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Ainslee's magazine, Volume 16, No. 3, October, 1905

Ainslee's magazine, Volume 16, No. 3, October, 1905

YOUNG CARRINGTON’S CAREER
BY Beatrice Hanscom

CHAPTER I

THE studio in Numero – rue Boissonade had on its holiday togs: model stand covered with rugs, tea table much in evidence, framed picture on the easel, and lilacs enough in the great brass bowl in the corner to serve as sweetly affirmative witnesses that the heart of Paris and the heart of spring had renewed their yearly alliance.

To judge from the blitheness of Carrington, he, too, had spring in his heart and a festal day in prospect.

Life, already lavish in good gifts, was on the point of giving him the one he most desired to grasp.

At twenty-one he had health, plenty of money, and a talent to which he considered health and money merely subservient – a talent which lured him to work indefatigably.

The portrait on which he had lavished himself hung on the line in the spring salon; and Velantour, the master for whom he had toiled tirelessly for the last three years – Velantour, the sternest critic in France, most sparing in praise – Velantour, whose painting expeditions in the far East were always solitary save for his trusted courier —Velantour had invited Carrington to go with him to the Vale of Cashmere and the Himalayas! To paint with him and by his side for three long, delicious months.

“It is not enough to put people’s souls on canvas, mon cher, if you can’t put nature’s heart back of them,” he had told him, hand on his shoulder. Velantour, whose caustic criticisms usually confined themselves to technique, and took small account of souls!

Carrington tingled to his finger tips in the desire to be off. Life was good – was “bully,” as Carrington phrased it. And he whistled softly, rapturous as a thrush, as he crossed the studio to lift a corner of the rug which covered a trunk masquerading as a seat, a trunk locked and strapped; packed with an infinite forethought for any possible contingency that might arise during the trip; with enough paint tubes and brushes to set up a small dealer; packed, too, with hopes and aspiration, which luckily take up no room, and do not increase the excess baggage rate. Had they weighed the smallest fraction of an ounce apiece, modern hydraulics could not have lifted that trunk a single inch.

“And we start to-night! Jove, it’s unbelievable!” he said, exultantly, as he dropped the rug corner and stood up, straight and slender and tall, a handsome boy with his black hair a trifle long, his blue eyes aglow, his delicate features alight with enthusiasm as he drew in a long breath of satisfaction.

There was a touch of the romantic in his attire – in the loosely hanging, dark gray velveteen suit that was almost black, and the soft cravat that had the color of pigeon’s blood.

He was young enough to like that sort of thing, dandy enough to order those dull gray suits by the half dozen, with long, crimson lined cloaks and marvelous soft felt hats; and handsome enough to make Velantour vow he would immortalize him in them. “Le nouveau Van Dyck,” he whispered to himself, for he loved the boy as much as he believed in his future, and he believed in that with the intensity and concentrated fervor of a man who permits himself few beliefs.