Mark Twain's Medieval Romance by Otto Penzler Read Free Book Online

Royden?”
    “Speaking.”
    Well—it wasn’t difficult to persuade the man to call around and see me for a moment. I had never met him, but of course he knew my name, both as an important collector of paintings and as a person of some consequence in society. I was a big fish for him to catch.
    “Let me see now, Mr. Lampson,” he said, “I think I ought to be free in about a couple of hours. Will that be allright?”
    I told him it would be fine, gave my address, and rang off.
    I jumped out of bed. It was really remarkable how exhilarated I felt all of a sudden. One moment I had been in agony of despair, contemplating murder and suicide and I don’t know what; the next, I was whistling an aria from Puccini in my bath. Every now and again I caught myself rubbing my hands together in a devilish fashion, and once, during my exercises, when I overbalanced doing a double-knee-bend, I sat on the floor and giggled like a schoolboy.
    At the appointed time Mr. John Royden was shown in to my library and I got up to meet him. He was a small neat man with a slightly ginger goatee beard. He wore a black velvet jacket, a rust-brown tie, a red pullover, and black suède shoes. I shook his small neat hand.
    “Good of you to come along so quickly, Mr. Royden.”
    “Not at all, sir.” The man’s lips—like the lips of nearly all bearded men—looked wet and naked, a trifle indecent, shining pink in among all that hair. After telling him again how much I admired his work, I got straight down to business.
    “Mr. Royden,” I said, “I have a rather unusual request to make of you, something quite personal in its way.”
    “Yes, Mr. Lampson?” He was sitting in the chair opposite me and he cocked his head over to one side, quick and perky like a bird.
    “Of course, I know I can trust you to be discreet about anything I say.”
    “Absolutely, Mr. Lampson.”
    “Allright. Now my proposition is this: there is a certain lady in town here whose portrait I would like you to paint. I very much want to possess a fine painting of her. But there are certain complications. For example, I have my own reasons for not wishing her to know that it is I who am commissioning the portrait.”
    “You mean …”
    “Exactly, Mr. Royden. That is exactly what I mean. As a man of the world I’m sure you will understand.”
    He smiled, a crooked little smile that only just came through his beard, and he nodded his head knowingly up and down.
    “Is it not possible,” I said, “that a man might be—how shall I put it?—extremely fond of a lady and at the same time have his own good reasons for not wishing her to know about it yet?”
    “More than possible, Mr. Lampson.”
    “Sometimes a man has to stalk his quarry with great caution, waiting patiently for the right moment to reveal himself.”
    “Precisely, Mr. Lampson.”
    “There are better ways of catching a bird than by chasing it through the woods.”
    “Yes indeed, Mr. Lampson.”
    “Putting salt on its tail, for instance.”
    “Ha-ha!”
    “Allright, Mr. Royden. I think you understand. Now—do you happen by any chance to know a lady called Janet de Pelagia?”
    “Janet de Pelagia? Let me see now—yes. At least, what I mean is I’ve heard of her. I couldn’t exactly say I know her.”
    “That’s a pity. It makes it a little more difficult. Do you think you could get to meet her—perhaps at a cocktail party or something like that?”
    “Shouldn’t be too tricky, Mr. Lampson.”
    “Good, because what I suggest is this: that you go up to her and tell her she’s the sort of model you’ve been searching for for years—just the right face, the right figure, the right coloured eyes. You know the sort of thing. Then ask her if she’d mind sitting for you free of charge. Say you’d like to do a picture of her for next year’s Academy. I feel sure she’d be delighted to help you, and honoured too, if I may say so. Then you will paint her and exhibit the picture and deliver it