Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1908 — The Mystery of Eric Alston. [ARTICLE]

The Mystery of Eric Alston.

By Samuel P. Moses.

\ At an early age a restless’. Impulsive youth, somewhat handicapped by an habitual shyness and melancholy. Alston had fought his way Londonward with the avowed intention of devoting himself to art His restive genius refusing to accomcreditably the highly stippled Bl’ecimen drawings required of each. as] leant for admission to the Royal Academy Schools he studied at the Slade. ’ where his perturbed professors alternated between amazement at the flashes of inspiration displayed by the callow youth and despair A,t. the hopelessness of expecting him to conform to recognized rules. V Twelve years later, sitting alonC in his studio, surveying the accumulated work of these, the best years of his life, he was forced to admit that he had made but little progress toward the goal of success. "Death the Devastator,” a big, allegorical painting whose favorable reception at the Salon had been followed by rejection at the Academy, stared him In the face. The medal awarded him at Paris for his "Dawn of Love” lay before him, and, looking at the tribute accorded him by aliens, Alston found himself reviewing the careers of his fellow-students at the Slade. Blackwell, whose pretty-pretty method had been Alston’s detestation, was already an "A. R. A,” and making a little fortune from what Alston dubbed "namby-pamby” pictures. O’Donnell was a sculptor of assured position, and Trenton, who had been a lazy student, wisely recognizing that It Is infinitely easier to pick holes In good work than to do it, had plunged boldly into the arena of art-criticism, where, by sheer effrontery, be had succeeded In gaining a hearing. Yet he, the only one of the group who had adhered to his Ideals, was the only one who had difficulty in earning his living. Roused from bls painful reverie by a smart rat-tat, he opened the studio door to Trenton the irresponsible. “Hullo! Kettle boiling? That’s all right I’m gasping for a cup of tea,” Trenton cried, throwing a packet of sandwiches on the table. Then, pulling, off his coat, he proceeded with the air of one accustomed to hunt in the cupboard for tea things. "Say, old man, the cups are all dirty. Suppose you take yours out of a tumbler? The basin will do for me. I’ve, just come from Woodcock’s Private -View,,” he added, as he spooned the tea out of a tobacco jar. “Good show?" "Rotten; but deuced saleable stuff. Nice little cottages in nice little gardens; nice little children, in nice clean pinafores, going to school; you know the sort “Blackwell says he made four thousand last year. My work is miles ahead of his, and I didn’t make enough to pay my framemaker." Alston cried, his pent-up bitterness at length finding vent "I don’t know where to lay hand on a shilling just now, and all the time the thought galls me that what I’ve done would be worth a fortune if I were only dead. A flash of inspiration smote Trenton. "Then why not be dead?" he said, quickly. A note in his voice, foreign to his usual badinage, arrested Alston’s attention. "What do you mean?" he asked, sharply. # "Be dead —vanish—efface yourself and scoop in the proceeds. It’s only fair a man should reap what he’s sown. Then disappear to some summer clime, laughing at the innocents who have at last awakened to the value of your work," answered Trenton. For a long time Alston sat silent. '* There’s many a true word spoken in jest,* Trenton,” he said, at length. ”1 don’t see why I should have worked for twelve years only to benefit others. Things can’t go on as they are. I’ll take your advice — ‘i’ll die." The scheme was one after the audacious Trenton’s heart The tea cooled while he suggested half-a-dozen plans, each more outrageous and Impossible than the other. The entrance of O’Donnell, the sculptor, brought them a reliable and astute counsellor. ( • •••••• The following afternoon—Saturday Alston, shaggy-maned and bushy-bearded, was seen to leave Rembrandt Studios. That same evening Mr. John Weston, a short-haired clean-shaven man, with spectacles, Installed hlmaclf In cheap lodgings near Euston station. Two days later O’Donnell, after much futile hammering at Alston’s closed door, went round the studios, Inquiring if anybody knew what had become of bls friend. On Tuesday morning, Trenton appeared on the scone, demanding an explanation <hy Alston had broken an engagement to dine with him on the previous night. On both of which points Alston’s neighbors failed to enlighten his friends, though Miss Helen Kinahan the Irish girl-artist, whoes studio was the only other occupied one in Alston’s corridor—remembered having heard him go* out on Saturday afternoon, nnd was sure he had not since returned. The news that the artist was mlw-

mg spread like wild-fire, and the air grew thick with rumor. At the close of the week the art-world was more shocked than surprised to learn that a drowned body lying at Southwark mortuary had been identified as that of the missing artist Paragraphs were rife. The intimation of his death figured on three consecutive days In the obituary list of the leading metropolitan journals. A picturesquely pathetic account of the tragedy of the brilliant but unlucky genius, written by Trenton, appeared in the South Kensington Gazette, and was copied in all the provincial papers; and at the fun oral, on the Thursday afternoon, O'Donnell and Trenton, who. us his executors, were clad In deepest mourning, rejoiced to see a large crowd of sympathizers. Meantime Mr. John Weston, shut up in his Euston lodgings, was chafing against the restraint that girded him. The day of the burial found him horribly restive. With tardonlc humor he mentally pictured the progress to the grave, and, as evening drew on, an insasate craving to visit his last resting place dominated him. Yielding to It against his better judgment, he set forth, trusting to a hard felt hat and a heavy cape to complete the disguise of shaven face and spectacles. In answer to his Inquiries, the keeper Indicated a new mound In a remote corner. Wending his way thereto, Alston stopped short in astonishment, for beside the stretch of unsightly mold a woman was kneeling. Even seen through the haze of the gloaming, something struck him as familiar In the poise of the head, the outline of the figure. As, rising to go, she turned in his direction, Alston, viewing the mourner from behind a tombstone, felt a thrill of pleasure at the discovery that it was Helen Kinahan. For the moment, forgetful of the fact that he was officially dead, he started forward with the intention of addressing her, but the girl hurried off. Meantime matters had been progressing favorably. Trenton and O’Donnell, stealing out after dark to visit Alston, reported the advance of the boom. Hillier, of the World’s Art Society, had made an offer for all Alston’s prints In the Haymarket Gallery. That offer, though a low one, the conspirators decided to accept, knowing that, with sixty prints on hand for which he had paid cash, Hillier might be trusted to advertise the artist for all he was worth. Trenton’s versatile pen had been busy. Under his well-known mom-de-guerre of "Pallas” he had written a glowing eulogism on Alston of whom he spoke as a genius sacrificed upon the altar of British Philistinism—in the paper with the largest circulation in the world. And, fully alive to the fact that nothing helps a cause like antagonism, he had published, as "Maelstrom," a foolishly vituperative criticism of Alston’s work in a widely read evening paper. The British public, though it enjoys witnessing a living man badgered beyond endurance, revolts at the idea of slanging the dead, and "Pallas” trenchant reply to "Maelstrom” called forth a stotm of applause. O’Donnell, coming tn the next night, understood. "Look here, old chap,” he said, "you can hide in your own studio every bit as well as here. I’ll send you a wire that will give you an excuse for leaving here at onee; then I’ll run down to the studios and bo ready to open the door for you.” In an hour Alston, In his character of Weston, was showing his landlady a telegram calling him to the sickbed of his brother, resident In Birmingham. Entering the cold corridor of the studios, he almost forgot the fact of his non-existence in the sense of home that pervaded the place. Passing Helen Kinahan’s door, he wondered if she were still trying to supplement the scant earnings of her brush by drawing impossible fashion plates. "Zounds, man!” O’Donnell whispered fiercely. "What do you mean by tramping in here as if the place belonged to you, when you are supposed to be under the turf?” There is no incentive to action like enforced idleness. Throwing off his. coat, Alston started to work at once, and 10 o’clock found him still at it, when O’Donnell suggested cessation for -the night. "Stop? Not I. I’m in a fever of work. I’m going to go on till morning," refilled Alston. "Then I’d better warn that girl next door that I’ll be moving about most of the night. J can sleep in your room," O’Donnell whispered as he put the whisky and the sandwiches on the talfie. He tapped at Miss Kinahan’s door. She opened it to him, pale*, and trembling, her eyes eloquent with fear. "I came to wajn you not to bo alarmed if you hear any noise In the studios at nights. We are going to have a one-man show of poor Alston’s pictures soon, and Trenton end .1 are looking over his stuff; ao we’ll need to be working'night and day—probably sleeping here." "I’m glad you told me, Mr. O’Donnell. for, in truth, I was feeling a little bit nervous." Miss Kinahan tried to speak lightly. "Just after dusk, I fancied I heard Mr. Alston walk along the passage and go into the studio. Of course, it must have been imagination, but I know his step so well that, just for a moment, I thought it waa really ho; though, of course, that’s impossible." "You’ll need to be careful, Alston, old chap,” admonished O’Donnell. "That girl next door knew your footsteps to-night as you came in. ■ I I 111 I ■

and thought you were your own ghost!” 1 Knew his footsteps! « ' ; Lying down on the couch at dawn, too wakeful to sleep, A Iston found his thoughts running tgaln , and again to the lonely Irish girl to whom the echo of his footsteps had come to be a thing apart, In whose colorless life their cessation had caused a blank. The eternal feminine had held no part in Alston’s existence. Woman’s influence on the artist’s career he had always asserted to be dlsas- ; trous. Lying there, with the gray dawn stealing through the blinds, he recalled instances to himself. “Ne. He was distinctly not a woman’s man; he had never felt tempted to share his struggles with any one. It struck him as odd that, now that his death rendered It Impossible for him to think tenderly of the sex, he should for the first time feel attracted toward It. He wondered whether, had he owned a loyal woman comforter, his life would have proved as , barren of joy as it had done. Helen I Kinahan, he recalled, had knelt beside his grave. Would a good wife’s prayers have made his trials more easy of endurance?” "Poor Helen! Poor, little, lonely girl!" he said, and as he fell to sleep his last conscious desire was for the bunch of violets. > The desired opportunity came all unexpectedly. The close of a week’s Incessant work saw his series of etchings completed. A rumor of the existence of a set of drawings of unparalleled originality having, through the astuteness of Trenton, reached the great Hillier’s ears, that . potentate had claimed the first offer I of their reproduction, and O’DonDell, bearing the first impressions, had gone to interview him. Anxiously awaiting the result, Alston, exhausted with labor, had fallen into a fitful doze, in whose troubled dreams the great picture dealer alternately treated his emissary with extravagant effusion and with crushing contempt. Half roused by a knock at the door, and wholly forgetful of his position in his anxiety to hear O’Donnell’s report, Alston sprang up and opened the door to Helen Kinahan. But it was a sadly changed Helen who stood 'before him, clutching the lintel for support, under the shock of being confronted by one bearing a startling resemblance to and wearing the dllipldated blouse of \ her dead hero. Clad In the cheap black frock that he guessed was worn for - his sake, Helen’s figure looked slender to attenuation. The bloom had paled on her cheeks, purple shadows surrounded the truthful eyes. For a moment the two stood transfixed, staring speechlessly at each other. Then, as a step in the corridor aroused Alston to the danger of detection, he drew the girl Into the studio and made full confession. ’ Overjoyed at finding him alive, all else counted but little; but the difficulties of the position loomed before her. “But what is to beithe end?” HelI en asked at last. “If you have volI untarily ceased to exist, what will you do with the rest of your life?” “I don’t know,” Alston answered, slowly. “My last state may be worse than my first, unless you are willing to take the gift of a man without even a name or a home to offer you, and we go out into the world and seek our fortunes together. “Wait; don’t say ’no’ yet,” he urged, as she was about to speak. “I hear O’Donnell coming, and he may bring good news.” "I won’t wait," was the answer. “I say ‘yes,’ now. Yes, and a thousand times yes! Even though you may never earn another penny, I ask no better fate than to share your life!” .... . * “Alston would have been lonely without her,” even the cynical Trenton . acknowledged, several months later, when a letter written In a flow of spirits such as had been foreign to their comrade for many years reached them from sunny Florida. “He is a lucky beggar, isn’t be? I say! Did you ever see things sell as his did? With the money from the exhibition, apd a thousand pounds for ‘Death the Devastator,’ and the four hundred pounds Blackwell paid for the etchings, etc., there’s enougn co give Alston a handsome little annuity. He can rest now from his labors and be happy.” "Alston won’t, though. He’s not . the sort to idle. Believe me," answered O’Donnell, "he will work out for himself an even bigger reputation under his assumed name than he did under the one he discarded." And O’Donnell's prophecy seems likely to be fulfilled. ’