Spode had only recently left the university. Simon Gollamy, the editor of the World’s Review (the «Best of all possible Worlds»), had got to know him—he was always on the look out for youthful talent—had seen possibilities in the young man, and appointed him art critic of his paper. Gollamy liked to have young and teachable people about him. The possession of disciples flattered his vanity, and he found it easier, moreover, to run his paper with docile collaborators than with men grown obstinate and case-hardened with age. Spode had not done badly at his new job. At any rate, his articles had been intelligent enough to arouse the interest of Lord Badgery. It was, ultimately, to them that he owed the honour of sitting to night in the dining-room of Badgery House.
Fortified by several varieties of wine and a glass of aged brandy, Spode felt more confident and at ease than he had done the whole evening. Badgery was rather a disquieting host. He had an alarming habit of changing the subject of any conversation that had lasted for more than two minutes. Spode had found it, for example, horribly mortifying when his host, cutting across what was, he prided himself, a particularly subtle and illuminating disquisition on baroque art, had turned a wandering eye about the room and asked him abruptly whether he liked parrots. He had flushed and glanced suspiciously towards him, fancying that the man was trying to be offensive.
But no; Badgery’s white, fleshy, Hanoverian face wore an expression of perfect good faith. There was no malice in his small greenish eyes. He evidently did genuinely want to know if Spode liked parrots. The young man swallowed his irritation and replied that he did. Badgery then told a good story about parrots. Spode was on the point of capping it with a better story, when his host began to talk about Beethoven. And so the game went on. Spode cut his conversation to suit his host’s requirements. In the course of ten minutes he had made a more or less witty epigram on Benvenuto Cellini, Queen Victoria, sport, God, Stephen Phillips, and Moorish architecture. Lord Badgery thought him the most charming young man, and so intelligent.
«If you’ve quite finished your coffee,» he said, rising to his feet as he spoke, «we’ll go and look at the pictures.»
Spode jumped up with alacrity, and only then realised that he had drunk just ever so little too much. He would have to be careful, talk deliberately, plant his feet consciously, one after the other.
«This house is quite cluttered up with pictures,» Lord Badgery complained. «I had a whole wagon-load taken away to the country last week; but there are still far too many. My ancestors would have their portraits painted by Romney. Such a shocking artist, don’t you think? Why couldn’t they have chosen Gainsborough, or even Reynolds? I’ve had all the Romneys hung in the servants’ hall now. It’s such a comfort to know that one can never possibly see them again. I suppose you know all about the ancient Hittites?»
«Well….» the young man replied, with befitting modesty.
«Look at that, then.» He indicated a large stone head which stood in a case near the dining-room door. «It’s not Greek, or Egyptian, or Persian, or anything else; so if it isn’t ancient Hittite, I don’t know what it is. And that reminds me of that story about Lord George Sanger, the Circus King….» and, without giving Spode time to examine the Hittite relic, he led the way up the huge staircase, pausing every now and then in his anecdote to point out some new object of curiosity or beauty.
«I suppose you know Deburau’s pantomimes?» Spode rapped out as soon as the story was over. He was in an itch to let out his information about Deburau. Badgery had given him a perfect opening with his ridiculous Sanger. «What a perfect man, isn’t he? He used to….»
«This is my main gallery,» said Lord Badgery, throwing open one leaf of a tall folding door. «I must apologise for it. It looks like a roller-skating rink.» He fumbled with the electric switches and there was suddenly light—light that revealed an enormous gallery, duly receding into distance according to all the laws of perspective. «I dare say you’ve heard of my poor father,» Lord Badgery continued. «A little insane, you know; sort of mechanical genius with a screw loose. He used to have a toy railway in this room. No end of fun he had, crawling about the floor after his trains. And all the pictures were stacked in the cellars. I can’t tell you what they were like when I found them: mushrooms growing out of the Botticellis. Now I’m rather proud of this Poussin; he painted it for Scarron.»
«Exquisite!» Spode exclaimed, making with his hand a gesture as though he were modelling a pure form in the air. «How splendid the onrush of those trees and leaning figures is! And the way they re caught up, as it were, and stemmed by that single godlike form opposing them with his contrary movement! And the draperies….»
But Lord Badgery had moved on, and was standing in front of a little fifteenth-century Virgin of carved wood.
«School of Rheims,» he explained.
They «did» the gallery at high speed. Badgery never permitted his guest to halt for more than forty seconds before any work of art. Spode would have liked to spend a few moments of recollection and tranquillity in front of some of these lovely things. But it was not permitted.
The gallery done, they passed into a little room leading out of it. At the sight of what the lights revealed, Spode gasped.
«It’s like something out of Balzac,» he exclaimed. «Un de ces salons dorés où se déploie un luxe insolent. You know.»
«My nineteenth-century chamber,» Badgery explained. «The best thing of its kind, I flatter myself, outside the State Apartments at Windsor.»
Spode tiptoed round the room, peering with astonishment at all the objects in glass, in gilded bronze, in china, in leathers, in embroidered and painted silk, in beads, in wax, objects of the most fantastic shapes and colours, all the queer products of a decadent tradition, with which the room was crowded. There were paintings on the walls—a Martin, a Wilkie, an early Landseer, several Ettys, a big Haydon, a slight pretty water-colour of a girl by Wainewright, the pupil of Blake and arsenic poisoner, a score of others. But the picture which arrested Spode’s attention was a medium sized canvas representing Troilus riding into Troy among the flowers and plaudits of an admiring crowd, and oblivious (you could see from his expression) of everything but the eyes of Cressida, who looked down at him from a window, with Pandarus smiling over her shoulder.
«What an absurd and enchanting picture!» Spode exclaimed.
«Ah, you’ve spotted my Troilus.» Lord Badgery was pleased.
«What bright harmonious colours! Like Etty’s, only stronger, not so obviously pretty. And there’s an energy about it that reminds one of Haydon. Only Haydon could never have done anything so impeccable in taste. Who is it by?» Spode turned to his host inquiringly.
«You were right in detecting Haydon,» Lord Badgery answered, «It’s by his pupil, Tillotson. I wish I could get hold of more of his work. But nobody seems to know anything about him. And he seems to have done so little.»
This time it was the younger man who interrupted.
«Tillotson, Tillotson….» He put his hand to his forehead. A frown incongruously distorted his round, floridly curved face. No … yes, I have it. He looked up triumphantly with serene and childish brows. «Tillotson, Walter Tillotson—the man’s still alive.»
Badgery smiled. «This picture was painted in 1846, you know.»
«Well, that’s all right. Say he was born in 1820, painted his masterpiece when he was twenty-six, and it’s 1913 now; that’s to say he’s only ninety-three. Not as old as Titian yet.»
«But he’s not been heard of since 1860,» Lord Badgery protested.
«Precisely. Your mention of his name reminded me of the discovery I made the other day when I was looking through the obituary notices in the archives of the World’s Review.(One has to bring them up to date every year or so for fear of being caught napping if one of these t old birds chooses to shuffle off suddenly.) Well, there, among them—I remember my astonishment at the time—there I found Walter Tillotson’s biography. Pretty full to 1860, and then a blank, except for a pencil note in the early nineteen hundreds to the effect that he had returned from the East. The obituary has never been used or added to. I draw the obvious conclusion: the old chap isn’t dead yet. He’s just been overlooked somehow.»
«But
