The Greater Inclination
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Edith Wharton >> The Greater Inclination
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I felt Lillo at my shoulder again.
"You knew her, I suppose?"
I had to stop and think. Why, of course I'd known her: a silent handsome
girl, showy yet ineffective, whom I had seen without seeing the winter
that society had capitulated to Vard. Still looking at the crayon, I tried
to trace some connection between the Miss Vard I recalled and the grave
young seraph of Lillo's sketch. Had the Vards bewitched him? By what
masterstroke of suggestion had he been beguiled into drawing the terrible
father as a barber's block, the commonplace daughter as this memorable
creature?
"You don't remember much about her? No, I suppose not. She was a quiet
girl and nobody noticed her much, even when--" he paused with a smile--
"you were all asking Vard to dine."
I winced. Yes, it was true--we had all asked Vard to dine. It was some
comfort to think that fate had made him expiate our weakness.
Lillo put the sketch on the mantel-shelf and drew his arm-chair to the
fire.
"It's cold to-night. Take another cigar, old man; and some whiskey? There
ought to be a bottle and some glasses in that cupboard behind you... help
yourself..."
II
About Vard's portrait? (he began.) Well, I'll tell you. It's a queer
story, and most people wouldn't see anything in it. My enemies might say
it was a roundabout way of explaining a failure; but you know better than
that. Mrs. Mellish was right. Between me and Vard there could be no
question of failure. The man was made for me--I felt that the first time I
clapped eyes on him. I could hardly keep from asking him to sit to me on
the spot; but somehow one couldn't ask favors of the fellow. I sat still
and prayed he'd come to me, though; for I was looking for something big
for the next Salon. It was twelve years ago--the last time I was out
ere--and I was ravenous for an opportunity. I had the feeling--do you
writer-fellows have it too?--that there was something tremendous in me if
it could only be got out; and I felt Vard was the Moses to strike the
rock. There were vulgar reasons, too, that made me hunger for a victim.
I'd been grinding on obscurely for a good many years, without gold or
glory, and the first thing of mine that had made a noise was my picture of
Pepita, exhibited the year before. There'd been a lot of talk about that,
orders were beginning to come in, and I wanted to follow it up with a
rousing big thing at the next Salon. Then the critics had been insinuating
that I could do only Spanish things--I suppose I _had_ overdone the
castanet business; it's a nursery-disease we all go through--and I wanted
to show that I had plenty more shot in my locker. Don't you get up every
morning meaning to prove you're equal to Balzac or Thackeray? That's the
way I felt then; _only give me a chance_, I wanted to shout out to them;
and I saw at once that Vard was my chance.
I had come over from Paris in the autumn to paint Mrs. Clingsborough, and
I met Vard and his daughter at one of the first dinners I went to. After
that I could think of nothing but that man's head. What a type! I raked up
all the details of his scandalous history; and there were enough to fill
an encyclopaedia. The papers were full of him just then; he was mud from
head to foot; it was about the time of the big viaduct steal, and
irreproachable citizens were forming ineffectual leagues to put him down.
And all the time one kept meeting him at dinners--that was the beauty of
it! Once I remember seeing him next to the Bishop's wife; I've got a
little sketch of that duet somewhere... Well, he was simply magnificent, a
born ruler; what a splendid condottiere he would have made, in gold armor,
with a griffin grinning on his casque! You remember those drawings of
Leonardo's, where the knight's face and the outline of his helmet combine
in one monstrous saurian profile? He always reminded me of that...
But how was I to get at him?--One day it occurred to me to try talking to
Miss Vard. She was a monosyllabic person, who didn't seem to see an inch
beyond the last remark one had made; but suddenly I found myself blurting
out, "I wonder if you know how extraordinarily paintable your father is?"
and you should have seen the change that came over her. Her eyes lit up
and she looked--well, as I've tried to make her look there. (He glanced up
at the sketch.) Yes, she said, _wasn't_ her father splendid, and didn't I
think him one of the handsomest men I'd ever seen?
That rather staggered me, I confess; I couldn't think her capable of
joking on such a subject, yet it seemed impossible that she should be
speaking seriously. But she was. I knew it by the way she looked at Vard,
who was sitting opposite, his wolfish profile thrown back, the shaggy
locks tossed off his narrow high white forehead. The girl worshipped him.
She went on to say how glad she was that I saw him as she did. So many
artists admired only regular beauty, the stupid Greek type that was made
to be done in marble; but she'd always fancied from what she'd seen of my
work--she knew everything I'd done, it appeared--that I looked deeper,
cared more for the way in which faces are modelled by temperament and
circumstance; "and of course in that sense," she concluded, "my father's
face _is_ beautiful."
This was even more staggering; but one couldn't question her divine
sincerity. I'm afraid my one thought was to take advantage of it; and I
let her go on, perceiving that if I wanted to paint Vard all I had to do
was to listen.
She poured out her heart. It was a glorious thing for a girl, she said,
wasn't it, to be associated with such a life as that? She felt it so
strongly, sometimes, that it oppressed her, made her shy and stupid. She
was so afraid people would expect her to live up to _him_. But that was
absurd, of course; brilliant men so seldom had clever children. Still--did
I know?--she would have been happier, much happier, if he hadn't been in
public life; if he and she could have hidden themselves away somewhere,
with their books and music, and she could have had it all to herself: his
cleverness, his learning, his immense unbounded goodness. For no one knew
how good he was; no one but herself. Everybody recognized his cleverness,
his brilliant abilities; even his enemies had to admit his extraordinary
intellectual gifts, and hated him the worse, of course, for the admission;
but no one, no one could guess what he was at home. She had heard of great
men who were always giving gala performances in public, but whose wives
and daughters saw only the empty theatre, with the footlights out and the
scenery stacked in the wings; but with him it was just the other way:
wonderful as he was in public, in society, she sometimes felt he wasn't
doing himself justice--he was so much more wonderful at home. It was like
carrying a guilty secret about with her: his friends, his admirers, would
never forgive her if they found out that he kept all his best things for
_her!_
I don't quite know what I felt in listening to her. I was chiefly taken up
with leading her on to the point I had in view; but even through my
personal preoccupation I remember being struck by the fact that, though
she talked foolishly, she didn't talk like a fool. She was not stupid; she
was not obtuse; one felt that her impassive surface was alive with
delicate points of perception; and this fact, coupled with her crystalline
frankness, flung me back on a startled revision of my impressions of her
father. He came out of the test more monstrous than ever, as an ugly image
reflected in clear water is made uglier by the purity of the medium. Even
then I felt a pang at the use to which fate had put the mountain-pool of
Miss Vard's spirit, and an uneasy sense that my own reflection there was
not one to linger over. It was odd that I should have scrupled to deceive,
on one small point, a girl already so hugely cheated; perhaps it was the
completeness of her delusion that gave it the sanctity of a religious
belief. At any rate, a distinct sense of discomfort tempered the
satisfaction with which, a day or two later, I heard from her that her
father had consented to give me a few sittings.
I'm afraid my scruples vanished when I got him before my easel. He was
immense, and he was unexplored. From my point of view he'd never been done
before--I was his Cortez. As he talked the wonder grew. His daughter came
with him, and I began to think she was right in saying that he kept his
best for her. It wasn't that she drew him out, or guided the conversation;
but one had a sense of delicate vigilance, hardly more perceptible than
one of those atmospheric influences that give the pulses a happier turn.
She was a vivifying climate. I had meant to turn the talk to public
affairs, but it slipped toward books and art, and I was faintly aware of
its being kept there without undue pressure. Before long I saw the value
of the diversion. It was easy enough to get at the political Vard: the
other aspect was rarer and more instructive. His daughter had described
him as a scholar. He wasn't that, of course, in any intrinsic sense: like
most men of his type he had gulped his knowledge standing, as he had
snatched his food from lunch-counters; the wonder of it lay in his
extraordinary power of assimilation. It was the strangest instance of a
mind to which erudition had given force and fluency without culture; his
learning had not educated his perceptions: it was an implement serving to
slash others rather than to polish himself. I have said that at first
sight he was immense; but as I studied him he began to lessen under my
scrutiny. His depth was a false perspective painted on a wall.
It was there that my difficulty lay: I had prepared too big a canvas for
him. Intellectually his scope was considerable, but it was like the
digital reach of a mediocre pianist--it didn't make him a great musician.
And morally he wasn't bad enough; his corruption wasn't sufficiently
imaginative to be interesting. It was not so much a means to an end as a
kind of virtuosity practised for its own sake, like a highly-developed
skill in cannoning billiard balls. After all, the point of view is what
gives distinction to either vice or virtue: a morality with ground-glass
windows is no duller than a narrow cynicism.
His daughter's presence--she always came with him--gave unintentional
emphasis to these conclusions; for where she was richest he was naked. She
had a deep-rooted delicacy that drew color and perfume from the very
centre of her being: his sentiments, good or bad, were as detachable as
his cuffs. Thus her nearness, planned, as I guessed, with the tender
intention of displaying, elucidating him, of making him accessible in
detail to my dazzled perceptions--this pious design in fact defeated
itself. She made him appear at his best, but she cheapened that best by
her proximity. For the man was vulgar to the core; vulgar in spite of his
force and magnitude; thin, hollow, spectacular; a lath-and-plaster bogey--
Did she suspect it? I think not--then. He was wrapped in her impervious
faith... The papers? Oh, their charges were set down to political rivalry;
and the only people she saw were his hangers-on, or the fashionable set
who had taken him up for their amusement. Besides, she would never have
found out in that way: at a direct accusation her resentment would have
flamed up and smothered her judgment. If the truth came to her, it would
come through knowing intimately some one--different; through--how shall I
put it?--an imperceptible shifting of her centre of gravity. My besetting
fear was that I couldn't count on her obtuseness. She wasn't what is
called clever; she left that to him; but she was exquisitely good; and now
and then she had intuitive felicities that frightened me. Do I make you
see her? We fellows can explain better with the brush; I don't know how to
mix my words or lay them on. She wasn't clever; but her heart thought--
that's all I can say...
If she'd been stupid it would have been easy enough: I could have painted
him as he was. Could have? I did--brushed the face in one day from memory;
it was the very man! I painted it out before she came: I couldn't bear to
have her see it. I had the feeling that I held her faith in him in my
hands, carrying it like a brittle object through a jostling mob; a hair's-
breadth swerve and it was in splinters.
When she wasn't there I tried to reason myself out of these subtleties. My
business was to paint Vard as he was--if his daughter didn't mind his
looks, why should I? The opportunity was magnificent--I knew that by the
way his face had leapt out of the canvas at my first touch. It would have
been a big thing. Before every sitting I swore to myself I'd do it; then
she came, and sat near him, and I--didn't.
I knew that before long she'd notice I was shirking the face. Vard himself
took little interest in the portrait, but she watched me closely, and one
day when the sitting was over she stayed behind and asked me when I meant
to begin what she called "the likeness." I guessed from her tone that the
embarrassment was all on my side, or that if she felt any it was at having
to touch a vulnerable point in my pride. Thus far the only doubt that
troubled her was a distrust of my ability. Well, I put her off with any
rot you please: told her she must trust me, must let me wait for the
inspiration; that some day the face would come; I should see it suddenly--
feel it under my brush... The poor child believed me: you can make a woman
believe almost anything she doesn't quite understand. She was abashed at
her philistinism, and begged me not to tell her father--he would make such
fun of her!
After that--well, the sittings went on. Not many, of course; Vard was too
busy to give me much time. Still, I could have done him ten times over.
Never had I found my formula with such ease, such assurance; there were no
hesitations, no obstructions--the face was _there_, waiting for me; at
times it almost shaped itself on the canvas. Unfortunately Miss Vard was
there too ...
All this time the papers were busy with the viaduct scandal. The outcry
was getting louder. You remember the circumstances? One of Vard's
associates--Bardwell, wasn't it?--threatened disclosures. The rival
machine got hold of him, the Independents took him to their bosom, and the
press shrieked for an investigation. It was not the first storm Vard had
weathered, and his face wore just the right shade of cool vigilance; he
wasn't the man to fall into the mistake of appearing too easy. His
demeanor would have been superb if it had been inspired by a sense of his
own strength; but it struck me rather as based on contempt for his
antagonists. Success is an inverted telescope through which one's enemies
are apt to look too small and too remote. As for Miss Vard, her serenity
was undiminished; but I half-detected a defiance in her unruffled
sweetness, and during the last sittings I had the factitious vivacity of a
hostess who hears her best china crashing.
One day it _did_ crash: the head-lines of the morning papers shouted the
catastrophe at me:--"The Monster forced to disgorge--Warrant out against
Vard--Bardwell the Boss's Boomerang"--you know the kind of thing.
When I had read the papers I threw them down and went out. As it happened,
Vard was to have given me a sitting that morning; but there would have
been a certain irony in waiting for him. I wished I had finished the
picture--I wished I'd never thought of painting it. I wanted to shake off
the whole business, to put it out of my mind, if I could: I had the
feeling--I don't know if I can describe it--that there was a kind of
disloyalty to the poor girl in my even acknowledging to myself that I knew
what all the papers were howling from the housetops....
I had walked for an hour when it suddenly occurred to me that Miss Vard
might, after all, come to the studio at the appointed hour. Why should
she? I could conceive of no reason; but the mere thought of what, if she
_did_ come, my absence would imply to her, sent me bolting back to Twelfth
Street. It was a presentiment, if you like, for she was there.
As she rose to meet me a newspaper slipped from her hand: I'd been fool
enough, when I went out, to leave the damned things lying all over the
place.
I muttered some apology for being late, and she said reassuringly:
"But my father's not here yet."
"Your father--?" I could have kicked myself for the way I bungled it!
"He went out very early this morning, and left word that he would meet me
here at the usual hour."
She faced me, with an eye full of bright courage, across the newspaper
lying between us.
"He ought to be here in a moment now--he's always so punctual. But my
watch is a little fast, I think."
She held it out to me almost gaily, and I was just pretending to compare
it with mine, when there was a smart rap on the door and Vard stalked in.
There was always a civic majesty in his gait, an air of having just
stepped off his pedestal and of dissembling an oration in his umbrella;
and that day he surpassed himself. Miss Vard had turned pale at the knock;
but the mere sight of him replenished her veins, and if she now avoided my
eye, it was in mere pity for my discomfiture.
I was in fact the only one of the three who didn't instantly "play up";
but such virtuosity was inspiring, and by the time Vard had thrown off his
coat and dropped into a senatorial pose, I was ready to pitch into my
work. I swore I'd do his face then and there; do it as she saw it; she sat
close to him, and I had only to glance at her while I painted--
Vard himself was masterly: his talk rattled through my hesitations and
embarrassments like a brisk northwester sweeping the dry leaves from its
path. Even his daughter showed the sudden brilliance of a lamp from which
the shade has been removed. We were all surprisingly vivid--it felt,
somehow, as though we were being photographed by flash-light...
It was the best sitting we'd ever had--but unfortunately it didn't last
more than ten minutes.
It was Vard's secretary who interrupted us--a slinking chap called
Cornley, who burst in, as white as sweetbread, with the face of a
depositor who hears his bank has stopped payment. Miss Vard started up as
he entered, but caught herself together and dropped back into her chair.
Vard, who had taken out a cigarette, held the tip tranquilly to his fusee.
"You're here, thank God!" Cornley cried. "There's no time to be lost, Mr.
Vard. I've got a carriage waiting round the corner in Thirteenth Street--"
Vard looked at the tip of his cigarette.
"A carriage in Thirteenth Street? My good fellow, my own brougham is at
the door."
"I know, I know--but _they_'re there too, sir; or they will be, inside of
a minute. For God's sake, Mr. Vard, don't trifle!--There's a way out by
Thirteenth Street, I tell you"--
"Bardwell's myrmidons, eh?" said Vard. "Help me on with my overcoat,
Cornley, will you?"
Cornley's teeth chattered.
"Mr. Vard, your best friends ... Miss Vard, won't you speak to your
father?" He turned to me haggardly;--"We can get out by the back way?"
I nodded.
Vard stood towering--in some infernal way he seemed literally to rise to
the situation--one hand in the bosom of his coat, in the attitude of
patriotism in bronze. I glanced at his daughter: she hung on him with a
drowning look. Suddenly she straightened herself; there was something of
Vard in the way she faced her fears--a kind of primitive calm we drawing-
room folk don't have. She stepped to him and laid her hand on his arm. The
pause hadn't lasted ten seconds.
"Father--" she said.
Vard threw back his head and swept the studio with a sovereign eye.
"The back way, Mr. Vard, the back way," Cornley whimpered. "For God's
sake, sir, don't lose a minute."
Vard transfixed his abject henchman.
"I have never yet taken the back way," he enunciated; and, with a gesture
matching the words, he turned to me and bowed.
"I regret the disturbance"--and he walked to the door. His daughter was at
his side, alert, transfigured.
"Stay here, my dear."
"Never!"
They measured each other an instant; then he drew her arm in his. She
flung back one look at me--a paean of victory--and they passed out with
Cornley at their heels.
I wish I'd finished the face then; I believe I could have caught something
of the look she had tried to make me see in him. Unluckily I was too
excited to work that day or the next, and within the week the whole
business came out. If the indictment wasn't a put-up job--and on that I
believe there were two opinions--all that followed was. You remember the
farcical trial, the packed jury, the compliant judge, the triumphant
acquittal?... It's a spectacle that always carries conviction to the
voter: Vard was never more popular than after his "exoneration"...
I didn't see Miss Vard for weeks. It was she who came to me at length;
came to the studio alone, one afternoon at dusk. She had--what shall I
say?--a veiled manner; as though she had dropped a fine gauze between us.
I waited for her to speak.
She glanced about the room, admiring a hawthorn vase I had picked up at
auction. Then, after a pause, she said:
"You haven't finished the picture?"
"Not quite," I said.
She asked to see it, and I wheeled out the easel and threw the drapery
back.
"Oh," she murmured, "you haven't gone on with the face?"
I shook my head.
She looked down on her clasped hands and up at the picture; not once at
me.
"You--you're going to finish it?"
"Of course," I cried, throwing the revived purpose into my voice. By God,
I would finish it!
The merest tinge of relief stole over her face, faint as the first thin
chirp before daylight.
"Is it so very difficult?" she asked tentatively.
"Not insuperably, I hope."
She sat silent, her eyes on the picture. At length, with an effort, she
brought out: "Shall you want more sittings?"
For a second I blundered between two conflicting conjectures; then the
truth came to me with a leap, and I cried out, "No, no more sittings!"
She looked up at me then for the first time; looked too soon, poor child;
for in the spreading light of reassurance that made her eyes like a rainy
dawn, I saw, with terrible distinctness, the rout of her disbanded hopes.
I knew that she knew ...
I finished the picture and sent it home within a week. I tried to make it
--what you see.--Too late, you say? Yes--for her; but not for me or for
the public. If she could be made to feel, for a day longer, for an hour
even, that her miserable secret _was_ a secret--why, she'd made it seem
worth while to me to chuck my own ambitions for that ...
* * * * *
Lillo rose, and taking down the sketch stood looking at it in silence.
After a while I ventured, "And Miss Vard--?"
He opened the portfolio and put the sketch back, tying the strings with
deliberation. Then, turning to relight his cigar at the lamp, he said:
"She died last year, thank God."
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