Читать книгу The Life of Sir William Quiller Orchardson - Hilda Orchardson Gray - Страница 33

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After the break-up of the Fitzroy Square ménage my Father moved Campden Hill way.

“Christopher Sly,” exhibited by Wallis—French Gallery—dates the following two letters 1866:

20 Brecknock Cr.,

London.

My Dear Father,

I have just finished “Sly” (Shakespeare). I have been painting till two or three in the morning all this week and only got through it last night at ten. To-day has been the private view. My picture is hung in the post of honour, and one of Ward’s R.A. in the next place. Pettie is also well hung.

The Exhibition is not held in the same place as last year, but has been removed to the Suffolk Street Galleries, which are three times as large. There is another one opened in the old place by a rival of Mr Wallis, but the latter has made great exertions and the consequence is that the Suffolk Street Ex. is only inferior, if at all, to the Royal Academy.

My picture has been fearfully hurried, two of the figures were designed and painted on the bare canvas on Friday morning between half-past twelve and three and never touched again. It was a mistake to attempt so large a canvas in so short a time, but Wallis was so anxious about it, and relied on me so much, that I could scarcely help myself.

However, I don’t suppose the critics will abuse it altogether, and ... [The end of this letter appears to have been lost.]

[A note in pencil.]

20 Brecknock Crt.,

Camden Town,

Tuesday.

Written a week ago but not posted.

My Dear Father,

I have just returned from the country where I have been indulging in a holiday, following the hounds across country in a break-neck fashion for which I feel all the better. The “Winter” exhibition is a great success. There have been critiques in all the papers. I shall try and get some of them to send to you. They speak well of “Sly,” and I understand it has done me some good; it is a sort of picture I have never tried before, having rather a large dose of the comic element.

I have all the “swell” dealers at me for pictures, my next is promised to Flatow, and Wallis says he is “so mortified” at this that I have had to promise him all I do after the R.A. for his next year’s Exhibition which he means to rival the Academy. I suppose I shall begin to make money now as well as the dealers. I intend increasing my prices and enlarging my bank account (small at present).

So you must not worry your health too much with the idea of “running short,” but remember

Your affectionate son,

W. Q. Orchardson.

20 Brecknock Cr.

My dear Father,

I enclose a cheque for £30. It will not inconvenience me. Money is a good thing to have, but it will never bring me a greater pleasure than in enabling me to assist you.

Your affectionate son,

W. Q. Orchardson.

In a hurry—a lady is waiting to sit.

Nearly all Orchardson’s early works contain an element of comedy, but I think Christopher Sly is the only one that contains “rather a large dose of the comic element.” He painted seven Shakesperean pictures, I think, the last being “Jessica,” in 1877. During the happiest part of his life he painted tragedy and then later comedy, or at least things with a touch of humour in them, such as “Shopping in the Honeymoon,” “Rivalry,” “Reflections,” “The Enigma,” and the “Parting of the Ways.” Three late unfinished works contain tragedy, “The Last Dance,” “The Widow,” and “Solitude”—the last two different versions of the same idea. The most tragic of all, “The Borgia,” was a late work.

Having occupied six studios in the six years he had been in London, it was now time to move again. This time he went to Kensington, to Phillimore Gardens, for a studio, and for lodgings to Bedford Gardens, according to my Mother, who also states in a back-of-a-letter note that he “stayed” with the Archers, “who lived in Phillimore Gardens.” He was probably at all three places.

My Grandfather, C. Moxon, also lived there, with his wife and two children, a few doors from the Archers. In 1867, or perhaps early in 1868, Mr Archer, the artist, introduced his Edinburgh artist friend Orchardson—a rising man—to Charles Moxon, who bought “Prince Henry, Poins and Falstaff” for £400.

From the first the artistic business man and the young artist liked each other so that they became lifelong friends; and little Nellie Moxon, a small, shy, dark-eyed, dark-haired schoolgirl of about thirteen, with a habit of twiddling her innumerable buttons, obtained a hero. Charles Moxon was a shrewd Yorkshireman, humorous, kindly—one of those people to whom others always came for advice and sympathy. Asked by Orchardson to explain the secret, he answered with a twinkle in his eye that he first found out the enquirer’s own opinion and then advised accordingly! He was very artistic, and had wished to be a painter, but being unable to afford the training, became a business man, a decorator, instead, and postponed painting till his old age.

He was successful in a modest way, and amongst other places he decorated Buckingham Palace, over which he lost a good deal of money.

Besides Orchardson, Pettie, MacWhirter and Tom Graham were frequent visitors, billiards and witty talk being the amusements. The house was beautifully decorated, and furnished in classical Renaissance style with antique furniture, which provided artistic eyes with much pleasure and artistic tongues with much to talk and argue about.

At billiards my Grandfather was very brisk and lively when he was winning, but when he was losing he felt quite tired, so he said, with that merry twinkle in his bright blue eyes—blue eyes and black hair, a very handsome man. As he had broken both feet in a fall from a scaffolding when young, no doubt there was a substratum of truth in the little familiar joke.

W. Q. O. played pretty constantly both there and elsewhere, and at one time could make a 100 break with ease, always playing with a hat on to shade his eyes.

He played with Roberts and B [?] one of whom remarked to him, “If you would only take the trouble you would make a billiard player.” But Orchardson always quoted the saying that to play billiards too well is a sign of a misspent youth—he did not approve of professional games, he considered games should be relaxation from work.

As he grew older my Grandfather exchanged billiards for whist, a game at which my Grandmother had certain rules of her own, one being that trumps must always be held and on no account played till the very last except for trumping purposes. If she won, life was a very gay affair, but if she lost she would shake her head sadly as she rose, folding her hands and saying: “Well, well, somebody must be cross.”

My Father would go into fits of laughter at the mere recollection—her humour was so unconscious. He told my Mother that as a boy he used to make himself quite ill with laughing.

Photo T. & R. Annan

THE QUEEN OF THE SWORDS (charcoal study), 1876

By kind permission of the Edinburgh National Gallery.

My Grandparents usually spent their holidays in France and had a good many French friends, Mademoiselle Céleste Léveillé, the Jouanins and the Casellas being the chief of them so far as I remember. Mr. Casella, another business man with a taste for art, lived in London most of his life but always remained French though his daughters were English; he was a man for whose honourable honesty my Father had the greatest admiration and for whose misfortune in losing his money, owing to his unusual sense of honour, he had the greatest sympathy.

My Father particularly liked French people, finding their charming manners and great artistic sense most attractive.

We may now picture Orchardson as well started in his career; not merely a rising man but a risen one. He was made A.R.A. in 1868, the year in which he exhibited “Prince Henry, Poins and Falstaff” and “Mrs. Birket Foster” at the Royal Academy.

To hunting and billiards Orchardson now added a third amusement—tennis, real tennis, which he first saw played at Brighton when there with Mr. Pettie. According to Sir Walter Armstrong, “One day W. Q. O. and Pettie strolled into the court at the back of Bedford Hotel, and taking up a pair of racquets set themselves to solve the mysteries of the game.” Orchardson was elected to the M.C.C. in 1872 and played frequently at Lord’s and sometimes at Prince’s and Queen’s Clubs.

After Kensington, Orchardson tried St. John’s Wood Road, No. 19, where he remained, I think, until his marriage.

Postmark: May 2nd, 1870.

Sunday.

My dear Father,

I am very much annoyed with myself for neglecting to write you. The truth is I am in a very backward state with all my correspondence and have been working and worrying a good deal lately. My large picture which I meant for the R.A. I did not get finished in time and have since cut it to pieces.

I have sent three, but none of them are very big.

I am just preparing to start for Venice where I mean to work for two or three months at the least—it is a glorious place and full of splendid subjects.

The R.A. Exhibition is very good, and the dinner last night was a great success. You will see an account of it in to-morrow’s Times.

“Oscar,” the little dog you sent me, has turned out trumps. He is plucky, funny and intelligent. The MacWhirters are to keep him while I am away as I mean to lock up the house. Let me know how you get on. I hear that you are all right in health.

Your affectionate son,

W. Q. Orchardson

In answer to this Orchardson’s father wrote a sympathetic letter, of which this is all that remains:

“I received yours this morning dated Arts Club, Hanover Square. I would have written ere this had not Cranstoun several weeks ago informed me that you had gone to Venice in company with Birket Foster. I am glad you are not yet gone as it gives me the opportunity of expressing a hope that you may enjoy to the fullest extent your visit to one of the most celebrated cities of Europe. In my young days my strongest aspiration was to visit Rome and Venice. I never accomplished it, and I am happy, therefore, that you can and are qualified to appreciate it from previous training and also profit by it more than I could have done.”

Postmark: May 2nd, 1870.

Thursday.

My dear Father,

I have got your painful letter and am very much distressed.

I shall start to-morrow night by the Gt. Northern. Meanwhile keep up your spirits.

Your affectionate son,

W. Q. Orchardson.

There is no indication of the nature of this “painful” news, but presumably Orchardson postponed his visit to Venice and went to help his father, to whom he was very devoted.

Arrived in Venice, he took rooms in the Casa Benitzki on the Grand Canal. He had intended to work, but found the light too vivid, so he loitered and made sketches. He hired a gondola and gondolier and went on expeditions. He swam every morning, first throwing in his hat and then diving after it and swimming for an hour with the gondola following. He did not consider himself a good swimmer as he could only swim for one hour and the Venetians could swim two; and no wonder he said—he used to pass a family of father and many children all swimming together at the foot of their house-steps, even including a baby of a year old, who was “thrown” into the water with the other children and seemed to take to swimming as naturally as a little frog.

He chased mosquitoes with a candle round his room at night, but in the end got fever, but that must have been before the connection between malaria and mosquitoes was known. A doctor was called who prescribed medicine; as each bottle arrived the patient threw it out of the window, to which act he humorously ascribed his complete recovery. Probably his habit of taking quinine for tic douloureux had a good deal more to do with it.

A thunderstorm is very beautiful, and my Father told me he enjoyed watching the marvellously vivid lightning in Venice, but his eyes were injured one night by the startling and sudden contrast between vivid light and intense darkness, and his eyes were always delicate afterwards, and he sometimes suffered from a very real though unfounded fear of blindness. “And then,” he used to say, “we shall all starve; you children would starve.”

All the world loves a lover, and Antonio, Orchardson’s gondolier, general factotum and invaluable servant, was a very true one. He was engaged to be married and his betrothed fell ill of small-pox. After a long illness she lay dying, drained of all strength, and Antonio was told that the only chance of saving her was the gift of strong young life. Antonio took her in his arms and pressed her to him for a day and a night, willing her to live. She lived, they were married, and Antonio, beaming with pride and delight, presented his terribly scarred bride to his employer.

After a time “Freddy” Walker, artist and fisherman, wrote that he would join W. Q. O. and would come by sea. Orchardson ordered Antonio to engage a second gondolier for the long journey to Malamocco, the steamer’s stopping place. But Antonio knew better than that for the credit of his employer, and appeared with a decorated double gondola and four gondoliers, dressed in their best. So W. Q. O. went in state to meet his friend, who almost tumbled, in his excited state, from the big ship into the little one. Seizing Orchardson by both hands, and shaking them violently, he exclaimed, “Caught a four-pound trout; caught a four-pound trout!”—his only greeting.

The return journey was accomplished at racing speed, and the gondola was pulled up sharp at the steps of the Casa Benitzki to the great enjoyment of the child-like artists.

“The Harbour of Refuge” grew out of this visit. In one of the little churches of a neighbouring district Orchardson had seen some people sleeping below the pulpit itself during the service. “Here’s a subject for ‘Freddy,’ ” he thought and took him out to see the place, and there were the same people still sleeping in the same place as if they had never wakened. Walker was enthusiastically delighted and thought about the matter for some time, but could not get a setting, though he tried St Mark’s and many other churches; finally he relegated the sleepers to the background and so evolved his most celebrated picture.

Late in the summer the Franco-Prussian war broke out; the English newspapers in Venice were delayed and as he could speak no Italian, he read the Italian papers aloud (thanks to his early training in Scottish Latin) to English speaking, but illiterate, Antonio, who translated, and W. Q. O. was fired with the desire to see something of the war. Then news came that Paris was to be invested and he hastened north to try and get in before the city was entirely closed in; but having reached Strasbourg he found the railways blocked with prisoners’ trains from Sédan. My Father described the spectacle as utterly pitiful; it was pouring with rain and the prisoners were herded together in open cattle trucks, so crowded that there was no room even to sit, much less lie down; without overcoats, some few munching hunks of black bread. And their piteous plight was only equalled by the despairing misery of their exhausted faces. “Not a human expression among them,” he said. He found it impossible to go further north so turned south and finally after much difficulty and delay he got through to Dieppe and so home.

By this time he was very intimate with the Moxons, whose anxieties he shared about their French friends in Paris. When Paris fell, it was known that the people had very literally starved. Our friends had shared the elephants and other animals from the Zoo and were finally reduced to eating rats. At one time they had one skinny chicken left; but the cat ate it, so a family council decided to eat the cat as the only means left of eating the chicken; unfortunately the cat proved even more skinny than the fowl.

The war made a great impression on my Father, for I remember when I was a child that he still spoke of it as being just “the other day,” and was still full of indignation against the Germans, of whom he spoke as the “brutal Saxons.” Indeed, he always inveighed against Saxons as such whether German or English.

Though W. Q. O. did no real work in Venice, yet he produced six pictures of Venetian subjects—until 1875—of these I cannot speak for I have never seen them.

While at St. John’s Wood he had two dogs—“Reveller,” a prize bloodhound he bought at the Crystal Palace Dog Show, and “Oscar,” the Aberdeen terrier given him by his father.

He painted several pictures from these two dogs of which “Reveller” is painted in a much larger brushwork than is usual in his pictures; it seems to suit the dog’s rough hair exactly. The background was Buckingham Gate, which I believe has since been pulled down; it took him a long time to find this background.

Orchardson’s little friend “Chattie” Clow was staying with friends in London in 1870 and spent several afternoons with her old friend Bill.

She writes to me:

“I had had great games in Edinburgh with Oscar and he knew me at once, and was full of joy and affection. I said, ‘I do think Waspy, his old name, is better-looking than he used to be.’ Your Father replied: ‘Yes, no doubt, he has been staying with good-looking people! If you wish to be good-looking you must live with good-looking people!’

“Another afternoon I was at St. John’s Wood Road and Mr. Pettie came in for tea. I had a large bundle of songs with me and after tea was singing them one after the other until it was time to go. I was putting on my hat when your Father said: ‘Just look at those chairs and the piano; isn’t that a picture? My chair near enough for me to turn over the music, yet the proper degree of respect!’ And really, he made quite a picture-story of two chairs and a piano.

“My last evening at St. John’s Wood Road we were walking up and down the little garden where there was a border of ‘London Pride.’ I was telling him he should write oftener to his sister; she had told me to tell him he had surely forgotten them. He replied: ‘No, no; I don’t know how the days pass away and I don’t get any letter-writing done.’

“He stooped and picked a piece of ‘London Pride.’

“Give Liza that and tell her it is not that.”

Mrs. Ford reminds me of another little tale of this time that my Father used to tell with much enjoyment. One morning, he and Pettie were walking into town, when they saw a man with a cartload of very nice plants. Mr. Pettie bought one or two and told the man to deliver them, giving the address. On their return they found the hall full of plants. Mr Pettie was much surprised and asked his wife why she had been so extravagant.

“Didn’t you send them?” said Mrs Pettie. “The man said I was to take in all the plants and pay for them, and I did.”

Next day all the plants were dead, and on examination they proved to be rootless!

St. John’s Wood Road,

January 1st, 1871.

My dear Father,

A happy New Year to you and to the girls.

I have just come up from the country where I have been spending Christmas and got your handsome present.

It is a sight to see shortbread again, and the marmalade is a treat.

The weather here is beastly cold and we are half-snowed up, but I suppose you are pretty well off for winter yourself.

I have got an engraving and a photograph which I wish to send you if I can find the chance; if I don’t, I may take charge of it myself in the spring, as I should like to run down and see you again.

Hoping that you are in good health and wishing you all the good wishes of the season,

I am,

Your affectionate son,

W. Q. Orchardson.

19, St. John’s Wood Road.

[Postmark: London, April 3rd, 1871.]

My dear Father,

I have just finished and sent off my work for the R.A.—three pictures—one of them eight feet long. The last three weeks have been pretty hard, especially towards the end, when I got a bad touch of influenza from which I have not yet recovered.

As soon as I get sufficiently recovered I mean to go down to Brighton for two or three days to “recuperate.” Then I shall start for auld Reekie and pay you a visit when I hope to find you well.

I shall write you the day before and let you know by what train.

Your affectionate son,

W. Q. Orchardson.

Work, hunting, tennis, billiards and visiting at the Moxons, and then his engagement early in November 1872 to Nelly Moxon, who, I gathered from herself (my Mother), patiently waited till he had finished flirting with other girls. I asked her once if she was never jealous and she answered: “No, why should I be? I got him.” But legend states that the other girls—I mean “young ladies,” this was before the days of girls—with whom he had been flirting constantly, were very vexed. “Little Nellie,” sincere, enthusiastic hero-worshipper, never flirted with anyone, and Orchardson paid her the compliment of never flirting with her. They were simply great friends, a middle-aged man and a young girl, almost a child, so that their engagement caused much surprise, except to my Mother’s two bosom friends, Anna Moxon and Céleste Léveillé.

29, Phillimore Gardens,

Kensington, W.

My dear Father,

I have just presented the parcel to Nelly. She will tell you how much she likes it ...

You will see, dear Father, that Quiller has given me your beautiful present. I cannot express to you how much I admire it and how kind I think it is of you to send me so handsome a gift.

With our united love and thanking you very much,

Believe me, dearest Father,

Your very and truly affectionate

Little Nonnie.

“Nonnie is her pet name.—W. Q. O.”

This present was a big, patterned gold brooch with pearls round and a cairngorm centre, with a pair of earrings to match; I believe they were copied from the Bruce’s plaid-brooch when the Douglas caught the plaid but missed the man. The brooch seems to represent a castle with a central keep and towers all round and a battlemented wall.

Photo T. & R. Annan

THE QUEEN OF THE SWORDS (head study), 1876

By kind permission of James Caw, Esq.

The Hill, Witley,

Surrey.

[Undated.]

My dearest Nellie,

It is Sunday and I have resolutely stayed from church chiefly that I might send you a “How do you do.” I did not get up till it was too late to go, but that is a detail and has nothing to do with the afore-said resolution.

Hours run rather late here so it isn’t much of a place to recruit in, but we are all alive, more or less.

Theatricals commence next week. I send you the programme for Monday which is given up to the bucolics, “orders” having been issued to all the neighbourhood, including the Mole-catcher.

Tuesday is devoted to the “county people,” so is fated to be slow.

I find myself regarded with a good deal of melancholy interest and have to put up with no end of congratulations.

Were you “awfully jolly” at Putney? I hope so but you must reserve a little for me when I come up on Wednesday.

I send you only one kiss as I want to give you all the rest myself when we meet. You see how greedy I am and jealous even of the paper.

Yours and yours only,

Love to Mama and Papa.

Quiller.

[Neither date nor address.]

Weenie Nonne Chérie,

I am going to-night to St. John’s Wood to hunt up the parson. He is not in the blue book. Missed it this morning I suppose.

To-morrow I shall report progress.

Yours “so” much,

Quiller.