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Marion, the Story of an Artist's Model

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<h2>XXXVIII</h2> THE sun was shining and the warm breath of summer felt good to me. I was up now; but I felt impatient with my own weakness and I had a restless desire to move about and do things. I realized my indebtedness to Lois, and I wondered if I would ever be able to wipe it out. I had had very dreadful news from my people. Wallace, Ellen’s husband, had died after a long illness. When I first heard that I wanted to go at once to my sister, and I was heart-broken because of my inability to comfort and help her. Lois wrote to Ellen for me, telling her that I would join her in New York, just as soon as I was strong enough to travel; but Ellen had written back that she was going to England with her little boy to Wallace’s people. I thought of how close Ellen and I had been to each other as children, and of the strangeness and cruelty of fate that cut sisters apart. It seemed to me that this was a world of all pain. Yet, if we measured our griefs by those of others, mine shrank into insignificance beside those of Ellen. Always there had been some way out{231} for me, but Ellen’s road had been walled up. Death had shut to her forever the golden door of Hope. I knew that no one—not even her little son—could ever take to Ellen the place of Wallace, her young hero and lover and husband. Poor Wallace! Literary critics had said he was a genius, and I think that he was. He was only twenty-seven when he died, with his second book of essays but half written and his play still unproduced. Lois had a little gas stove in the room on which she boiled coffee and eggs. She called to me to come now to breakfast. I said to her sadly: “Lois, I’m awfully indebted to you.” “Not on your life,” said Lois. “You don’t owe me anything, and if you say anything more about it, I’ll get real cross. You can’t imagine how nasty I am when I’m cross,” she laughed. “I’ve had the time of my life nursing you, and Dr. Squires says—” A beautiful flush came over Lois’ face, and I said: “Oh, Lois, I do hope you’ll get married and be ever and ever so happy.” “I’ve got to go to England,” said she. “My parents are there now, and there’s a law-suit over some property a relative who died lately left. You see, I’m the real heir, they say. I’m really a ward in Chancery.{232}” “Why, Lois, I thought you were an American.” “So I am. I was born in Massachusetts, but my mother is English, and now I’ve got to go over there to see about this property they say I’m rightful heir to. I’ll have to leave the end of the month.” “Oh, how I’ll miss you!” I cried. “I don’t know how in the world I’ll ever get on without you.” “When you get your strength back,” said Lois, “you’ll not feel that way, and you’re going to stay right here and room with me till I go. So don’t worry, whatever you do. Get to work now, and forget everything blue.” I had not told Lois I was a model. I had simply said that at home I had been an artist. She had brought down my paints and palette, and now, as I arranged my things, she watched me with great interest. She had brought me a print of a basket of fruit and a bowl of flowers, and asked me if I wouldn’t copy this for her. I painted them on two wooden plates she had, and she was delighted and cried out admiringly: “Aren’t you the smartest girl, though.” Tim O’Leary came in while I was painting, and the admiration of that big bartender was pathetic. He actually walked on tiptoe to come nearer to have a look. Then he said: “I’ll be back in a second.” <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_277_sml.jpg" width-obs="364" height-obs="500" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /> <div class="caption">He actually walked on tiptoe to come nearer to take a look. </div> </div> {233} He left the room, and returned shortly with a parcel wrapped up in white tissue paper, which he gently unfolded. He showed us a little piece of white satin with some pink flowers painted in the center, and trimmed around with cream lace; also two pieces of embroidery of a really fine quality. He handled these works of art, as he called them, poor fellow, with an almost reverent tenderness, and Lois and I loudly expressed our admiration of them. “I’m keeping them,” said Tim, “for the little girl back home. She’ll be coming to me before long, and I’ll have her little nest as elegant as the finest of them,” he said shyly. “My Katy has eyes like this little girl here, and it’s real smart you are to do such grand work, Miss Marion.” “Say, Mr. O’Leary,” I said, “I’m going to make you something to add to your collection for your little girl.” I kept my word, and in a few days I had painted on a piece of blue satin that Lois found among her things a bunch of roses which poor Tim declared he could almost smell. That same evening he brought me two enormous whiskey bottles. They were about five feet high—sample bottles. They were, of course, empty. Tim made the astonishing request of me that I should paint on them, and he offered to pay me.{234} So I painted a little seascape on one and a wreath of lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots on the other. Of course, I would not take pay from Tim for them. The following day Tim came rushing in to tell me he had placed them on his bar, and all of his friends and customers had thought them great, and one man had offered him five dollars apiece for them. He said that nothing would induce him to part from them, but he was sending over to me all the big sample whiskey bottles he could get, and also beer and wine and champagne bottles, and he said if I would paint on these he would sell them for me. Well, the astonishing part is that he did sell them. I must have decorated at least twenty of those awful bottles, and Tim got me about forty dollars for my work. So I was able to pay Miss Darling, and I went over to the boarding-house where I still owed that bill and I paid it. To my surprise the landlady tried to force two dollars back upon me: “We all know how sick you’ve been,” she said, “and I said to my man: ‘We’ll never see the color of that board money,’ and he ses: ‘You’ll get it yet,’ and you see he’s always right. So here, you can take two of it back, and may you have the good luck your pretty face should bring you.” Lois sailed on one of the small merchant liners,{235} and it left the pier at five in the morning, so we had to get up very early to see her off. We had sat up very late the night before, and Dr. Squires had spent the evening with us and promised to be at the pier to see her off. The morning was foggy and chilly. I clung tightly to Lois before I let her go, and the doctor said: “Here, give another fellow a chance.” He, too, kissed Lois, and there were tears in both their eyes.{236} <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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