A Rogue's Life. Уилки Коллинз

now. Turn portrait-painter. You shall have the use of this study three days in the week, for ten shillings a week—sleeping on the hearth-rug included, if you like. Get your paints, rouse up your friends, set to work at once. Drawing is of no consequence; painting is of no consequence; perspective is of no consequence; ideas are of no consequence. Everything is of no consequence, except catching a likeness and flattering your sitter—and that you know you can do.”

      I felt that I could; and left him for the nearest colorman’s.

      Before I got to the shop, I met Mr. Batterbury taking his walking exercise. He stopped, shook hands with me affectionately, and asked where I was going. A wonderful idea struck me. Instead of answering his question, I asked after Lady Malkinshaw.

      “Don’t be alarmed,” said Mr. Batterbury; “her ladyship tumbled downstairs yesterday morning.”

      “My dear sir, allow me to congratulate you!”

      “Most fortunately,” continued Mr. Batterbury, with a strong emphasis on the words, and a fixed stare at me; “most fortunately, the servant had been careless enough to leave a large bundle of clothes for the wash at the foot of the stairs, while she went to answer the door. Falling headlong from the landing, her ladyship pitched (pardon me the expression)—pitched into the very middle of the bundle. She was a little shaken at the time, but is reported to be going on charmingly this morning. Most fortunate, was it not? Seen the papers? Awful news from Demerara—the yellow fever—”

      “I wish I was at Demerara,” I said, in a hollow voice.

      “You! Why?” exclaimed Mr. Batterbury, aghast.

      “I am homeless, friendless, penniless,” I went on, getting more hollow at every word. “All my intellectual instincts tell me that I could retrieve my position and live respectably in the world, if I might only try my hand at portrait-painting—the thing of all others that I am naturally fittest for. But I have nobody to start me; no sitter to give me a first chance; nothing in my pocket but three-and-sixpence; and nothing in my mind but a doubt whether I shall struggle on a little longer, or end it immediately in the Thames. Don’t let me detain you from your walk, my dear sir. I’m afraid Lady Malkinshaw will outlive me, after all!”

      “Stop!” cried Mr. Batterbury; his mahogany face actually getting white with alarm. “Stop! Don’t talk in that dreadfully unprincipled manner—don’t, I implore, I insist! You have plenty of friends—you have me, and your sister. Take to portrait-painting—think of your family, and take to portrait-painting!”

      “Where am I to get a sitter?’ I inquired, with a gloomy shake of the head.

      “Me,” said Mr. Batterbury, with an effort. “I’ll be your first sitter. As a beginner, and especially to a member of the family, I suppose your terms will be moderate. Small beginnings—you know the proverb?” Here he stopped; and a miserly leer puckered up his mahogany cheeks.

      “I’ll do you, life-size, down to your waistcoat, for fifty pounds,” said I.

      Mr. Batterbury winced, and looked about him to the right and left, as if he wanted to run away. He had five thousand a year, but he contrived to took, at that moment, as if his utmost income was five hundred. I walked on a few steps.

      “Surely those terms are rather high to begin with?” he said, walking after me. “I should have thought five-and-thirty, or perhaps forty—”

      “A gentleman, sir, cannot condescend to bargain,” said I, with mournful dignity. “Farewell!” I waved my hand, and crossed over the way.

      “Don’t do that!” cried Mr. Batterbury. “I accept. Give me your address. I’ll come tomorrow. Will it include the frame! There! there! it doesn’t include the frame, of course. Where are you going now? To the colorman? He doesn’t live in the Strand, I hope—or near one of the bridges. Think of Annabella, think of the family, think of the fifty pounds—an income, a year’s income to a prudent man. Pray, pray be careful, and compose your mind: promise me, my dear, dear fellow—promise me, on your word of honor, to compose your mind!”

      I left him still harping on that string, and suffering, I believe, the only serious attack of mental distress that had ever affected him in the whole course of his life.

      Behold me, then, now starting afresh in the world, in the character of a portrait-painter; with the payment of my remuneration from my first sitter depending whimsically on the life of my grandmother. If you care to know how Lady Malkinshaw’s health got on, and how I succeeded in my new profession, you have only to follow the further course of these confessions, in the next chapter.