Black Hearts in Battersea (4 page)

"Not since my
jour-de-fête
in July," said Dr. Furrneaux, carefully pouring coffee into two cups and handing one to Simon.

"But then, but—"

"He said you were to live wiss him. Are you not, then?"

"He seems to have moved. He is not at the address he sent—"

"Chose assez étonnante,"
Dr. Furrneaux muttered to himself. "Can Dr. Field be in debt? Escaping his creditors? Or in prison? He would have told me..."

"He wrote inviting me to come and live with him, sir," Simon said. "He would have said if he was planning to move—"

"Well, no doubt he has been called away on ze private affairs. He will return. One sing is certain, he will come back here. Now, you have eaten? Ze little one, he has eaten too?" Dr. Furrneaux nodded benevolently at the kitten which was licking up some crumbs of bread and butter from the dusty floor. "It is well. To work, zen! I wish to see you draw." He handed Simon a stick of charcoal.

"Yes, sir." Simon took the charcoal with a trembling hand. "Wh-where shall I draw?"

Dr. Furneaux's whiskered gaze roved round the room. There was not a clean canvas nor an empty space in it.
"Draw on zat wall," the doctor said, waving at the wall to his right, which was invitingly bare and white.

"All over it, sir?"

"Of course."

"What shall I draw?"

"Oh—anysing you have seen in ze last few days."

As usual when Simon started drawing, he was rapt away into a world of his own. People knocked and entered and consulted Dr. Furrneaux, waited for assistance, went away again; some of them stared at Simon, others took no notice. Dr. Furrneaux himself came and went darting out to conduct a class, or back to criticize the efforts of a private pupil. At intervals he made more coffee, from time to time offered a cup of it—or a piece of bread, apple, grape, or sausage—to Simon. He ignored Simon's work, preferring, apparently, to wait till it was finished.

Toward noon a boy a little younger than Simon came in escorted by a tall, thin man.

"
Mon dieu!
" Dr. Furrneaux groaned to himself at sight of them. Then he stood up and waved them forward.

"My dear young Justin—my dearest friend's grandson! And the sage Mr. Buckle.
Enchanté de vous voir.
Mr. Buckle—do yourself ze kindness to sit down. Let us see what you have been working at ziss week, my dear Justin."

The boy did not speak, but hunched his shoulders and looked depressed, while the man addressed as Mr. Buckle—a sandy-haired, pale-eyed individual dressed in rusty black—laid a small pile of drawings on the desk.

Neither the man nor the boy took any notice of Simon,
who observed that the boy looked positively ill with apprehension as Dr. Furrneaux examined his work. He was a sickly-looking lad, very richly dressed, but the olive-green velvet of his jacket went badly with his pale, spotty cheeks, and the plumed hat which he had taken off revealed lank, stringy hair.

It was plain that he wished himself a thousand miles away.

Dr. Furrneaux looked slowly and carefully through the pile of drawings. Once or twice he seemed about to burst out with some remark, but restrained himself; when he reached the last, however, his feelings became too much for him and he exploded with rage.

"How can you, how
can
you bring such stuff to show to
me,
Jean-Jacques Furrneaux, Principal of ze Rivière Academie? Zis,
zis
is what I sink of zese
abominable
drawings!"

With considerable difficulty he tore the whole batch across and across, scattering pieces of paper all about him, his whiskers quivering, his eyes snapping with rage. Although so small, he was a formidable spectacle. The boy, Justin, seemed ready to melt into the ground with terror as bits of paper flew like autumn leaves. Simon watched with awe and apprehension. If Dr. Furrneaux was so severe with a familiar pupil, grandson of an old friend, what was his own reception likely to be?

The only person who thoroughly enjoyed the scene was the kitten, who darted out and chased the fluttering scraps of paper around Dr. Furneaux's feet. The sight of him
appeared to calm the fiery little principal. He stopped hissing and stamping, stared at the kitten, snapped his fingers, took several deep breaths, and walked briskly two or three times up and down the room, neatly avoiding all the obstacles. At last he said, "I have been too harsh. I do not mean to alarm you, my dear boy. No, no, I hope I treat my best friend's grandson better zan zat. But zere must, zere
must
be a painter hidden in ze grandson of Marius Rivière. We shall wr-rrench him out,
n'est-ce-pas?
Now—you shall draw somesing simple—"

His eye roamed about the room and lit on the kitten. "You shall draw zat cat! Of the most simple, no? Here—" He swept everything, plates, bread, papers, and ink off his desk in disorder, found a stack of clean paper, and beckoned to Justin. "Here, my dear boy. Here is charcoal, here is crayon.
Now—draw!
I shall return in two hours' time. Come, my dear Mr. Buckle, Justin will be easier if we leave him alone."

He took the arm of Mr. Buckle, who moved reluctantly toward the door.

"Who is that?" he asked sourly, pointing to the legs of Simon, who was lying on his stomach behind the Arabian Nights jar, drawing cobblestones.

"Zat?" Dr. Furrneaux shrugged. "Nobody. A boy from nowhere. He will not disturb Justin—his mind is engr-rossed in drawing."

The door closed behind them.

Simon felt sorry for Justin—it seemed unreasonable to expect the boy to be a painter just because his grandfather
had been one and founded the Academy. People, surely did not always take after their grandfathers? Perhaps I'm lucky, Simon thought for the first time, not to know who my parents or grandparents were.

After working diligently for another half hour he stood up and stretched, to rest his cramped muscles. The kitten greeted him with a loud squeak of pleasure and ran up his leg. But the boy Justin took no notice—he was sitting at the desk, slumped forward with his face in his hands, the picture of dejection. He had not even started to draw.

"I say, cheer up," Simon said sympathetically. "It can't be as bad as that, surely?"

Justin hunched one shoulder away from him.

"Oh,
you're
all right," he said with the rudeness of misery. "Nobody cares how
you
draw. But just because my grandfather was a painter and started this place, everyone expects me to be wonderful. Why should I learn to paint? I'm going to be a duke. Dukes don't paint."

"I say, are you though?" Simon said with interest. "I've never met a duke."

"And I daresay you never will," Justin said listlessly. Just at that moment the kitten climbed across from Simon's leg to the desk and began playing with a ball of charcoal eraser. Justin made a rather hopeless attempt at sketching it, but it would not oblige him by staying still, and, after jabbing a few crude scrawls, he exclaimed furiously, "Oh, curse and confound the little brute!" and hurled the charcoal across the room. The kitten sat down at once and stared at him with large reproving eyes.

"Quick, now's your chance while he's still," Simon urged encouragingly. "Try again."

"I can't draw live things!" snapped Justin. "A kitten hasn't any shape, it's all fuzzy!" He angrily scribbled a matchstick cat—four legs, two ears, and a tail—then rubbed it out with his fist and drew the same fist over his eyes, leaving a damp, charcoaly smear on his cheek.

"No," said Simon patiently, "
look
at the kitten, look at its shape and then draw that—never mind if what you draw doesn't look like a cat. Here—" He picked up another bit of charcoal and, without taking the tip off the paper, quickly drew an outline—quite carelessly, it seemed, but Justin gasped as the shape of the kitten fairly leaped out of the paper. "I could never do that," he said with grudging admiration.

"Yes you could—try!"

Advising, coaxing, half guiding Justin's hand, Simon made him produce a rough, free drawing which was certainly a great deal better than his previous work.

"You ought to feel the kitten all over," Simon suggested. "Feel the way its bones go. It looks fluffy but it's not like a wig—it has a hard shape under the fur."

"I shall never be able to draw," Justin said pettishly. "Why should I? It's not my nature. Besides, it's not the occupation of a gentleman."

Simon opened his eyes wide.

"But drawing is one of the best things in the world! I can't think how you can live in London and not want to draw! Everything is so beautiful and so interesting I could
be drawing forever. And it is so useful; it helps you to remember what you have seen."

He glanced toward his own picture on the wall and Justin's eyes followed listlessly. Not much was visible from where they stood, but a face could be seen, and Justin said at once, "Why, that's Dido Twite."

"Do you know her?" Simon was a little surprised that a future duke should be acquainted with such a guttersnipe.

"Buckle, my tutor, used to lodge with her family and we called there once," Justin said indifferently. "I thought her a vilely impertinent brat."

"I lodge there now," Simon explained.

"Will you help me some more?" Justin said. "I expect old Fur-nose may come back soon."

The kitten had settled again, and Simon helped Justin with more sketches.

"Don't rely on how you think it ought to look," he repeated patiently, over and over. "Ask your eyes and make them tell your hand—look, his legs bend this way, not the way you have them—" and, as Justin rubbed out his line and obediently redrew it, he asked, "Why did your tutor leave the Twite house? Where is he living now?"

"With me, at Battersea Castle," Justin said, bored. "My uncle (he's my guardian; my parents are dead) he arranged it. I'd been doing lessons with Buckle in the mornings, but now he lives in and works as my uncle's steward too, and I have him on top of me all day long, prosing and preaching about my duty as a future duke, and I hate it, hate it, hate it!"

He jabbed his charcoal angrily at the paper and it snapped. Simon was disappointed. He had hoped the reason why Buckle left the Twite household might give him some clue as to Dr. Field's departure. He was about to put a further question when they heard voices outside. With a hasty gesture Justin waved him back to his corner behind the big jar and laid a finger on his lips. The door opened and Dr. Furrneaux burst in briskly whiskers waving.

"
Eh bien,
well, let us see how you have been getting on!" he demanded, bustling around the desk to look at Justin's drawings.

"
Pas mal!
" he declared. "
Pas mal du tout!
You see-when you work wiss your head and do not merely s-scamp through ze drawing, all comes different! Ziss here, and ziss"—he poked at the sketches—"is a r-r-real artist's line. Here, not so good." Justin met his eyes nervously. "I am please wiss you, my boy, very please. Now I wish you to do some painting."

Justin turned pale at the idea, but Mr. Buckle, who had followed Dr. Furrneaux into the room, interposed hastily, "I am afraid that won't be possible today, Dr. Furrneaux. His Grace the Duke is expecting Lord Bakerloo to meet him at three on His Grace's barge to view the Chelsea Regatta."

"Barges—regattas," Dr. Furrneaux grumbled, "a true painter does not sink of anysing but
painting! Eh bien,
be off, zen, if you muss, but bring me more drawings—more, more!—and better zan zese, next time you come."

Justin and Mr. Buckle nipped quickly out of the room almost before Dr. Furrneaux had finished speaking. The little principal sat down at his desk, sighing heavily like a grampus.

Then the kitten, who had been investigating a dangling string of onions, managed to dislodge the whole lot and bring them crashing down onto himself. He bounded away, stiff-legged with fright. Simon burst out laughing.

"
Tiens!
" declared Dr. Furrneaux. "It is ze doctor's boy. I had forgotten you,
mon gars. Voyons,
what have you been doing all zis time?"

Simon scrambled up, dusting charcoal from his knees, and Dr. Furrneaux picked his way through the furniture until he could survey the whole drawing, which now occupied about seven square feet. Simon tried in vain to make out the doctor's reactions from his expression. Dr. Furrneaux looked at the picture carefully for about five minutes without saying a word; sometimes he scrutinized some detail with his whiskers almost touching the charcoal, sometimes he stepped back as far as possible to observe the picture from a distance.

Simon had drawn several scenes, one in front of the other. In the foreground was Dido Twite, perched on the donkey, her pert sparrow's looks contrasting with its sleepy expression as she urged it along Rose Alley. To the right lay Mr. Cobb's yard, full of broken coaches, with the beaming Mr. Cobb leaning against a wheel, about to sip his mug of Organ-Grinder's Oil, and his men hard at work behind him.

"Wiss whom have you studied drawing before?" Dr. Furrneaux asked sharply.

"With no one, sir. Dr. Field told me one or two things—that's all..."

Dr. Furrneaux continued to study the picture and now rapped out a series of fierce questions—why had Simon placed this object there, that figure here, why had he drawn the man's leg like this, the steps thus, the donkey like that?

"I don't know, sir," Simon kept saying in bewilderment. "It seemed as if it ought to go that way."

He was beginning to be afraid that Dr. Furrneaux must be angry when the little man amazed him by suddenly giving him a tremendous hug. Bristly whiskers nearly smothered him and the smell of garlic was overpowering.

"You are a good, good boy!" the doctor declared. "I am going to make a painter of you, but only if you work wiss every particle of yourself!"

"Yes, sir," Simon said faintly. All at once he felt excessively tired and hungry, his head ached, his arms and legs were stiff, he seemed to have been drawing in the stuffy room for half his lifetime.

"You will go now, you will come back tomorrow morning. Wiss you you will bring charcoal, brushes, oil paints—here, I give you ziss list—and palette. Zese sings you buy at one shop and at one shop only, zat is Bonnetiers in the King's Road."