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BOOK I--A PROBLEM OF THE FIRST ORDER

CHAPTER

I "Let Some One Speak!"

II In Room B

V Three Where Two Should Be

VI The Man in the Gallery

BOOK II--MR. X

X "And He Stood Here?"

XX Mr. Gryce and the Unwary Woman

BOOK IV--NEMESIS

XXX The Creeping Shadow

BOOK I

A PROBLEM OF THE FIRST ORDER

"LET SOME ONE SPEAK!"

The hour of noon had just struck, and the few visitors still lingering among the curiosities of the great museum were suddenly startled by the sight of one of the attendants running down the broad, central staircase, loudly shouting:

"Close the doors! Let no one out! An accident has occurred, and nobody's to leave the building."

There was but one person near either of the doors, and as he chanced to be a man closely connected with the museum,--being, in fact, one of its most active directors,--he immediately turned about and in obedience to a gesture made by the attendant, ran up the marble steps, followed by some dozen others.

At the top they all turned, as by common consent, toward the left-hand gallery, where in the section marked II, a tableau greeted them which few of them will ever forget.

I say "tableau" because the few persons concerned in it stood as in a picture, absolutely motionless and silent as the dead. Sense, if not feeling, was benumbed in them all, as in another moment it was benumbed in the breasts of these new arrivals. Tragedy was there in its most terrible, its most pathetic, aspect. The pathos was given by the victim,--a young and pretty girl lying face upward on the tessellated floor with an arrow in her breast and death stamped unmistakably on every feature,--the terror by the look and attitude of the woman they saw kneeling over her--a remarkable woman, no longer young, but of a presence to hold the attention, even if the circumstances had been of a far less tragic nature. Her hand was on the arrow but she had made no movement to withdraw it, and her eyes, fixed upon space, showed depths of horror hardly to be explained even by the suddenness and startling character of the untoward fatality of which she had just been made the unhappy witness.

The director, whose name was Roberts, thought as he paused on the edge of the crowd that he had never seen a countenance upon which woe had stamped so deep a mark; and greatly moved by it, he was about to seek some explanation of a scene to which appearances gave so little clue, when the tall but stooping figure of the Curator entered, and he found himself relieved from a task whose seriousness he had no difficulty in measuring.

To those who knew William Jewett well, it was evident that he had been called from some task which still occupied his thoughts and for the moment somewhat bewildered his understanding. But as he was a conscientious man and quite capable of taking the lead when once roused to the exigencies of an occasion, Mr. Roberts felt a certain interest in watching the slow awakening of this self-absorbed man to the awful circumstances which in one instant had clouded the museum in an atmosphere of mysterious horror.

When the full realization came,--which was not till a way had been made for him to the side of the stricken woman crouching over the dead child,--the energy which transformed his countenance and gave character to his usually bent and inconspicuous figure was all if not more than the anxious director expected.

Finding that his attempts to meet the older woman's eye only prolonged the suspense, the Curator addressed her quietly, and in sympathetic tones inquired whose child this was and how so dreadful a thing had happened.

She did not answer. She did not even look his way. With a rapid glance into the faces about him, ending in one of deep compassion directed toward herself, he repeated his question.

Still no response--still that heavy silence, that absolute immobility of face and limb. If her faculty of hearing was dulled, possibly she would yield to that of touch. Stooping, he laid his hand on her arm.

This roused her. Slowly her eyes lost their fixed stare and took on a more human light. A shudder shook her frame, and gazing down into the countenance however, that Romney's son and biographer does not say any hard things about his father in this matter, nor does he upbraid him for leaving his wife far away in the Fells. Mrs. Romney did not write letters of expostulation to her husband, or demand that she should be brought up to London; and when her husband returned to her as an invalid, she received him lovingly and nursed him with great devotion till his death. She in no way suffered pecuniary loss by his absence, as he regularly sent sums of money to her; and when their son was old enough to come to town, Romney had him to his house, treated him with the greatest affection, and took him about with him.

Surely it ill beseems those who consider the life of this gifted artist so to condemn his action, when those who were the ones best fitted to blame him specially abstained from doing so!

Mrs. Romney, be it remembered, came of very humble parentage, and was a homely person of but slight education. She appears to have had her own circle of friends in the places where she lived, to have been a person of simple tastes, not anxious to mix in the world of fashion or to receive its comments and its sneers. She would have been in all probability unhappy in London, have in no wise enjoyed the life that her husband lived, and have been an encumbrance to him and a clog on his progress; and Romney very possibly feared to expose her simplicity to the contempt of the people of fashion whom he met and whose portraits he painted.

She may have desired to avoid such society and have preferred her quiet at home, and it may have been a refinement of kindness on his part which led him to shelter her from the troubles which he knew would await her in London.

There is nothing which, with any degree of accuracy, can be stated against the moral character of Romney whilst he was away from her, and all such charges against him fall to the ground by reason of the absence of proof, and it seems clear that it was no such cause that kept him from sending for his wife. Even the reports as to Romney and Lady Hamilton, to which reference is made in a succeeding chapter, are gainsaid by the letters of Lady Hamilton herself which are in the Morrison collection, and no one has ever been able to produce one single piece of evidence in support of the statements that have been too wildly made. Mrs. Romney from the very first showed her deep attachment to her husband by sacrificing herself for his advancement; and she continued, as her letters show, throughout her life, to act in the same way for him, and to give him her deepest and tenderest affection: and we are therefore justified in accepting as normal a state of affairs as to which the chief persons concerned made no complaint, and in declining to attribute to the artist any unworthy motives for his conduct.

Romney did not come to London provided with references or introductions, nor with much money, and the consequence was that for the first ten years of his life in town it was a struggle for him to do any more than keep himself and remit small sums to his wife in Kendal.

He seems to have known only two persons in London, neither of whom was in a position to do much to assist him.

Whether, as has been stated, Sir Joshua Reynolds was at the head of this movement to crush the young artist we cannot tell; but it seems likely that the bitter jealousy which existed between the two men in after years, and which Reynolds never lost an opportunity of increasing, took its rise at this time, and certain it is that Reynolds hated to hear Romney praised, and was ever ready to say and do things that would annoy and irritate his rival.

Romney had always been convinced that the study of the great artists of the Continent was needful for him before he would be able to accomplish what he felt was within him, and he made every effort to get to Italy in order to study the Old Masters.

At this time he was unable to accomplish his cherished desire for want of funds, but he saved all that he could, and contented himself with a journey to Paris.

Here he copied all the works that appealed strongly to him, and spent every hour of his time in visiting galleries and churches and feasting his eyes on the treasures which they contained. His acquaintance with Vernet was of great service to him at this issue.

On his return to London after some seven weeks' absence he again set valiantly to work, and in 1765 carried off a premium from the Society of Arts of fifty guineas against all his competitors.

Then, in 1767, he went down to see his wife, and when he returned to London he brought with him his brother Peter, hoping to be able to assist him in some measure. Peter was not, however, steady or industrious, and, although he sat to his cleverer brother more than once, he did not remain with him long, but drifted away and eventually settled down to a more or less precarious life in Manchester.

Romney now made close friends with Richard Cumberland, who was known at that time as a writer of odes and a man of no small literary grace. Cumberland wrote about his new friend and also introduced him to many other persons, and in this way the artist obtained commissions for portraits from several notable personages.

Another important friend whom he made at this time was the miniature-painter Ozias Humphrey, with whom he made several excursions, and who was one of his closest friends for many years.

Two more efforts he made at this time to visit Italy, which was ever the goal of his desire; but on neither occasion was he able to start. The death of a friend on one occasion and his own serious illness on another prevented his leaving England, but in 1773 the long-desired visit took place.

The two friends, Romney and Humphrey, set out on March 20th, and after resting at Knole, near Sevenoaks, as the guests of the Duke of Dorset, to whom both artists were well known, they left England by water and arrived in Rome on June 18th.

Other introductions which the artist took with him were from Sir William Hamilton and his nephew Greville.

Romney was not yet a man of any means, and he supported himself whilst in Rome by painting portraits and some historical works, and by copying the great masterpieces which he found in the Eternal City; but he had to make every effort to be economical, as his pictures did not meet with a ready sale in Italy, and he desired to visit many other cities whilst in the country besides Rome.

He actually did see Venice, Bologna, Florence, Padua, Castel-franco, and even some of the smaller cities, as Modena, Reggio and Mantua. Then he slowly made his way back to England by way of Aix and Paris, arriving in London after two years' absence in high spirits, full of ideas, and overwhelmed with enthusiasm for all he had seen, but in a pecuniary condition poorer than he had ever been in his life.

He had, in fact, had to borrow money to carry him through France, and almost to starve himself in his journey, as his small means had long ago vanished, and he had withdrawn all the money that he had banked ere he left Italy.

When he arrived he was met by demands for immediate assistance on the part of his clever but ne'er-do-well brother Peter, but was for the moment unable to assist him.

He found, however, that his own fame had increased during his absence, and the demand for work from his brush was considerable, so much so that he was overwhelmed with the commissions that flowed in.

He felt now that he was in a position to take a larger house in a more fashionable neighbourhood than he had possessed before; and accordingly, as Francis Cotes, R.A., the painter in pastel, had died, and his house in Cavendish Square was still vacant, Romney took it and moved in on Christmas Day, 1775.

Cotes had died in 1770, and the sale of his effects took place in February, 1771; but after that the house stood vacant for a long time, and when Romney took it needed some considerable repair.

Romney had ever a fondness for bricks and mortar, and was delighted at the prospect of altering and adding to the house.

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