PARTING OF THE VEIL.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 9, Issue 78, 30 September 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

PARTING OF THE VEIL.

CHAPTER I. VERMILLION BY THE ACRE. NOTING woman, you are working too hard.” “Yes. While ray wings are growing.” He turned and looked out upon the brick walls. “Mho is evidently neither worm nor butterfly—“and the end will be “either an early grave or fame! Well, in our work fame means fortune. It is well—let her alone.” With this admonition to himself the “Tiger,” as the toilers called their employer, thrust his hands behind him, in thoughtful mood, and strode out of the workroom into the office across the hall. The name to which the “Tiger” laid claim by Christian right and usage was Leon Spanoro; and, as its construction indicated, he was a Spaniard. What was" worthy of the remark, which it usually called forth, was that his hair was light, his beard luminous, and his person round and portly. His establishment was one with which the world was, and still is, but little acquainted —a commercial art school or factory—whichever name you fancy. And at the time the above unimportant words were uttered a young woman, or girl, was making her brush , nimble with a morning dose of “turps.” The young woman adddressed did not enjoy the occassional conversations with the Spaniard, merely because he was in no wise anxious for the welfare of- other “pupils.” She did not properly appreciate the distinction, possibly. The future life of the girl was developed from germs of which this was one.

Very few persons acquainted with art matters in this country from 1840 to 1845 but wore familiar with the title —“My Lady of Luraine.” This rare genius and beautiful woman was in the commercial “Art School” of Leon Spanero in 1837-8 seeking to rise to the plane of a higher life. Thus, in a picture factory, where genius was “done in oil” by the dozen, on contract, and by routine colorings, a young girl was earning the wherewith to grow poor and wax pale, as a stepping stone to fame.

Not that what the blue bloods of Boston called the “ideal” was cultivated. No, the compensation received was weary hands, weary hearts and a right to be buried in the potter’s field. Then, of course, there was so much a yard for spreading transflgurating shadows over the canvas, in which each one added single colors, regardless of the whole. Miss Helen Lament was only one of many factors in the production of each work, and genius rarely germinates under such circumstances. “Pinnie, why do you not go to breakfast?” “Why, did you think I hadn’t been to breakfast, Miss Lamont?” replied a singularly pale and slender youth whom she had addressed. “I had not seen you leave the room.” “ Ido not dare to go after the Tiger is up.” The person addressed by Miss Lamont was a young man who slept at the school, builded fives, blacked the Tiger’s boots and did various lines of work for the owner of the boots. The boy was not a giant. The twenty years of life thus far permitted him by an unhappy fate, had clothed a thin skeleton with almost viewless flesh—and his beardless face was as transparent wax, from which shone the unspeakable light of two lustrous eyes. Pinnie was no beauty, but still few men were able to ook at him the first time without casting the second glance. The second glance generally ended with a sigh. Did you ever look into one of those art shops of the ante-chromo period? No? Well, let us look around this den, made brilliant with startling colors, against which all real artists launched their curses. It was a day when every happy home expressed some of its happiness by the purchase ot “oils,” more or less nearly related to the “great masters”— more or less hideous, and more or less everything else. They ornamented the best room, and frequently would almost knock a person down who saw them for the first time—unless informed that they were from the brush of the celebrated “Ludwico,” or “Von Schwableister,” or some other famous, unspeakable, and only! In this interesting period, which began with the century and closed with the introduction of the chromo of the last twenty-five years, art passed through one of its cooling epochs! That is to say, the mad fever to paint the thunder and tint a dream, cooled down to the icy reality of scrubwork—at twelve shillings a dozen! The substitution of the chromo for piece work annihilated the “art schools” of the Spanero type. Forty years ago every inland town had its art sales. A traveling genius, with a wonderfully composite Italian brogue, and an astounding mustachio, came into town with a name which leaned like the Tower of Pisa—from its peculiarity of construction. He hung a hundred pictures on the wall in some vacant storeroom, and arranged a brilliant reflector to throw light on the auction easel. A crowd gathered and the tide rose. The sale got decidedly interesting. Every man and woman was ready to back up his or her “taste” with the wild-cat currency of the day—-it might be worthless on the nrorrow, anyway.

A hundred dollars or five dollars—it was all the same to Ludwico. As the original cost was but fifty cents, plus a dollar frame, those tears of Ludwico over the sacrifice of his magnificent collection from Italy possessed more true art than most of his pictures. It was where these wonderful oils were produced that we find our “Lady of Luraine,” germinating in the character of Miss Helen Lament, the heroine of many a

triumph and—of this story. We enter one of the schools where inspiration is under contract by the acre. It consists of three or four rooms on the fourth floor of an old-fash-ioned brick and stone structure in the City of Boston. In one of these rooms was the public office of the proprietor or master. Its public character was not very well developed, as all these rooms were in an interior building, that is to say, in the court or open space in the centre of a square, which was built up on the street on the four sides. At the upper end of a tortuous nailway, and across from the master’s office, was the workroom. It may have been twenty by forty feet in extent. But at the time we open the story not more ban a dozen “ artists ” were members of the school. In each corner of the room and at the middle of each side were easels. On each corner easel was a weatherbeaten painting, while at varying distances around were smaller easels grouped, at which sat or stood the “ artists what merry lies our courtesy delights in ! On the corner easel wa« a “ Coliseum by Moonlight,” with a brickred antiquity visible in the foreground; and for so many “Raphaels” the distinguished genius drew on the red-headed Spanish tiger for so many American dollars every Saturday afternoon. The other two rooms that we mentioned as a part of the outfit, were the private jungle of Spanero, which no man or woman had ever entered so far as we now know, and the

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little four-by-six den, where Pinnie was supposed to sleep to the great detriment of the coal, and wood and rats. One morning, just before our story opens, the tiger had knocked Pinnie around to his satisfaction, and as a sort of punctuation mark in his daily activities, kicked over the easel of one of the bread-winners in color. Having witnessed the expected look of grief and despair on the face of the victim, ho returned to his office. There the master found a young woman awaiting him —one who had evidently seen some twenty summers and but few winters. She had entered quietly and seated herself without request. Spanero possessed what we may term strength in his eyes,” and the penetration of his glance was an unaffected element of his personal powers. He looked at the young woman, and beyond the remarkable beauty he saw character distinctly written, and however dangerous it may prove to dominion, the masterful always seeks the companionship of strength. Pulling his beard with some show of impatience, the Tiger nodded to the girl,, and suggested with the slightest tinge of respect in his manner: “There may be something I can do for you, young woman?” “Yes, sir; that is, if you are the head of this school."

“School? This is not a school, miss! It’s a workshop —a machine for grinding—a foundry. You want to paint, I suppose.” “Yes, sir; I wish to earn euqugh to ” “All right. You need not explain. What can you do?” “Oh, I can sketch in perspective and I have some samples of ” “No,” quickly responded the master, with a motion of the baud as if to ward off a calamity; “show them to Pinnie—he has ah eye for a wagon painter.” Helen Lamont might have asked who Pinnie was, but she did not. She said nothing. “Young woman,” Spanero said, after a pause, “we have no use for perspective here. As I said, this is not a school of art—it is a factory. Can you blend? Can you mix, grind? Can you tell rose red from sea green —sky blue from lavender? And how ranch 3o you want?” “I donot know,” the girl answered promptly. “ Enough to buy bread and provide a place in which to eat it.” “How much can you do?” “Very little at first, I should think.” “So should I,” said the Tiger with a grin—though it must be confessed that tigers seldom grin. “My uncle taught me—” “Never mind the uncle, miss.”

■ He led her into the workroom, amid the strange faces there fighting for life, on not one of which could she see the bloom of hope or happiness. He gave her a place and told her to prepare the ground for a magnificent botch then on the copy easel. “And put on the sky and then bring it to me. Don’t touch any other part of it—that girl over there with the game foot will take it next.” In twenty minutes she took it into the office—absolutely the worst work she had

ever executed. But Helen was a girl of rare intelligence. She understood instantly that time, and not genius, was in demand there; and she was equal to the demand. “All right, girl; all right,” said the Tiger, and he mopped the sly wrinkles of 45 creeping over his face. “You will soon be able to earn $5 a week.” The Spaniard would have lied just as gracefully if her countenance had not lightened up with pleasure. So she entered upon her work—and worked very hard. Nor did she, after this, endeavor to slight her work to gain a moment’s time. Oh, glorious idealist, who dreams in blending shadows, an'd hides the smile of hope in the thin gauze of the mountain mist you are creating—who seeks the valley for the rest there is in humility, and climbs the mountain in search of the “higher life!” Rare dreams for the garret! But dreams of the emeraldine hue will not ripen in the frosty night of such a painful reality as surrounded Helen Lamontl Was there one about her who dreamed of better things? Not one but had enough to do to earn his bread—and eat it! Yes, there was one—one poor, thin, pale boy, whose body had failed to provide a proper envelope for his soul, and if “Pinnie” ever dreamed of a higher life, it was as a germ presses the too heavy soil above it. But Pinnie did have aspirations. At times, when Helen Larnont went to her quiet chamber which overlooked the bay, the image of a face, which bent over all the work and then rested upon her own, came before her like the theme of a picture. And so one day she said, to herself, that she would know more of the youth whose life seemed to live behind a veil—obscuring, possibly, the purpose of his existence.

One evening she said to him : “ Pinnie, why do you come and stand by my work ?” “ Because,” said the boy, “ you can teach.” “Teach, child? What do you mean?” said the girl, surprised. “ Oh,” said he, turning his large eyes, and face which rarely smiled, full upon her, “ you understand it—no one else does here save the master, and he never works now.” “ And if I do ?” she asked. “ Then, Miss Lament, I want to catch the idea which you have, but of which I only dream.” “ Pinnie, where are your parents ?” she asked, suddenly changing the subject. “ I have none.” “ None ?” “None, Miss Lament. My father and mother died on the ocean. I do not even know what country I came from. I was adopted.” And he hung his head; but his voice was clear. “My friend, tell me your story—no, not now; the master will be here soon. Come to my home with me this evening—we wil say much to each other, but not here.” It might have been a bold thing to say to some, but not to Pinnie. It required no apology. “ I cannot. I have never been anywhere.” She did not know the awful truth to which she was listening and replied: “You can go with me, Pinnie. There, do not stay lo ger now.”

That evening Miss Helen went into the office before leaving the building. “Well, what do you want?” But it was not said as Spanero would have spoken to any of the other unfortunates. “I have some work at my room which I wish Pinnie to bring here —this evening.” “Do you mean that you want him to go with you?” said the man with a scowl. “Yes.” “Well, he can’t go." “Then 1 shall not be here in the morning,” she replied. Miss Lament had her own reasons for bearding the lion—or the tiger—wherever she found him in her way, and it was not the first attack. The eyes of Spauero turned upon her with an unwonted fire in them—at least to her experience. For a moment he did not say a word. It is possible that he enjoyed the spirit in this beautiful inspiration that had come into his den.

“Miss Lament, are you supposed to run this establishment?” “No, sir.” “Then permit me to suggest that you hire some street youth to do your errands,” said Spauero, turning to his ledger. “I am preparing work which he alone can touch. He must go or no one.” And the brilliant eyes of the girl shone with a new light. “Miss Lament, I will attend to my business —you will please confine yourself to your own.”

“And in that effort I will take the boy with me.”

She rose from the chair into which she had seated herself uninvited, and as she passed the door she turned and said, with rare grace and tact; “I will always remember this kindness.”

When she left the room the tiger gathered himself together, jumped to the floor, walked with energy and muttered various oaths in Spanish and French. Evidently one language would not answer the demand of the occasion. When he finally settled into his chair again he congealed all his dissatisfaction into the words; “Well, the d—d puppy can’t say anything when he don’t know anything 1’ ’ CHAPTER 11. HE TELLS HIS MOTHER ABOUT IT. HE heroes and heroines, little and big, of every story, must have something to do, and so we have taken a few real brokers, and merchants and lawyers, and industrious laborers, and hidden their identity under a profession with which our only acquaintance comes with the memories of the past here recorded. We cannot clothe all our characters with the mantle of the artist. One of them, at least, was a stock broker—on the exchange of Boston. The stocks, however, in which the elder Van tier Nort dealt were neither New York Central nor Michigan Central. Nor were they the stiff, crackling parchments in red and old gold, with coupon attachments—but rather the prospective value of the next ship-load of Malacca goods and Cinghalese ware. In other words, the Elder Van der Nort was in the East India trade. His “water stock” yielded dividends on rich shawls and laces, and even upon spices. The Elder Van der Nort was dead, and in 1837 his graceful widow was a lady of 50 years, with silvery hair, and with sprightly step. Her face*bore lines upon it, but her form was still lithe, graceful and petite. The down town office was presided overby a son. And the son was not an artist nor a dreamer. He was thoroughly real. And yet, he was a patron of every element which would advauce the higher interests of Boston —one of those men who were laying the foundations broadly for that grand development of culture which has made Boston the Athens of America. However, in buying and selling he handled the “real stuff.” This is not a moan insinuation upon modern stocks —it is merely a statement that he neither dealt in “margins”—nor wrote verse!

Being young, handsome and rich, and of a family with a perpendicular lineage (geometrical term for high up, he pati’onized art and in turn was patronized by it. He and several like him sought out the painter, the bookmaker, the rhymer and the songstress—and made them friends. And his beautiful mother, whose amiable ways were so winning to the stranger within their gates, followed up his whims in this respect with a faithfulness and love which make motherhood so holy a bond. This model of young masculine excellence was not free from his tricks during boyhood. He was sent to a college not a thousand miles from Boston when 10 years of age —ten years before our story opens. He went alone, introduced himself to a reverend seiguor precentor and registered his name as Conrad—not Van der Nort—but plain North. Nor did his comrades know him by any other name.

One day this sprightly chap brought four other chaps home with him for a visit! Only four! And every one of the four, with great disrespect for the Dutch dialect and the pride of ancestry, called the heir presumptive pliin “North.” And, to tell the truth, the old gentleman rather liked the boy’s ways—not infringing a regiment of boys home with him to turn the house into a menagerie, but in his making his name plain United States “North.” The widow and son, after the death of the father, continued to live in 'the old gabled brickyard, or ancestral house, which over looked the then “Americus Bay”—a name which was rapidly disappearing. “ Mother,” said the sou one day, as he entered the sitting room, “ I have made up my mind to marry.” The mother looked at him a moment—he was a splendid fellow to look at, of medium height, stoutly built, light complexion, blue eyes, light hair, ruddy cheeks and the picture of health. “ Well, Conrad,” she said, without any perceptible anxiety, “you will have to find the other party to the contract first.” “ I haven’t consulted the other party yet, but I have seen her.” “ Is that all ?” said the mother. “ No, it is even worse than that —I do not know her name, nor whether she is married or single.” “In that case I shall not lose you for some time yet." “I do not know,” continued the young man. “I saw the young lady this evening, and she said to mo, ‘Conrad, you ought to have me, or someone like me, for a wife.” Mrs. North held up both her hands to express her horror. “The bold thing!” “She did not say it, mother, she only looked it; and I immediately rebuked the sentiment by wishing I could obey her—and I presume I looked it tool” • The mother smiled.

“You see, mother,” said Conrad, taking a chair and coming close to her, “the young lady was waiting at the ferry; and in some unreasonable manner, when I looked at her I felt that I ought to have a wife!”

(To be continued .)