A Victim to Art

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 136, 9 June 1906, Page 10

A Victim to Art

It was whab is commonly and vulgarly known as on oleograph. The colours were strong and brilliant. They attracted your attention on the other side of the street. There was no attempt to soften or modify the contrasts between the reds and blues and yellows of the Madonna's gown The moral effects were equally emphatic. The picturo represented the Holy Mother looking down into the face of the Child on her lap. The Child was asleep, and your feelings were assailed by the pathos of elumbtring innocence. But the "Mother's face was the great storm-centre of the picture. It was, wrung with prophetic grief. The whole story of that coming lifo was wirrored in that absorbed, grief-stricken gaze. > - Facing tho picture-shop was an undertaker's window with the notice, "Infants' Funerals cheaply undertaken," and two small coffins behind the 'glass. It was at'ter purchasing one of these coffins for her latest-come and latest-gone that Mrs. Wicks's eye was caught by the blaze of colour opposite. She had paused listlessly outside the undertakers, a pocket-handkerchief in her hand, and her poor face lined with moist "watercourses. She had been looking forlornly up and down the street, but now ehe slowly gathered together her black dress, crossed the muddy road, and stood gazing at the pioture. "It's the very life," she murmured to herself. Then she stood 1 gazing for a few minutes, embarked on a slow voyage of discovery after an old and diity puree, discovered it after much fumbling in some deep, mysterious' recess of hei costume, opened it, and found it— empty She looked from the purse to the picture, and then back at the purse. She. carefully opened every compartment of the puree and applied an inquipitoiial eye. She sighed, and looked back at th« picture ; then jsho turned and went slowly down the statset. The day after the b?fcy was buried shfc came back to settle with the undertaker, and again she crossed the street and etood enthralled. Next day she made some slight change in her morning walk to the laundry, I where she spent her days, and managed to pass down this very street. She followed the same route every day for a fortnight, and every day she paused by the shop. On tho fifteenth day she toot out the puree again. This time it was quite fat and heavy. Site opened it and carefully counted, with tho slow "labour of one unaccustomed to figures, a big collection of copper coins. There were fourteen pennies, six half-pennies, and ten farthings. Then she went timidly into the shop, and faintly addressed a rather smart young man who was bustling about. "Will you kindly tell me, sir, how much is that beautiful picture in the window?" The smart young man looked Mrs. Wicks up and down. He called it afterwards "sizin* 'er up." "Ten bob," he said laconically at last. Mrs. Wicks caught her breath, and then looked at him in mild surprise. '/Isn't that rather dear?" she said mildly. "Its a- rare picture, mum, painted by 'and," said the young man '"You don't get them colours every day — it cost us a pot of brass." Mrs. Wicks sighed and moved slowly towards thfi door. "I'll call again another day," ehe said — which was unwise, as ho hod a reduction on the tip of his tongue. She spent next Sunday going slowly through her wardrobe, much to the surprise of her huiband, who .watched her in languid intervals of wakefulness from his bed. "What's yer little gime now, missus?" he said, sleepily. "Just pickin' out some clothes to clean," she said. But next morning she took a bundle with her on her way to work, and dropped into the pawnbroker's. It was her best gown. But she got only 4s for it. During the next few days other articles followed swiftly— the hai in which she was married, with its crown of ostrich feathers, her best paiv of boots and her only ornament — a little silver brooch. On the Saturday evening »he brought home the picture. "Bought that?" said her husband. "Why yer oughter 'aye married a dook." ■- He talked tho matter over with a pal that evening over a pint of bitter, aiid they both agreed that wives were wasteiul possessions. The district visitor from the neighbouring chapel who dropped in* now and again with a welcome pound of tea, kept her hand under her cloak' at) her next visit. "I'm afraid Mrs. Wicks has become a. -Papist," she said to her minister on Sunday morning ; "die has bought a very Popish picture." Mrs. Wicks had to go without her tea next Sunday. Things went very badly with the Wicks couple in tho following winter. Work was very slack at the clocks, where Mr. Wicks served on the "B" list, and Mrs. Wicks's laundry, after a ltfng and succesful warfare against the clothing of the neighbourhood, was suddenly closed down i by the competition of an enterprise slower in its destructive processes. The dreary shadow of unemployment, with it 3 vague discontent, its weary unrest, and its growing hunger of heart and body, settled down on the two Tooms where tho lonely husband and wifo lived. For the first time they began to quarrel. "Why not take tho bloomin' picture?" Wicks would say as Mrs. Wicka took article after article to the little shop with the three golden balls. "What did you do with that shillin' I gave you yesterday ?" was Mrs. Wicks's retort ; and it sent her husband moodily down the street. Hard of Christmas a, crisis came. Their landlord— a foreman in Borne neighbouring works who had become a houseowner through a building, society — refused to give them any more grace. ] "You're seven weeks behind — your money next Saturday or out yer go!" After the interview Mis. Wicks had gone upstairs to borrow a screw of tea from the amiable family above them, and stood gossiping witb the prosperous mother at the head of it. "Work'us?" she said/with healthy contempt. "Wy don't yer do like the old lidy upstairs? She was down on 'er luck a bit, and was gettin' a bit tired of tlhe. matchbox business when 'oo should come along but a nice, good, young man, who Bays, 'Come and soo us and we'll givo you a pension' — and now they lives on it —she and 'er darter." And son on Wednesday Mrs. Wicks appeared before a Committee of Wise Persona from tho West. It was a very wise committee, and though individually genial enough ,in pii- ' vate life, It always wore an air of great severity when It was oitting. It could not understand why any one 6hould hate It as much wlt was hated. But It had neveT appeared before Itself. This particular afternoon It had 1 had a very heavy agenda, and several very disappointing cases. Faced with many sordid proofs of wiong-doing and deception, the committee's disbelief in the poor had .st*adi\x deepened. Its brow was heavy

with that particularly dangerous look which is perhaps best described as the "more-in-sorrow-than-in-auger" look. Tho secretary read though Mrs. Wicks* dossier. He was a clever man, and had found out more- about Mrs, Wicks than she knew herself There was a silence after he had finished reading. „ ,„ "How many pawn-tickets did you say ? said the chairman. "Twenty, Sir Arthur." The committee frowned. # "It looks bad— show the woman, in. "Wo notice, Mrs. Wicks," said the chairman blandly, "that) you have disposed of your things to two pawnshops widely apart from one another. Did your husband know of this?" "No, sir." , . ._ . The committee exchanged a- significant look. . „ "Then why did you do it, Mrs. Wicks?" . „ . „ " 'Cos I wanted to buy a pictnire, Gir. "Indeed? Indead? Well— well— that will do, Mns. Wicks— you may go." "A most unsuitable case- for •us to help," was the unanimous verdict of tho Wise Persons from tho West. A few days later tSffe doorkeeper of the workhouse at E— ■ — was to be seen perplexedly gnzing at a forioin woman who held steadily on to a picture. "Well, it's against all the regulations, ho said several times, but with a softening face that did not escape the woman. "Please, sir, let me bring it in," she pleaded again. "It's not) the- Virgin I care for, sir— it's the little Boy in 'er lap— he's so like my 'Arry." And so the doorkeeper gave way, and Mis. Wicks disappeared into the workhouse triumphantly holding on to her picture. — Harold Spender, in the Daily Chronicle.