Holmes gave a final, slightly ironic bow.
The small assembly stood up and clapped. Our host was smiling and nodding. I too clapped.
Privately I was chagrined by Siviter’s reference to me (picked up by Holmes) as panegyrist - a jibe which seemed designed to denigrate my profession.
As to his use of Ruth to Naomi!
We Meet Pevensey
We had an hour before the Lanchester would transport us to Etchingham for the early-evening train to Charing Cross where a brougham would be waiting to transport us to Baker Street courtesy of our host. The artist Pevensey had not been mentioned again. Ever-keen to add to my knowledge of pictorial art I asked whether our host would permit us to view the commission. After a moment of calculation, Siviter accepted this request. Holmes, the terriers and retrievers and I followed in his wake and once more crossed the chamomile lawn and the Wild Garden to Park Mill.
Leaving the excitable dogs outside, Siviter led us inside. Along the inside walls Watteau garden statues of shepherdesses and Boucher nymphs leaned against each other, jumbled up with stone images of Pan and Adonis. Siviter had collected up and removed the figures from the gardens upon purchasing the estate, together with marble figures of Cupid and Psyche. The centre of the floor was crammed with rococo chairs, fountains, fishing tackle, a chaise-longue, a cornucopia of Ceres, a carriage umbrella, and bicycles for the housemaids and footmen. It was as though at midnight of a full moon, every object would come alive and prance to the music of a hundred Pans.
We ascended the thinnest of stairs and emerged into the mill-attic through an open trap-door. The room was heavily shadowed in the corners but in the late-afternoon sun the centre of the attic was well-lit, a shaft blazing through a small, south-westerly-facing window. At one time the epicentre of the Mill’s activity, the arrival of the turbine-generator left the room empty and aloof from every-day work. Just visible, scattered around the uneven floor, were the accoutrements of the artist - stool, sketch-pad, palette and palette knife, a Victorian parasol, a half-empty bottle of turpentine or linseed oil, a scattering of cotton rags and jars and discarded tubes of paint. In the middle stood an easel supporting a canvas depicting a cart and horses in a wagon pond attended by the figure of a wagoner. A further human figure in a wide-brimmed purple-crimson hat surveyed them from the near verge. An immaculate, dainty man stood at the easel’s side. He wore the darkest of blue artist’s smocks. We were introduced to Pevensey. Away from the easel, almost hidden in the shadows, a second canvas of rather smaller dimensions lay against a wall as though discarded.
Unlike a predecessor at the Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Pevensey seemed of a nervous and excitable temperament, flustered by our intrusion. A half-extended hand, broad and fat like the flipper of a seal, grasped mine coldly. He was not a man whose personality invited confidences from strangers. In my anticipation I had expected him to look the image of Auguste Bréal, bright eyes, pointed black beard, beret, and bubbling with vivacity. Nevertheless, he was a painter of very considerable fame. Great-grandson of a sculptor, son of a successful architect, he had studied in Paris under a disciple of Ingres. His early reputation was founded on large, detailed, academic, rather oriental biblical scenes which, though quietly mocked behind his back in England, had made him a great deal of money in America. Of extreme ambition, it was said Pevensey had advanced well beyond his artistic talents to the point he was parodied as ‘the industrious apprentice’ in a novel published in 1894, whose protagonist hoped to become ‘the duly knighted or baroneted Lord Mayor of all the plastic arts’. Others spoke of him as forever ‘busy with his labours among Princes ignorant of art’. With a certitude of opinion, he had endeavoured to become adviser to an assortment of the nobility, among which he included the Earl of Carlisle. The baronetcy duly arrived in 1902. Then to wide surprise he harvested the Presidency of the Royal Academy.
Pulling his hand from my would-be warm embrace, he turned away. Ignoring Holmes, he exclaimed to Siviter, ‘It is finished,’ adding aspersively, as though blaming his patron, ‘I have run out of ordinary linseed oil.’
A silence followed this remark. I broke in awkwardly. ‘And how have you enjoyed this extraordinary studio?’
In the compressed space of the mill-attic I retreated to put my back against the wall, head forced forward by the sharp slope of the ceiling. Holmes, less diffident, crossed to the easel and gave the canvas a close inspection.
As though anticipating my attempt at polite chatter, Pevensey replied with a quote from a famed landscape painter. ‘The sound of water escaping from mill dams, willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts and brickwork, I love such things.’
To my relief Holmes took on the burden of engaging the artist in conversation, expressing deep interest in his craft. Although it was a social occasion, Holmes reminded me of a pure-blooded, well-trained foxhound dashing back and forward through a covert until it comes across the lost scent.
‘Have you painted mostly here indoors from sketches, or out-of-doors?’ Holmes asked.
Pevensey replied firmly, ‘Almost solely at Scotney Castle. Working out of doors in oils entails cumbersome equipment but assures vitality.’
Feeling a coldness in the air, I was ready to bid the artist a quick farewell and God-speed but Holmes appeared less willing to let him go. I glanced across at our host. For all Siviter’s customary cordiality, a touch of reserve had settled on him in Pevensey’s presence, as though some friction had broken into their relationship. For an instant, he seemed withdrawn.
‘This is a privilege,’ Holmes went on, extending his rare attempt at light conversation. ‘I have always wondered how the artist commences. Tell me, is it true you first construct a grid?’
‘Yes - most artists do,’ Pevensey replied. His answer seemed defensive, as though Holmes was challenging him by such a question.
‘And then?’ Holmes pursued. ‘You sketch out the major elements - the cottage and that wagon?’
‘Yes. I block in the main features.’
‘In broad masses of strong, bright colours, I see,’ Holmes pursued.
The length of my comrade’s enquiry was causing me considerable surprise, given its frosty reception. Under the circumstances, his interest seemed to me to border upon affectation.
‘That is correct,’ came Pevensey’s reply.
‘Please continue,’ Holmes requested. ‘This is most interesting.’
With seeming reluctance, Pevensey added, ‘When that is done I turn to detailed treatment of the landscape, with firm contours and naturalistic colouring.’
‘And then, you return to ...?’
‘...the centrepiece of the commission. The foreground must be lively, sensitive to many reflections. It is above all there that the viewer’s attention must be centred.’
‘As with that figure?’ Holmes pursued, pointing at the figure of the man standing at the wagon pond edge.
‘Precisely as with that figure.’
With some puzzlement I observed Holmes’ quick glancing eyes and his sharp scrutiny of Pevensey’s face, habitually a sign of more than ordinary interest.
‘And you completed this when?’ Holmes asked, eyebrows raised disarmingly.
‘Not long past three this afternoon, I believe,’ Siviter broke in unexpectedly, as though Holmes’ polite and casual query required an exactness of time. ‘As, no doubt, Holmes, you will deduce from the shadow cast by that figure!’
A silence followed. Siviter spoke again, as though Pevensey was not there.
‘Pevensey was at Scotney Castle from lunch until after three o’ clock today,’ he repeated, ‘when we sent Dudeney to retrieve him for tea.’ With a short laugh he added, ‘I have always sensed he feels safer in a studio.’