The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (68 page)

“It’s a pity you can’t put it through, openly, as the original,” I said. “You’d have no duty at all to pay then, seeing that it’s more than a hundred years old. Anyway, why don’t you put the thing through yourself, as a copy? If your customer’s going to manage to palm it off to his friends (and there’s likely to be some experts among ’em) as a copy, why don’t you put it through the Customs, frankly, as a copy? There’ll be nothing much to bother about in the duty-line on a mere copy by an unknown artist. Shove a fairly good price on it, so they won’t think you’re trying to jew them, and there you are. Anyway, Mister, that’ll come a heap cheaper than paying me what I should need, before I’d even look at a job of this sort.”

He put his finger to the side of his nose, in French fashion.

“Don’t you worry, Cap’n,” he replied. “That picture’s worth five hundred thousand dollars; and I guess I’m taking no chances at all. You must reckon there’s others that guess things about this, besides me, and it ain’t only the Customs I’m bothering about, but it’s a little bunch of crooks that have got to suspecting more than’s good for them. And I guess if they can’t get a finger in the pie, they’re capable of dropping a hint to the New York Customs, just for spite.

“If the Customs put their eyes on the picture, after a hint like that, they’d hold it and communicate with the French authorities, and it’d be all U-P then, once the two pictures were put together and compared.

“And, anyhow, Cap’n, I reckon there may be a bit of trouble, going across; for the gang’ll never drop trying, until it’s ‘no go’ for them. They’ll sail with the picture and me, on the chance of nipping in before we get to the other side. I’d not be surprised if they came across with a proposal to go shares or split. If they can’t do me in any other way.

“Now, what’s it to be, Cap’n Charity—are you on, or is it no go?”

I thought for a few seconds, then I answered him:—

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I guess I’d like it to go across to God’s country; and I suppose it’s about as much right in the Louvre, as Cleopatra’s needle has on the Embankment. Doesn’t it belong by rights to Italy?”

He winked at me, and shrugged his shoulders, in a grotesque fashion.

“I guess, Cap’n,” he told me, “we won’t go into that now, or the Lord knows where the complications are going to end. It’s going to belong in little old U.S.A., and that’s good enough for me. . . . What’ll your figure be, Cap’n?”

“Five per cent,” I told him. “That’ll be twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Very good, Cap’n,” he agreed. “It’s a good tough price; but I’ll come across all right. I reckon the more you stand to make out of it, the more like you are to do your best! And just what that is, I guess every Customs official each side of the pond knows! If you do up to your usual, the New York Customs’ll never even smell it. That’s why I’ve come to you; and that’s why I don’t kick at your figure.

“You’re a dandy, Cap’n ! You’re IT! I heard about the way you ran that cargo of smokes into Liverpool. That was smart now! That must have taken a bit of planning!”

“Where’s the picture?” I asked him.

“Here!’’ he said, almost in a whisper, and patted the wrapped up drawing-board affair, that he held under his arm.

“Bring it along into my cabin, and let’s have a look at it,” I told him. “I want to see this smile that won’t come off, that I’ve heard so much about. Is it anything wonderful?”

“Cap’n,” he said, with extraordinary earnestness, “it is wonderful! It’s as if one of the old gods had got in some mighty fine work on the panel.”

We went along to my cabin, and I shut and locked both doors. Then he unwrapped the thing, on the table. It was painted on what appeared to be a solid panel of hard wood, about three quarters of an inch thick. I looked at it for a good bit. It was certainly fine and strange.

“It’s got something about it that looks as if a clever devil had painted it,” I told him. “She’s got no eyebrows. That makes her look a bit peculiar and, somehow, slightly abnormal. But it doesn’t explain what I mean. It’s as if the elemental female smiled out in her face—not what we mean now-a-days by the word woman; but all that is the essential of the female, as opposed to the essential of the male—not the man, you know! The smile is conscienceless; not consciously so, but naturally. . . . It’s as if the unrestrained female—the ‘faun’ in the woman—the subtle licence in her—the subtle, yet unbridled, goat-spirit in her, were spreading out over her face, like a slow stain. It’s the truth about that side of a woman that the best part of a man insists on turning his blind eye to. The painting ought to be called:—‘The Uncomfortable Truth!’”

“Cap’n,” he said, “for a man that pretends not to understand pictures, you’re doing mighty well! I guess you’ve just put into words, a bit that I’ve felt, but couldn’t ever get unmuddled into plain talk. I’ve felt that, many and many a time, since—well since she came into my hands. It isn’t that she’s bad, so much as that she’s not good! It’s as if she’s got a throwback fit on. I guess women get that sometimes—more often than we think!”

“They’re primitive things,” I said. ‘‘Nature keeps them too close to her, to let them be anything else, at bottom. A woman’s as primitive as a savage—whether she’s cultured or uncultured. Just notice, for instance, her idea of repartee! It is to be crudely insolent in a modulated voice, if she’s cultured, and otherwise if she isn’t! Her desires are more moderate than a man’s, only in those things she doesn’t want. When she wants a thing, she’s no more sense of moderation than a child or a savage. Look at her immoderate notions of dressing herself, or undressing herself, perhaps is what I ought to call it! She’s no sense of moderation, except about the things she doesn’t want! And even then she’s immoderate not to want ’em!”

“Cap’n”, he said, “you’ve sure been hit sometime by a woman, and I reck’n she wasn’t much good to God or man. I guess I recognise the symptoms!”

I had to laugh at his cuteness; but I didn’t add up the particulars for him!

“All the same,” I said, nodding at the Mona, “it’s a good painting and clever insight; but it’s rotten bad art. It’s unmoral!”

“Lord, Cap’n Charity, don’t talk like that!” he said, genuinely distressed. “I’d begun to think I’d met a man that understood things my way of looking at ’em. An’ then you go and blow off like that!”

“Art’s not got the right to be a vehicle for unwholesomeness!” I said, smiling a bit at his earnestness.

“I guess, Cap’n, you’re wrong, all the way there!” he asserted. “Art’s the right to do and say and be what it likes, so long as it’s clever and wonderful enough.”

“No,” I said. “Have a cigar. It’s not worth talking about, anyway; but you can take it from me that when Art claims only its Privileges, and shirks its complementary Responsibilities, it is bound to become as undesirable as any other irresponsible force.”

“I quit, Cap’n!” he said, biting off the end of his cigar. “You out-argue me. The chief thing that counts just now, is there’s five hundred thousand dollars on the table there; and twenty-five thousand of them are yours, the day you hand me the painted lady, safe and sound, in Room 86 of the Madison Square Hotel, New York.

“I guess you got that all plain, Cap’n. Meanwhile, I’ll book my passage across with you. I reckon I shall feel easier, sleeping in the same ship with her.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Black,” I told him. “If you’ve got an hour or two to put in, you’ll find that chair’s comfortable, and that’s my brand of whisky in the rack, and there’s Perrier and Soda, whichever you fancy.”

“Right you are, Cap’n,” he said; and while he was making himself comfortable, I began to get out my colours, palette and brushes.

“You paint, Cap’n?” he asked, over the top of his glass. He seemed surprised.

I nodded towards the oils and water-colours, round the bulksheads. He got up with his glass of whisky, and began to go the round, sipping, and muttering some astonishment, as he journeyed.

“My word, Cap’n!” he said at last, facing round at me. “You sure can paint some! And I guess I’m slinging no cheap flattery. What you going to do now?”

“I’m going to do an oil sketch of the Mona as a keepsake, right now, and before I hide her for the voyage,” I told him. I hauled out a sheet of prepared cardboard from my portfolio. “I guess I’d like to remember I once handled the original,” I went on. “And I’d like to have a shot at that smile. The trick of it catches me.”

“Good for you, Cap’n,” he said, quite interested, and set down his whisky, while he propped up the Gioconda, in a good light from the glazed skylight, above. Then he came round behind me, to watch.

I finished the thing, a rough sketch, of course, in about an hour and a half; and Mr. Black seemed to be genuinely impressed.

“Cap’n,” he said, “that’s good work, you know! You’re a mighty queer sort of sea-captain!”

“Mr. Black,” I said, as I fetched out my pipe, “you’re a mighty queer sort of picture-dealer!”

But he couldn’t see it.

April 8th. At sea.

Mr. Black’s an interesting man to talk to; but he’s got the itch to know where I’ve hidden his blessed picture. I’ve explained to him, though, that when a secret has to be kept, it’s better kept by one head than by any other number you could think of in a month.

He’s had to agree that my method’s the right one; but, every time I ask him up to my chart-room for a smoke and a yarn, he has a try to wheedle out of me whereabouts I’ve stowed away his five hundred thousand dollar lady.

Meanwhile, I’ve found that he’s a good taste for other things besides pictures. As he put it:—

“Cap’n, I’m no one-horse show, in the matter of liking good things. A pretty woman I like, and if they’re good, so much the better—”

“They’re rare!” I told him.

“I grant you that, Cap’n,” he said. “As rare as a high-pressure man with a sound temper. That’s why they’re some worth finding. Well, I like a pretty woman, a good violin solo, a good whisky, a good picture, and a good patron of art. And I reckon the five mean life!”

I smiled, and I said nothing; but when he came up to my chart-room to-day, I introduced him to a pretty young American, of the name of Lanny, who has made a point of pall-ing on with me, and has come up to look at my pictures.

When he came in, she was criticising my copy of the Gioconda, on cardboard, which I had pinned up on the bulkshead; and after I had introduced him, she hauled him into the discussion, willy-nilly.

“I think that’s a fine piece of work of the Captain’s,” she said. “But you sure ought to see the original in the Louvre, Mr. Black. Captain Charity’s done fine; but the original just gives you shivers all down your spine.”

“I’ve seen it, Miss Lanny,” he assured her, “and I agree with you. It’s a mighty wonderful thing. But Cap’n Charity don’t reckon it’s good art!”

“What!” said Miss Lanny. “Captain Charity, you don’t tell me that?”

“It’s not good art, Miss Lanny,” I said. “It’s true; but it shows the ugly side of a woman’s character.”

“That’s downright insulting, Captain,” she said, warmly. “I reckon it shows what the great artist meant it to show. It shows the delicate subtlety and refined spirituality of woman. There’s more in La Gioconda’s smile than in the laughter of a hundred men.”

“I hope you’re right, Miss Lanny,” I said. “For the sake of the hundred men. In fact, I’m sure you are right, supposing that the hundred men are good average, clean, wholesome citizens.”

This talk occurred this morning; and I put the stopper on then, for it was getting a bit too serious. I felt if the young lady came out with any more of that cheap Suffragette I’m-better-’n-any-man-that-steps-the-earth kind of thing, I should begin to feel like the giant, when the boy slapped him with his own hair-brushes. And when I get feeling like that, I never know whether I’m going to turn rude or over polite; and either way is not the method, when there’s a pretty girl in one’s chart-room, who looks as if she’s good as gold and chock full of hell-fire, all in one and the same moment.

But they seldom are either, let alone both; not when it comes to the pinch. They so often talk big, and then fizzle out into silly viciousness, or else you find the gold’s only gilding on top of a deal of petty thoughts on things in general and men in particular! Lord! doesn’t that sound narky!

April 10th. Night. Late.

Great excitement. At least. Mr. Black’s in a state.

He’s spent most of the last two days spooning Miss Lanny, in my chart-house, while I’ve made shots at doing sky effects in water-colours.

I call that cool, to try to cut me out with the young lady; though I can’t say that she’s seemed backwards! But I’ve had my revenge! I’ve made a set of six caricatures of the two of ’em looking generally spoony and absolutely loony!

However, this sort of thing has to be paid for!

About an hour ago, Mr. Black sent word by a steward, would I come along to his cabin. Lord! The mess! Someone, or several, I should think, had been through his place, and left it like a wooden township after a cyclone.

His box lids had all been ripped off; his bed had been pulled to pieces, and his mattress had been cut open; his wardrobe (he’s got a suite de luxe, off the saloons) was ripped away from the bulkshead, and was lying on its side, and the mirror had been broken clean out and lay on the carpet.

The marble top had been lifted off the wash-stand, and the carpet had been pulled up in several places and was ripped across, as if with a pair of shears.