The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (22 page)

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‘Artists,' said Mr. Darby to Miss Clatworthy on another occasion, ‘are sometimes, I
must
say, very funny about the titles they choose for their pictures. Now only to-day, I was looking at that picture called “Hope,” by … ah … by …?'

‘By Watts, isn't it?' said Miss Clatworthy.

‘By Watts!' Mr. Darby accepted the help with a bow. ‘Now Watts, I grant you, is a very fine artist when he likes, but “Hope,” to my mind, is one of his failures. I
may
be dense …' Miss Clatworthy with a smile and a gesture dismissed the assumption as ludicrous, but Mr. Darby persisted. ‘Yes, yes,' he said urbanely, ‘I
may
be dense, but the … ah … female figure looks to me very much more like Despair. However, I have never been very fond of those paregorical pictures. Still, as I was saying, artists
are
strange about their titles. Even the great Turner is not without his idiosynchronies. For instance, he calls one of his finest pictures, a great favourite of mine, a picture of old fashioned ships, such colour! such superb colour! but he calls it Ulysses deriding … ah … Polyanthus.' Being uncertain of the final word Mr. Darby dropped his voice and hurried over it. He looked challengingly at Miss Clatworthy. ‘Now, I ask you, as an artist;
why
call it that?
The Fighting Demerara
, one understands. The tug is towing the Demerara to her last anchorage,—the thing's simple enough. But I must say
Ulysses deriding
… ah …
Polyanthus
beats me.'

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‘I must say,' said Mr. Darby to Miss Clatworthy on yet another occasion, developing an idea which had been agitating him for some days, ‘that I don't altogether approve of the National Gallery. The fact is, Miss Clatworthy, far too many of the rooms are given up to foreign artists. Now foreign artists may be all very well in their way; I don't say they're not; I will even admit that they are; but what I say is, the place for foreign artists is foreign galleries. A national gallery should contain national pictures and national pictures
only.
It stands to reason. When I walk across Trafalgar Square—a thing I very often do—with Nelson on his column above me and the statues of … ah … well, of various national heroes to my left and right; southward (or is it westward?) the towers of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey; Trafalgar Square which is, as one might say, the very centre and … ah … hub of our Empire;—I must say that I don't like to think that
there
, in our National Gallery, hang hundreds and hundreds of foreign pictures. No, it goes against the grain, Miss Clatworthy. For me there's something almost … ah … incestuous, I mean blasphemous, about it. Now the Tate, to my mind, is much more what a national gallery should be. The majority of the pictures there are English. The great Turner; Sir Joshua Reynolds; Romney; Watts (of whom we were speaking only the other day); John Burns, I mean Burne Jones; Land-seer; all the familiar, time-honoured names are there. It may be, of course—I don't profess to know—that there are not enough English pictures to fill the National. In that case, why not fill up with those in the Tate and use the Tate for the foreign ones? Then at least we should be keeping Trafalgar Square … ah … unviolated.' Mr. Darby paused, abashed at his own words, and then added in a quieter tone: ‘Forgive me if I employ a somewhat … ah … bold expression.'

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It is clear from these fragments of Mr. Darby's conversation at this time that he has already become something of a connoisseur in art. But obviously he is more, much more,
than that. His attitude to art is no mere idle dilettantism: he has views, and strong views, on the position and function of art in the State. Now when a man of action has views, his immediate impulse is to put them into action. Something, Mr. Darby felt very strongly, ought to be done.

A millionaire is a force. No one was more conscious of this than Mr. Darby. And not only that: he was conscious too of what the state implies. It implies responsibility. Mr. Darby felt responsible for the unfortunate condition of the National Gallery. Not that he had caused it: the trouble, no doubt, had begun years ago. A prolonged policy of thoughtless and indiscriminate buying had reduced the place to what it was. His responsibility began now. It was his duty to bring the authorities (whoever they might be) to a sense of their shortcomings, to induce them to regard their duty with a more patriotic eye. But before taking steps, he must acquaint himself with the facts. In the first place, was there actually a scarcity of British pictures? If not, it would be absurd to suggest the transfer of British pictures from the Tate to the National. Some other method would have to be evolved. Mr. Darby felt himself at a loss. It was like the problem of the Jungle over again: the difficulty was not merely to obtain the information but to discover how to set about obtaining it. A bolder spirit would no doubt have marched straight to the National Gallery and knocked loudly and authoritatively at the private door. ‘I have come,' he would have said, when his summons was answered, ‘to reform the gallery.' But such brutal methods were not Mr. Darby's. He preferred more constitutional ways.

For some time therefore he did nothing, and when at last he began to take action it was in consequence of what was nothing more than a happy accident.

He happened one day to be in Greenwich. He was there not in pursuit of artists but of Sir Christopher Wren, an architect whom he had recently taken up rather strongly. ‘You may talk,' Mr. Darby was in the habit of saying at this
time, ‘ of your Palladios and your Michelangelos ' (his guide book had, in point of fact, talked of them), ‘but I venture to say that our Sir Christopher Wren is … ah … immeasurably superior to either. One has only to look at St. Paul's, Chelsea Hospital, St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and the work at Greenwich.' Being a patriot, he did not add that to make the survey more complete one has also to look at St. Peter's, Rome, and San Giorgio Maggiore and the Redentore, the Palladian churches of Venice.

Mr. Darby, then, was hunting Sir Christopher in Greenwich, when his roving eye was caught by an antique shop. It was not a very good antique shop, but, as every connoisseur knows, it is at the worst antique shops that the vigilant collector picks up the best bargains. Accordingly Mr. Darby halted and scrutinized the window. In a moment his practised eye had turned the shop inside out and fixed upon the essential thing there. It was a picture, a portrait of a young lady in white muslin. Her head was slightly inclined to the left, she had golden ringlets and a pink sash round her waist. Mr. Darby brought to his inspection of it all the store of artistic knowledge and experience which was his. ‘Ve … ry nice! ' he said to himself, and there was a tinge of patronage in his tone. ‘Ve … ry pretty indeed! ‘He pursed his lips, nodded his head knowingly, and studied the picture more closely. It was then that he caught sight of a ticket tucked into the bottom right corner of the frame. On the ticket was written in a rather slovenly handwriting: ‘Nice picture by Romney. Cheap £5.'

There! That settled it. There were works of British artists still to be had. Mr. Darby's indignation boiled up. To think that the walls of the National were covered with foreigners, and here, disregarded in Greenwich, was a British masterpiece at the mercy of the first Tom, Dick or Harry who took a fancy to it. But to stand fuming outside the shop window was a mere wasting of precious moments. Something must be done. Thereupon Mr. Darby became so excessively excited that before he realized what he was doing his legs had carried him several yards down the street. But next moment
he had a tight hold on the reins, had mastered the excited animal, pulled it smartly round and forced it back to the shop-window. Something must be done, and quickly, for no doubt there were other connoisseurs about, avid American collectors perhaps who, scouring Greenwich at that very moment, would dart into the shop at first sight of the thing, capture it, and carry it off outside the bounds of the British Empire while England, in the person of Mr. Darby, vacillated on the doorstep. He shot a rapid glance up and down the street. There were few people about, and no one in the least like a collector. He had still a few moments, then, in which to make up his mind and decide what to do. He quickly inspected the picture again. It had gained enormously in appearance since he had last looked at it, a minute ago. ‘ A superb thing! ' he said to himself. ‘A masterpiece! ' and then, unconsciously recalling a phrase from one of his guide-books, he added: ‘Observe the natural elegance of the pose.' He was trembling all over with excitement; but he pulled himself together. To stand there trying to make plans was madness: the thing to do was to secure the picture first and make the plans afterwards. With a rapidly beating heart he entered the shop. A very thin, seedy old man emerged from the other bric-a-brac. Mr. Darby at once became calm and casual. ‘You have a rather pretty picture in the window,' he said unconcernedly, ‘a portrait of a young woman.'

‘Yes, sir. A lovely thing, sir. I bought it the other day locally from a private collection. Been in the family for years.'

Mr. Darby was too astute to mention Romney. To stress the name, suggest that it was well-known, might put the old man on his guard. Suddenly the shop-bell tinkled, the shop door opened, sending a thrill like a bullet through Mr. Darby. The collectors were already on the track. Mr. Darby was wonderful. In that moment of appalling national peril he did not for a moment abandon his
sang-froid
. ‘I might as well have it,' he said, externally bored, internally in an agony of trepidation, and in a moment had a five pound note out of his pocket and slapped into the old man's hand.

The old man began pottering among his specimens. ‘I'll have it packed up at once, sir,' he said.

Packed up, indeed, when every second was valuable. Mr. Darby swept the suggestion aside. ‘Don't trouble,' he said. ‘I'll take it as it is.' Yes, if it weighed a ton he would, somehow or other, take it as it was. But, thank God, the old man lifted it easily from its place, and Mr. Darby, laying hold of it, found that the only drawback about it was its size. In a moment he was steering it carefully towards the door. Unceremoniously and with an indignant glare of his spectacles he pushed past the waiting customer, a tall, gaunt, cleanshaven, suspiciously American-looking person. Another moment and the old man had closed the door behind Mr. Darby and Romney and they found themselves in the street.

Tenderly Mr. Darby rested the edge of the picture on the ground and gazed wildly about him. The world was a mere blur through his steaming spectacles. A vague shape, making a noise like a motor-car, glided towards him down the street. He hailed it in desperation: by the mercy of Providence it was an empty taxi, and a few seconds later he was safely installed in it, holding the picture in front of him like a shield. ‘To the Balmoral Hotel, Northumberland Avenue, Trafalgar Square! ' he shouted. The door slammed, the taxi started, and Mr. Darby fell back against the cushions, took off his hat and his spectacles, took out his handkerchief, and with a sigh of profound relief mopped his streaming brow and face. A priceless art-treasure had been saved for the nation. Then he slowly and carefully began to polish his spectacles. He had forgotten all about our great national architect Sir Christopher Wren.

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This important purchase was the first of many. Mr. Darby, fired by his first success, became a mighty picture hunter. But he did not allow himself to be intoxicated by that first triumph: he equipped himself properly for his task. Not only did he add to his knowledge of the British School by reading many works on the subject; he went further still. Again and
again he returned to the National, the Tate, the Wallace Collection, studying and observing in the light of what he had read, till soon he was able without a moment's hesitation to distinguish easily between a Reynolds and a Gainsborough, a Turner and a Constable, a Romney and a Raeburn, to say nothing of the smaller fry among our old masters. Armed with all this highly technical knowledge he began to haunt the windows of antique-shops. He was far too acute a man to waste his time in the rooms of the great London picture dealers: he even avoided the better-class antique-shops. It was the humble, dusty, promiscuous shops that he frequented, shops hidden in the meaner streets or tucked away in the suburbs, shops in which one was as likely to find a row of grimy books, a second-hand sewing-machine or a stray commode, as the prizes that he sought. Richmond, Putney, Camberwell, Streatham, Highbury Barn, he searched them all and many places more, and he was not unrewarded. The further his investigations went, the greater grew his amazed indignation at the culpable neglect of the National Gallery authorities. So far from there being a shortage of British old masters, the whole place teemed with them. He spent his days in a fever of industrious enthusiasm. Within a fortnight he had become the owner of two Reynoldses, a Gainsborough, an immense Turner (‘As regards colour,' Mr. Darby said of it, ‘the finest of his pictures I know.'), four large Landseers, and (descending to more recent times) five small works by the late Alma Tadema. The whole lot had cost him the trifling sum of fifty one pounds five shillings. ‘It only shows,' Mr. Darby remarked to Miss Clatworthy, ‘what a man can do with a pair of eyes, a knowledge of art, and a little spare time.' The question how to house them soon grew imperative. It was all very well to stack half a dozen in his bedroom, but already there were too many for that. Besides, he didn't want to stack them: he wanted to hang them upon walls, to see them and enjoy them. When he had amassed a considerable collection he proposed, of course, to present them to the nation, to the National Gallery, with the proviso that they should be hung
in place of the foreign pictures at present there. But meanwhile, why not have the enjoyment of them? He resolved to take a furnished house.