burst; it was the unkindest cut of all. He who had worked all his life for the recognition, of the artist by the State, he who had petitioned every Prime Minister, including the Duke of Wellington, for thirty years, begging them to employ artists to decorate public buildings, he to whom the scheme for decorating the Houses of Parliament was undeniably due—" Mr. Tillotson lost a grip on his syntax and began a new sentence. "It was the unkindest cut of all, it was the last straw. The artist's life is a hard one."
At eleven Mr. Tillotson was talking about the Preraphaelites. At a quarter past he had begun to tell the story of B. R. Haydon all over again. At twenty-five minutes to twelve he collapsed quite speechless into his chair. Most of the guests had already gone away; the few who remained made haste to depart. Lord Badgery led the old man to the door and packed him into his second car. The Tillotson Banquet was over; it had been a pleasant evening, but a little too long.
Spode walked back to his rooms in Bloomsbury, whistling as he went. The arc lamps of Oxford Street reflected in the polished surface of the road canals of dark bronze. He would have to bring that into an article some time. The Cayman woman had been very successfully nobbled. "Voi che sapete," he whistled somewhat out of tune, but he could not hear that.
When Mr. Tillotson's landlady came in to call him on the following morning, she found the old man lying fully dressed on his bed. For a moment she thought he was dead, so pale was his face, so immovably still he lay. But Mr. Tillotson was not dead; he opened his eyes a little and faintly groaned. His landlady stood over him.
"I told you so," she said. "You 've got no business to go gallivanting about at night at your age."
Mr. Tillotson groaned again. Making a painful effort, he drew out of his trousers' pocket a large silk purse, opened it, and extracted a sovereign.
"The artist's life, Mrs. Green, is a hard one," he said, handing her the coin. "Would you mind sending for the doc—"
As she held out her hand to receive the glittering disk, the old man's voice ceased, and he sank back on his pillow.
"Eructavit cor meum."
Mr. Tillotson was dead.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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