After I had drawn Mrs.Monarch a dozen times I perceived more clearly than before that the value of such a model as Miss Churm resided precisely in the fact that she had no positive stamp, combined of course with the other fact that what she did have was a curious and inexplicable talent for imitation.Her usual appearance was like a curtain which she could draw up at request for a capital performance.
This performance was simply suggestive; but it was a word to the wise--it was vivid and pretty.Sometimes, even, I thought it, though she was plain herself, too insipidly pretty; I made it a reproach to her that the figures drawn from her were monotonously (betement, as we used to say) graceful.Nothing made her more angry: it was so much her pride to feel that she could sit for characters that had nothing in common with each other.She would accuse me at such moments of taking away her "reputytion."It suffered a certain shrinkage, this queer quantity, from the repeated visits of my new friends.Miss Churm was greatly in demand, never in want of employment, so I had no scruple in putting her off occasionally, to try them more at my ease.It was certainly amusing at first to do the real thing--it was amusing to do Major Monarch's trousers.They WERE the real thing, even if he did come out colossal.It was amusing to do his wife's back hair (it was so mathematically neat,) and the particular "smart" tension of her tight stays.She lent herself especially to positions in which the face was somewhat averted or blurred; she abounded in lady-like back views and profils perdus.When she stood erect she took naturally one of the attitudes in which court-painters represent queens and princesses; so that I found myself wondering whether, to draw out this accomplishment, I couldn't get the editor of the Cheapside to publish a really royal romance, "A Tale of Buckingham Palace."Sometimes, however, the real thing and the make-believe came into contact; by which I mean that Miss Churm, keeping an appointment or coming to make one on days when I had much work in hand, encountered her invidious rivals.The encounter was not on their part, for they noticed her no more than if she had been the housemaid; not from intentional loftiness, but simply because, as yet, professionally, they didn't know how to fraternise, as I could guess that they would have liked--or at least that the Major would.They couldn't talk about the omnibus--they always walked; and they didn't know what else to try--she wasn't interested in good trains or cheap claret.
Besides, they must have felt--in the air--that she was amused at them, secretly derisive of their ever knowing how.She was not a person to conceal her scepticism if she had had a chance to show it.
On the other hand Mrs.Monarch didn't think her tidy; for why else did she take pains to say to me (it was going out of the way, for Mrs.Monarch), that she didn't like dirty women?
One day when my young lady happened to be present with my other sitters (she even dropped in, when it was convenient, for a chat), Iasked her to be so good as to lend a hand in getting tea--a service with which she was familiar and which was one of a class that, living as I did in a small way, with slender domestic resources, I often appealed to my models to render.They liked to lay hands on my property, to break the sitting, and sometimes the china--I made them feel Bohemian.The next time I saw Miss Churm after this incident she surprised me greatly by making a scene about it--she accused me of having wished to humiliate her.She had not resented the outrage at the time, but had seemed obliging and amused, enjoying the comedy of asking Mrs.Monarch, who sat vague and silent, whether she would have cream and sugar, and putting an exaggerated simper into the question.She had tried intonations--as if she too wished to pass for the real thing; till I was afraid my other visitors would take offence.
