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THORLEY WEIR
by
E F. BENSON
Author of "The Image in the Sand," "Paul," etc.
Philadelphia & London
J. B. Lippincott Company
1913
CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
CHAPTER I.
The hottest day of all days in the hottest June of all Junes was
beginning to abate its burning, and the inhabitants of close-packed
cities and their perspiring congregations cherished the hope that
before long some semblance of briskness might return into the ardent
streets. Providence, it would appear, justly resentful at the
long-continued complaints that hot summers were altogether a thing of
the past, had determined to show that something could still be done in
that line, but this rejoinder, humorous at first, had long ago ceased
to amuse. From morning till night for the last six weeks an unveiled
sun had shed a terrific ray on to the baked pavements and reverberating
house-walls, but to-day had beaten all previous records, and a solemn
glee pervaded the meteorological offices, the reports of which seemed
to claim a sort of proprietary credit in the readings of their
incredible thermometers.
Under these conditions it was with a sigh of relief that Arthur
Craddock subsided into the corner-seat of a first-class smoking
carriage at Paddington, finding that it was smoking, figuratively
speaking, in less specialized a sense than that intended by the
railway-company, for it had been standing for an hour or two in the
sun outside the station. But he had clear notions about the risk of
chill even on so hot a day, and when the train moved out from the dusky
glass vault, he drew up the window beside which he sat, for it was
impossible for him to take a seat with his back to the direction of
progress, since the sight of receding landscape always made him feel
slightly unwell. But, as he was alone in his carriage, there was no
reason why he should not refresh his clay-coloured face with a mist of
wall-flower scent which he squirted delicately over his forehead and
closed eyes from a bottle in his silver-mounted dressing-case. Then he
pulled down all the blinds in his carriage and sitting quite still in
this restorative gloom indulged in pleasant anticipations.
He was a very large stout person, wearing his hair, which was beginning
to grow thin, though no hint of greyness invaded its sleek blackness,
conspicuously long. Round his ears and the back of his head it was
still thick, but it no longer felt capable of growth on the top of
his high peaked head, and in consequence he brushed it from the
territories on the left side of his head over the top of his bald
skull, and mingled the extremities of these locks with those that
grew on the territories on the right of his head. It might thus be
hoped that short-sighted and unobservant persons would come to the
gratifying conclusion that the thatch was complete. He wore a small
reddish moustache which in the centre of his immense colourless face
might remind a Biblical beholder of the Burning Bush in the desert of
Sin, for he looked vaguely debauched (which he was not) and overfed
(which was probable to the verge of certainty). His hands, of which
he was exceedingly proud, were small and white and plump; they were
carefully manicured and decorated with a couple of rings, each set with
a large cabochon stone. When, as now, they were not otherwise occupied,
he habitually used one of them to caress the side of this desert of
Sin, as if to make sure that no whisker was surreptitiously sprouting
there. In dress, though he was certainly old enough to know better, he
affected the contemporary style of a fashionable young man, and his
brown flannel suit had evidently the benediction of the tailor fresh
upon it. His tie, in which was pinned a remarkably fine pearl, was
slightly more vivid than his suit, but of the same colour as his socks,
a smooth two inches of which appeared below his turned-up trousers, and
his shirt had a stripe of the same colour as his tie. No watch-chain
glittered on the amplitude where it would naturally repose, but on his
left wrist he wore a narrow band of gold braid with a lady's watch set
in it. A white straw hat and brown shoes were the alpha and omega of
his costume.
Though his face was singularly unwrinkled, except for rather heavy bags
of loose skin below his eyes, it was quite evident that Arthur Craddock
had left youth far behind him, but it would have been an imprudent man
who would have wagered as to his ability to guess it within the limits
of four or five years, for his corpulence was of the somewhat gross
sort that may come early to an inactive man, in whose sedentary day
dinner is something of an event. But it would not have required a very
subtle physiognomist to conjecture for him an alert and athletic mind.
His small grey eyes, which were unsurmounted by any hint of eyebrow,
were, though a little red and moist, of a singular intensity in focus,
and as active in poise and dart as a hovering dragon-fly, while even
in repose they wore a notably watchful and observant look. His hands,
too, which afforded him so constant a gratification, were undeniably
the hands of an artist, long-fingered in proportion to the palms, and
taper-nailed. Artist he was, too, to the very tips of those pink and
shining triumphs of the manicurist, and though he neither painted nor
played nor set forth on adventures in romance or poetry, his judgment
and perception in all such achievements on the part of others was a
marvel of unerring instinct, and was solidly based on an unrivalled
knowledge of the arts. Not only, too, could he appreciate and condemn
with faultless acumen, but side by side with that gift, and totally
distinct from it, he had an astonishing _flair_ for perceiving what
the public would appreciate, and just as he was seldom at fault in
true artistic judgment, so also was he an accurate appraiser of the
money-earning value of play or picture. He was, it may be stated, not
unconnected with the artistic columns of the daily press, and the
frequent articles he contributed to three leading papers on pictures,
concerts and plays, were often masterpieces of criticism, while at
other times and for other reasons he plentifully belauded work in
which, though he might artistically despise it, he was financially
interested. His critical powers and the practical use to which he put
them in purchases and in these penetrating paragraphs had proved most
remunerative to him during these last fifteen or twenty years, and he
had already laid by a very comfortable provision for his declining
days, which he sincerely hoped were as yet very far off. He was fond
of money, and, very wisely, had not the least objection to spending it
in works of art which gave him pleasure, especially when his judgment
told him that they would go up in value. Then, if a picture or a bronze
could be sold again at a much higher price than that which he paid
for it, he would part with it without any agony of reluctance. These
transactions were conducted unobtrusively and it occurred to nobody to
call him a dealer. If such a supposition ever occurred to himself, he
put it from him with the utmost promptitude. But every quarter he paid
the rent of Thistleton's Gallery in Bond Street, from which so many of
the English masters set forth on their voyage to the United States.
His immediate anticipations, as has been already remarked, were
pleasurable, for the Thames-side house at Thorley where he was to dine
and sleep would certainly be a refreshing exchange from the baking
airlessness of town. It was true that there would be nothing special in
the way of dinner to look forward to, for his host Philip Wroughton was
a penurious dyspeptic of long but hypochondriacal standing, and Arthur
Craddock, made wise by a previous experience, had directed his valet to
take with him certain palatable and nutritious biscuits in case dinner
proved to be not only plain in quality but deficient in quantity. But
there were two attractions which he was sure of finding there, each of
which more than compensated the certain short-comings of the table.
These were Philip Wroughton's daughter and Philip Wroughton's Reynolds:
briefly, he hoped to possess himself of both.
It was impossible to decide between the rival excellencies of these.
The Reynolds picture was exquisite: it represented his host's
great-grandmother. But Joyce Wroughton his host's daughter might
have sat in person for it, and the artist would have congratulated
himself on having so supremely caught the frank charm and vigour of
her beauty. More than most of the master's portraits it set forth a
breezy and glorious vitality; it was as if Diana and an Amazon had
been ancestresses to the sitter, in so swift and active a poise the
slim white-clad figure paused with head turned and beckoning hand and
smile before it passed up the glade of dark-foliaged trees behind it.
How often had Craddock seen Joyce Wroughton in just such a momentary
attitude as she swung across the lawn from her punting on the river,
and turned to call her collies lest they should enter the tent where
her father sat and disturb him at his employment of doing nothing at
all. Craddock, sluggish of blood and corpulent of limb, found a charm
of wonderful potency in the girl's lithe and athletic youth, and his
own subtle intricate-weaving mind admired hardly less the serenity and
simplicity of hers, which seemed as untroubled and unmorbid as that
which he would conjecture for some white Hellenic marble. It cannot be
truthfully stated that in the common acceptance of the word he was in
love with her, but he immensely admired her, and, being of the age when
a man says to himself that if he intends to marry he must without delay
put out from the harbour of his bachelorhood, he had decided to set his
sails. She, only just twenty years of age, was more than a quarter of
a century his junior, but this seemed to him a perfectly satisfactory
chronology, since for full twenty years more her beauty would but ripen
and develop.
His desire to possess himself of the Reynolds portrait was in a sense
more altruistic, since he did not propose to keep it himself. He was
prepared to offer to the present owner of it what would certainly
appear to one not conversant with salesrooms a very generous price, and
he was also prepared to take a far more generous price for it himself
from an American friend who was victim to a trans-Atlantic ambition to
possess a dozen portraits by this master. He scarcely knew a picture
from a statue, but he wanted pictures, and Craddock in previous
transactions with him had learned not to be shy of asking enormous sums
for them, since Mr. William P. Ward's comment was invariable, laconic
and satisfactory. "I'm sure I'm very much indebted to you," was all he
said, and proceeded to discharge his indebtedness.
Craddock's precautions with regard to the sun that beat on the carriage
windows were quite successful, and he felt cool and presentable when
he was shown into this riverside house and out again onto the lawn that
bordered the Thames where tea was laid under the big plane tree that
shaded a drowsy area of cool green. Joyce, inimitable save for the
foreshadowing Sir Joshua, rose to receive him, forgetting to turn off
the water from the urn which was ministering to the teapot. Upon which
a thin hand came out of an encompassing chair, and a rather fretful
voice said:
"The tea will be drowned, Joyce. Oh, is that Mr. Craddock? Charmed."
Having saved the tea from drowning, Philip Wroughton gave Craddock a
sufficiently cordial welcome. He did not rise from his basket chair,
but extended a welcoming hand. He had a footstool to keep his feet from
any risk of damp from the scorched and arid grass, and a thin plaid
shawl was laid across his knees, as a preventative of miasmic humours
reaching those joints. In person he was a wizen bird-eyed little man,
fleshless and hollow-cheeked, and grey-haired, and by the side of his
daughter he looked like a dried Normandy pippin compared to a fresh
apple, sun-tinted and vivid-skinned. Beside him, chiefly concealed from
view by the scarlet sunshade which cast a red glow on to her face, sat
his mother, old Lady Crowborough, who was by far the most juvenile of
any company in which she found herself. Not being on speaking terms
with her elder son (though she spoke about him a good deal) she stayed
with Philip whenever she found it convenient, and gave him a great deal
of good advice, which he seldom acted upon. She delighted in her age,
which she habitually exaggerated, and had now for several years said
that she was ninety, though as a matter of fact she would not attain
that agreeable age for several years yet. She was remarkable for her
shrewdness, her memory and her health, and wore a rather girlish and
simple costume with a flapping linen sun-bonnet. Time, that inexorable
accountant, seemed to have passed over her page, and her face was still
marvellously soft and unwrinkled, and her sight and hearing were yet
acute and undimmed. Arthur Craddock had not expected to find her here,
and he was not sure that the discovery pleased him, for she always
produced in him a sensation of being detected.
Philip Wroughton continued his low-voiced and languid phrases of
welcome.
"Charmed to see you," he said. "You know my mother, do you not? It is
good of you to come down and see us in our retreat. I, with my wretched
health, as you know, cannot leave home, and Joyce really prefers the
river and her dogs and perhaps the society of her poor old father to
the distractions of town. Eh, Joyce?"
Joyce might or might not have endorsed the filial sentiments thus
attributed to her, but her opportunity of doing so was snatched from
her by her grandmother who endorsed none of these things.
"It's all stuff and nonsense about your health, Philip," she said. "You
would be as strong as me if you only would put your medicine bottles
into the grate, and eat good nourishing food, instead of the slops
you stuff yourself with. And as for Joyce preferring to spend her time
with you, instead of dancing and flirting with all the agreeable young
fellows in London, you know quite well that it's you who keep her mewed
up here to carry your cushions and pour out your medicines and put up
your umbrella."
Joyce interrupted this recital of menial duties with a laugh.
"Granny, darling," she said, "how many lumps of sugar?"
"Three if they're decent big ones," said Lady Crowborough with
decision. "Tell us what's going on in town, Mr. Craddock."
Arthur Craddock habitually made himself agreeable when it was worth
while, and here he had three persons whom he desired to stand well
with--Philip Wroughton for the sake of the Reynolds, Joyce for her own
sake, and Lady Crowborough for reasons of self-protection.
"A burning fiery furnace is going on in town, my dear lady," he said.
"The heat has been a torture, and I only hope I have been expiating
some crime. The worst of it is that I have searched my memory without
any success for something I have done to deserve these flames. But I
seem to have been almost priggishly virtuous. What do you think I can
have done, Miss Joyce?"
Joyce put the three decent lumps into her grandmother's tea, and
laughed again. She always felt a certain slight physical repulsion for
this stout white man, though she recognised his agreeable qualities.
"Ah, how can I tell?" she said. "You have not made me your confessor."
Mr. Craddock remembered that he would probably not get very much
dinner, and took a large soft bun with sugar on the top of it.
"I instantly offer you the post," he said, "though I can still think
of nothing to confess. You will have a sinecure. And yet after all it
was one's own choice to stop in town, and certainly there have been
pleasant things going on. I suppose, too, that at this moment the
keenness of my pleasure in sitting on this delicious lawn in the shade
and coolness of your beautiful plane tree is enhanced by the contrast
with the furnace I have escaped from. And will you take me out again
in your punt after tea, as you did when I was here last? All the way
down I have had a prospective vision of you looking like a Victory off
some Greek frieze with your punt-pole, and of myself reclining on the
cushions like--like a middle-aged but unintoxicated Silenus."
This speech, since not addressed to Lady Crowborough, was too lengthy
for her taste.
"Nasty uncomfortable things are punts," she observed, "going crawling
along with one person poking and fuddling away among the mud and eels
at the bottom of the river, and dribbling the water from the pole over
the other. Joyce made me go out with her yesterday, and one of her
great dogs sat on my lap, and the other panted and slobbered over my
frock, while the sun frizzled the marrow out of my bones. If I must go
on the river, give me a motor-boat that takes you along instead of
going backwards half the time."
"I think I shall not find it too chilly in the punt to-night, Joyce,"
said her father, "if I take the shawl that is next thickest to the one
I have here. Or perhaps it would be more prudent to take both. Will you
see to that, my dear, when you have finished tea, and tell them also to
put dinner a quarter of an hour later. Then I shall be able to rest for
a little after we get in. Let us start very soon. Bring Mr. Craddock
one of my shawls, too; he will be likely to find it chilly after the
heat of town. A Shetland wool shawl, Mr. Craddock, I find keeps one
warm without any feeling of weight."
Lady Crowborough's impatience at her son's hygienic precautions fizzed
and spurted again at this.
"And bring me my cough-drops, Joyce," she said, "and my goloshes, and
my little fur-cape, and a digestive pill, and my liver-mixture. And
don't forget to take some cotton wool, to put in your ears, and the
eye-lotion. Lord save us, Philip! You and your Shetland shawls!"
"I envy you your robustness, dear mother," said he. "I only wish you
had bequeathed me more of it."
Lady Crowborough had finished tea, and accompanied Joyce on her errand
of Shetland shawls, thus leaving the two men together.
"Joyce will bring the punt around in ten minutes," said her father,
"and in the interval I shall be glad to have a chat with you, Mr.
Craddock. I have been considering the question of selling the
Reynolds, if you remember our talk when you were last here, and I have
come to the conclusion that it is really my duty to do so. I feel that
I ought to spend next winter in some warm and sunny climate, where I
may have a chance of recovering some measure of my ruined health. But
that of course would cost money, and my wretched poverty puts it out
of the question for me, unless I can sell some such possession. Joyce,
too, poor girl, will enjoy a greater stir and gaiety than I can give
her here. There is little enough of it in her life, though I know she
finds compensation from its absence in the sedulous care with which she
insists on looking after me. I dare say there will not be many more
years of invalid-nursing before her. All I can do is to make them as
little tedious as may be. Indeed, it is chiefly for her sake that I
contemplate the sale of this picture."
He paused a moment and lit a curiously-smelling cigarette which
counteracted a tendency to hay-fever. Like many people he was strangely
credulous about his own statements, and came to believe them almost as
soon as they were made. Indeed, on this occasion, before his cigarette
was well alight, he fancied that in part at any rate his plans of
wintering in some warm climate had been made for Joyce's sake.
"I think you mentioned some number of pounds you thought you could get
me for my great-grandmother's picture," he said. "Five thousand? Was
that the amount? I have no head for figures. Yes. And an American, was
it not? I hate the thought of my picture going to America but poor men
like me must not mind being kicked and plundered by the golden West.
Probably it would be hung up in some _abattoir_, where oxen are driven
in at one end, and tinned meat taken out at the other. And for once my
mother agrees with my determination to sell it. She says that I cannot
afford to have such a large cheque hanging framed in my study."
Arthur Craddock did not find much difficulty in sorting the grain from
the husk, in this very characteristic speech. But he wisely treated it
all as grain.
"I know well your solicitude for Miss Joyce's happiness," he said. "And
I need not tell you how much it honours you. But with regard to the
future home of your delightful picture I can assure you that there is
no _abattoir_ awaiting it. Mr. Ward has half a dozen Reynolds already,
and some very notable examples among them. And, as I told you, I think
there is no doubt he would give five thousand for it."
He caressed the side of his face, and finding no disconcerting whisker
there, wondered how much he would actually venture to charge Mr. Ward
for the picture.
"In fact I offer you five thousand for it here and now," he said. "Ah,
here is Miss Joyce in her punt coming for us."
Philip Wroughton dismissed this insignificant interruption.
"Then call to her, Mr. Craddock," he said, "if you will be so good and
tell her we shall be ready in five minutes. I cannot raise my voice
above the ordinary tone of speech without excruciating pain. She will
take a little turn in her punt, and come back for us. You will excuse
me if I shut my ears when you shout; a loud noise tears my nerves to
ribands."
Arthur Craddock got up.
"I will go and tell her," he said.
"So good of you: I am ashamed to trouble you," said Wroughton, not
moving.
He walked down to the edge of the lawn, where was the landing-stage.
"We are talking business, Miss Joyce," he said, "so will you come back
for us in five minutes. You have just stepped off some Greek frieze of
the best period, let me tell you. I long to recline like a teetotal
Silenus of the worst period on those cushions. In five minutes, then?"
Joyce leaned towards him on her punt-pole and spoke low.
"Oh, Mr. Craddock," she said. "Are you talking about the Reynolds?
Father told me he was thinking of selling it. Do persuade him not to. I
am so fond of it."
She gave him a little friendly nod and smile.
"Do try," she said. "Yes, I will come back in five minutes. There's a
swans' nest among the reeds down there, and I will just go to see if
the cygnets are hatched out yet."
Wroughton looked languidly at him on his return.
"Joyce has a ridiculous affection for that portrait," he said, "and I
have a reasonable affection for it. I can't afford to look at it: I am
far more in need of a suitable winter climate than of any work of art.
Yet sometimes I wish that these Pactolus-people had left us alone."
This was not a strictly logical attitude, for it was obviously possible
to refuse the offer, and leave the Pactolus-people alone. Nothing
more than an opportunity had been offered him, of which he was free
to take advantage or not, just as he chose. As for Craddock, he felt
himself advantageously placed, for if he upheld Joyce's wish, he would
ingratiate himself with her, while if the sale took place, he would
reap an extremely handsome profit himself. For the moment the spell of
the riverside Diana was the most potent.
"I can understand Miss Joyce's feeling," he said, "and yours also,
when you wish that the Pactolus-people as you so rightly call them had
left you alone. I respect those feelings, I share and endorse them.
So let us discuss the question no further. I will tell my friend that
I cannot induce you to part with your picture. No doubt he will find
other owners not so sensitive and fine as you and Miss Joyce. Of course
he will be disappointed, but equally of course I gave him to understand
that I could in no way promise success in the enterprise."
Even as he spoke the balance wavered. He could tell Joyce that he had
urged her father not to part with his picture, and her gratitude would
be earned, and he knew that he wanted that more than he wanted to
gratify her by his success. Thus it was satisfactory to find that he
had not disturbed the stability of Wroughton's determination, and his
profit was safe also.
"Ah, that is all very well for you," said Wroughton, "with your robust
health and your ignorance of what it means to be so poor that you
cannot afford the alleviation which would make life tolerable. Beggars
cannot afford to be so fine. Even Joyce does not know what I suffer in
this miserable swamp during the winter months. But I am convinced she
cannot have her father and the picture with her, for I am sure I should
never survive another winter here."
His thin peaked face grew soft with self-pity, which was the most
poignant emotion that ever penetrated to his mind.
"She would bitterly reproach herself," he went on, "if after I am gone,
she conjectured that I might have been spared to her a little longer if
I had been able to spend the winter months in a climate less injurious
to me. She does not really know how ill I am, for of course I do not
speak to her about that. I want to spare her all the anxiety I can, and
in speaking to her of my project of spending the winter in some sunny
climate, in Egypt or on the Riviera, I have laid stress only on the
pleasure that such a visit will give her. No, no, Mr. Craddock, my poor
Joyce and I must put our pride in our pocket; indeed there is nothing
else there. I will close with your American friend's offer: my mind is
made up. Naturally I should want a good copy of the picture made for
me without cost to myself. It might be possible for you in your great
kindness to arrange that for me. You might perhaps make it part of the
condition of sale: five thousand pounds and a good copy."
Craddock waved this aside. He had delicately disposed of another bun.
"That is easily arranged," he said, wiping his fingers that were a
little sticky with the sugar on his fine cambric handkerchief. "I feel
sure I can guarantee his acceptance of your terms."
Philip Wroughton coughed gently once or twice. He always said that
questions concerning money were distasteful to him. It is quite true
that they were so, when they concerned his parting with it.
"And am I right in supposing that you would expect whatever the usual
commission happens to be?" he asked. "If so, shall I pay it, or your
friend?"
Craddock interrupted him with the promptitude born of horror at such a
suggestion.
"I beg you not to hurt my feelings by proposing anything of the kind,"
he said.
Philip Wroughton instantly and with apologies withdrew his inhumanity.
* * * * *
By this time Joyce had returned from her expedition to the swans' nest
and was waiting for them. She had already put into the punt a selection
of grey Shetland shawls, with a quantity of cushions, and the task of
making her father quite secure and comfortable next demanded all her
patience and serenity. But she had to make one more expedition to the
house to get his white umbrella, for the heat of the sun not yet set
might easily penetrate the black one which he had brought with him.
He needed also a fly-whisk in case the midges became troublesome, a
binocular glass, and the very careful disposition of cushions so that
no draught could conceivably come through the cane back against which
he reclined. Then, when he was quite settled, Craddock got in, and
Joyce pushed out into the stream leaving two pairs of pathetic dogs'
eyes wistfully regarding her from the bank. But it was impossible to
take Huz and Buz, his brother, when her father was in the punt, for
they fidgeted him on these hot days with their panting, and could not
be relied on to keep perfectly and permanently motionless.
Joyce, as was usual with her, was bareheaded, and was clad in a very
simple home-made skirt of butcher's blue much stained with water and
bleached with sun, and a white flannel blouse the arms of which she
had rolled up to above her elbows; but Craddock, who was a skilled
appreciator with regard to female apparel, would not have had her
change her really elementary garments for the most sumptuous and
glittering fabrics. In general, he entirely believed that a woman's
beauty is enhanced by the splendour of her attire, and saw the value
of satin and tiaras. But there was something so completely satisfying
and suitable in this rough river-dress that he would not have added
any embellishment to it, nor have expunged a single water-stain or
sun-bleach. The girl's superb slim figure, divine in the elasticity of
its adolescence, now bending to her stroke, now rigidly erect again
as she trailed her pole back through the frilled water, stood out in
the simplicity of Attic relief with its plain white and blue against
the reflected greens and browns which the trees and shady places cast
onto the polished mirror of the water. Her arms bare to above the elbow
showed the full roundness and soft, slim strength of her beautiful
limbs, and for the most part, except when she turned at the end of her
stroke, her face was in profile to him, giving him the short, straight
nose of the Reynolds picture, the fine mouth with generous underlip a
little drooping, and the firm oval of the curve from chin to ear. Here
in the stern, while she made these magnificent sweeps and curtsies with
her punt-pole, were sitting her father and himself, and he had no need
to glance at Mr. Wroughton, or to think consciously of himself with his
obese and middle-aged figure in order to remind himself of the glorious
contrast between the passengers and the splendour of their long-limbed
conductress. She was Thames, she was June, she was the enchanted
incarnation of all that was immortally young and beautiful, and though
naturally vain, he felt delighted to be part of her foil, to set her
off more than any "silk and fine array" could have done. For the first
time he hardly knew whether he did not admire the Reynolds portrait so
much because it was so like her. There was the same spirit of wind and
woodland and sunshine and joyous serenity about it. The type was here
incarnate, and he bathed his mind in it, washing off, temporarily at
least, the merchandise and tittle-tattle of its normal environment.
Surely this admiration of his touched ecstasy, touched love.
There soon came a turn in this sunny fluid reach of Thorley, and Mr.
Wroughton, without imprudence, furled his white umbrella, and adjusted
his binoculars for a languid survey of the shadowed river. On one
side a wood of tall virginal beeches clad the hill-side down to the
edge of the towing-path, and the huge curves of aspiring tree-tops
climbed unbroken to the summit of the hill. A fringe of hawthorn-trees,
cascades of red and white, bordered this fairyland of forest, and
below the towing-path a strip of river-fed grasses and herbs of the
water-side were fresh and feathery. Spires of meadow-sweet reared their
stiff-stemmed umbrellas of cream-colour, and loosestrife pointed its
mauve spires into the tranquil air. The dog-rose spread its maiden-hued
face skywards, with defence of long-thorned shoots, and lovely sprays
with half-opened chalices hung Narcissus-like above the tranquil tide.
Below the water waved secret forests of river-weed, with darting fishes
for birds in the drowned branches, that undulated in the stream, and
here and there tall clumps of rushes with their dry brown blooms wagged
and oscillated mysteriously to the twitchings of unseen currents. To
the left the ground was low-lying in stretch of tree-bordered meadow,
and from not far in front of them the sleepy murmur of Thorley weir
sounded with the cool melodious thunder of its outpoured and renewed
waters. Willows fringed the banks, and glimpses of meadow behind
them, lying open to the level rays of the declining sun, shone with
their rival sunlight of buttercup and luxuriant marsh marigold. Birds
were busy among the bushes with supper, and resonant with even-song,
and jubilant thrushes were rich with their rapturous and repeated
phrases. And Arthur Craddock with his swift artistic sense, not too
sophisticated for simplicity, saw with an appreciation that was almost
tremulous how all this benediction of evening and bird-song and running
water was reflected and focussed in the tall bending figure of this
beautiful girl, and in her vigour and in the serenity of her brown
level eyes. She was in tune with it, beating to its indwelling rhythm,
a perfect human instrument in this harmony and orchestra of living
things, part of it, thrilling to it, singing with it....
And the fact that he saw this so strongly, appreciated it so justly,
measured the myriad miles he was distant from loving her. An infinite
hair-breadth placed him further from love than is the remotest star
from the revolving earth.
They glided up opposite a juncture of streams. To the right lay the
main body of the river towards Thorley lock, to the left a minor stream
hurried from the low-thundering weir. Joyce pushed strongly outwards
on the right of the punt, and turned it with frill of protesting water
into the narrower and swifter stream, willow-framed on both sides. Here
there was shallower and more rapid water, that gleamed over bright
gravel-beds, and even as they turned a king-fisher ashine with sapphire
and turquoise wheeled like a jewelled boomerang close in front of
them, giving a final hint of the gleaming romance and glory that lies
so close below the surface of the most routined and rutted life. They
made a sharp angle round a corner, and close in front of them was the
grey spouting weir, and the deep pool below it, lucid with ropes and
necklaces of foam and iridescent bubble. A long spit of land jutted out
into the river and on it was a grey canvas tent.
Joyce had been punting on the right of the boat with her back to this,
but just as they came opposite to it, the shifting current of the
stream thrown across it by this spit of land made it advantageous to
change the sides of her poling, and from close at hand she saw the
tent and the presumed inhabitants thereof, two young men, one perhaps
eighteen years old, the other some four or five years his senior.
They were as suitably clad as she and more scantily, for a shirt
and a pair of trousers apiece, without further decoration of tie or
shoe or sock, was all that could be claimed for either of them. The
younger was utterly intent on some elementary cooking-business over a
spirit-lamp; the elder with brush and palette in hand was frowningly
absorbed in a picture that stood on an easel in front of him. So
close to the river-bank was the easel set, that it was impossible not
to apprehend the vivid presentment that stood on it: there was the
weir and the nude figure of a boy on the header-board in the act of
springing from it into the water. Then at the moment when the punt
was closest, the artist, hitherto so intent on his picture that the
advent of the punt was as unnoticed by him as by the boy who bent over
the spirit-lamp, looked away from his canvas and saw them. Thereat he
attended no more to his work, but merely stared (rudely, if it had
not been instinctively) at Joyce with young eager eyes, half-opened
mouth, vivid, alert, and suitable to the romance of the river-side
and the pulse of the beating world. It seemed right that he should be
there; like Joyce and the willow-trees, he belonged to the picture that
would have been incomplete without him, young and smooth-faced, and
barefooted and bright-haired.
On the instant the cooking-boy spoke, high and querulously.
"Oh, Charles," he said, "this damned omelette won't do anything. It's a
sort of degraded glue."
Joyce laughed before she knew she had laughed, with her eyes still
on Charles. Indeed she hardly knew she laughed at all, any more than
a child knows, who laughs for a reason as primal as the beat of the
heart. The blood flows.... Then, still primally, she saw his responsive
amusement, and as they laughed, a glance as fresh as the morning of
the world passed between them. She had looked at him no longer than
it took her to pull her punt-pole up to her side again, then turning
her head, in obedience to the exigence of another stroke, she looked
away from him. But it seemed to her that that one moment had been from
everlasting. It was the only thing that concerned her, that meant
anything.... And the strange fantastic moment was passed. Craddock's
voice terminated it.
"Your glasses for a second, Mr. Wroughton," he said, and without
waiting for verbal permission he snatched them up with a quickness of
movement that was rare with him, and had one fleeting look at Charles'
picture. The next stroke of the punt-pole took them round the spit of
land into the bubble and foam of the bathing-pool below the weir.
Joyce skirted round this, keeping in shallow water and out of the
current. A backwash of water made it unnecessary for her to exert
herself further for a moment, and she turned full-face to the two men.
Something within her, some indwelling beat of harmony with the simple
and serene things of the world, made a smile, as unconscious as her
laugh had been, to uncurl her lips.
"What a jolly time those two boys are having," she said. "I hope the
omelette will cease to be degraded glue. And, Mr. Craddock, wasn't
Charles--the cook called him Charles--wasn't Charles painting rather
nicely? Did you see?"
Certainly Craddock had seen, though he wanted to see again, but it was
her father who answered.
"I think we will turn and go home, Joyce," he said. "It will be chilly
at sunset. What have you done with my second shawl?"
Joyce laid down the dripping punt-pole.
"Here it is," she said. "Will you have it over your shoulders or on
your knees?"
The bows of the punt were caught by the weir-stream, and the boat swung
swiftly round.
"Take care, Joyce," he cried. "You will have us swamped. And you should
not put down your punt-pole in the boat. It has wetted me."
Joyce spread the second shawl over his knees, and tucked the edges of
it round him.
"No, dear, it hasn't touched you," she said, "and we aren't going to be
swamped."
She took up her pole again, and a couple of strokes sent them swiftly
gliding down the rapid water. Next moment they were again opposite the
tent; one boy was still stirring the deferred omelette, the artist
with brush still suspended had his eyes fixed on their punt. Once
again Joyce's glance met his, and once again Arthur Craddock picked
up Wroughton's glasses, and got a longer look at the picture on the
easel, before they floated out of range. He was even more impressed
by this second glance; there was a vitality and a sureness about the
work which was remarkable. For the moment the thought of the Reynolds,
and even Joyce herself, blue and white with the background of feathery
willow trees, was effaced from his mind. Certainly the boy could
paint, and he was for ever on the look-out for those who could paint,
more particularly if they were young and unknown. He felt certain
he had never seen work by this young man before, for he could not
have forgotten such distinctive handling. As certainly he would see
artist and canvas again before he left Thorley. This was the sort of
opportunity with which his quick unerring judgment was occasionally
rewarded. There might be a bargain to be made here.
Philip Wroughton was in amazingly genial humour that night, and read
them extracts about the climate of Egypt from a guide-book. He had
quite an affecting and tender little scene with Joyce, in the presence
of Arthur Craddock on the subject of the sale of the picture, and had
told her with a little tremble of his voice that it was for her to
choose whether she would part with the portrait or himself, according
to the formula he had already employed in discussing the matter with
Craddock. On this second repetition it had gained reality in his
mind, and Joyce with her sweet indulgence for all that concerned her
father did him the justice of recognizing that to him this tissue of
imagination was of solid quality. Somehow the prospective loss of the
picture, too, did not weigh heavily with her, for she was conscious
of a sunlight of inward happiness which could not be clouded by any
such event. She had no idea from whence it sprang, it seemed to be
connected with no particular happening, but was like one of those hours
of childhood which we remember all our lives when we were intensely
and utterly happy for no definite reason. Never, too, had she seen her
father more alive and alert, and he went so far as to drink nearly a
whole glass of the bottle of champagne which he had opened for his
guest, to wish prosperity and a happy home for the portrait. But, in
this established imperfection of human things, he had slight qualms on
the wisdom of this daring proceeding, and bade himself remember to take
a little digestive dose as soon as dinner was over.
"With a good copy here in its old place," he said, "I have no doubt
that we shall not really miss it. Joyce, my dear, these beans are not
sufficiently cooked. And, Mr. Craddock, I hope you will arrange that
the transaction shall be quite private. We, Joyce and I, do not want
the fact that I have had to sell the picture publicly known."
Lady Crowborough gave a little shrill laugh at this, without
explanation of her amusement.
"It shall not be spoken of at all," said Craddock, "nor of course will
the picture be seen in London. It shall go straight from your house to
Philadelphia. Why, even your servants need not know. The copy will one
morning take the place of the original, which I will arrange shall not
be moved until the copy is ready. I will get a copyist to do the work
here, if that is agreeable to you. Mr. Ward naturally will want to see
his picture before the purchase is complete, but you need not see him.
He will call at a time convenient to yourself. But should you care to
see him, you will find him a very agreeable fellow."
Mr. Wroughton held up his hand which was thin almost to transparency.
"No, spare me the sight of my executioner," he said.
"I don't know where you get all these fine feelings from," remarked his
mother. "Not from my side of the family. I'll see Mr. Ward for you, and
see if I can't get him to buy some garnets of mine that I never wear. I
shall like a month or two in Egypt with you, Philip."
"Too long a journey for you, mother, I am afraid," said Philip hastily.
"There! I knew you'd say something mean," said she, rising. "Well, I've
finished my dinner, and I shall get to my Patience."
The night had fallen hot and starry and still, and though it was not
to be expected that Mr. Wroughton should risk himself in the air
after dinner, Craddock and Joyce at his suggestion strolled down to
the river's edge in the gathering dusk. The even-song of birds was
over, and bats wheeled in the darkening air, and moths hovered over
the drowsy fragrance of the flower-beds. From somewhere not far away
sounded the tinkle of a guitar accompanying some boyish tenor, and
Joyce without thought, found herself wondering whether this was the
voice of Charles of the unknown surname, or the anonymous fashioner of
the omelette. The tune was tawdry enough, a number from some musical
comedy, and though the performer had no particular skill either of
finger or throat, the effect was young and fresh, and not in discord
with the midsummer stillness. Something of the same impression was made
on Arthur Craddock also, who listened with an indulgent smile on his
big face that gleamed whitely in the faded day and dimness of stars.
"He does not know how to play or sing very much," he said, "but it is
somehow agreeable though a little heart-rending to my middle-age. He is
clearly quite young, his voice is unformed yet, and I should guess he
is thinking of Her. Enviable young wretch! For though, Miss Joyce, we
miserable ones go a thinking of one or another Her all our lives, they
cease to think of us, just when we need them most."
There was considerable adroitness in this speech as a prelude to
greater directness, and he looked at her out of his little grey eyes
with some intentness. She seemed more Diana-like than ever in this
grey glimmer of starlight: it really seemed possible that she would
spring up from the earth to meet the tawny moon-disc that was even now
just rising in the East, and charioteer it over the star-scattered
fields of heaven. She seemed dressed for her part as Mistress of the
Moon, all in white with a riband of silver in her bright hair.
"But what of us?" she said lightly. "Do not you men cease to think of
us even before we are middle-aged?"
Suddenly it struck Craddock that no more heaven-sent opportunity for
carrying out the second of the purposes that had brought him down here,
could possibly be desired. He was in luck to-day, too: the business
of the portrait had been carried through so smoothly, so easily. But
immediately he became aware that he was not, in vulgar parlance, quite
up to it. He needed support, he needed her father's consent, but above
all he needed the imperative call, the hunger of the soul. Clearly,
too, her words did not refer, however remotely, to herself and him,
he felt that they were spoken quite impersonally. And immediately she
changed the subject.
"I have to thank you," she said, "for trying to dissuade my father from
selling the portrait. He told me you had suggested that he should not.
That was kind of you."
He caressed the side of his face with the usual gratifying result.
"I found his mind was made up," he said, "though in accordance with
your request I suggested he should not sell it. Always command me,
Miss Joyce, and I will always fly on your quests. I am aware that I do
not look particularly like a knight-errant, but there are motor-cars
and railway-trains nowadays which transport us more swiftly and less
hazardously than mettlesome chargers, especially if we can't ride."
He had again made himself an opening, but again he found when he came
close that it was barricaded to him. But this time some hint of his
intentions, though he could not manage to carry them into effect, was
communicated to her, and conscious of them, and uncomfortable at them,
she again changed the subject.
"Oh, I am not going to ask you to take the train to-night," she said.
"The most I shall ask of you is that you play bézique with my father by
and by. I play so badly that it is no fun for him. Hark, the singing is
coming closer."
They had come to the landing-stage at the far end of the lawn, and
looking up the tranquil lane of the river Joyce saw that the sound
came from a Canadian canoe which was drifting downstream towards them.
The boat itself was barely visible in the shadow of the trees: it was
conjectured rather than seen by the outline of shirt-sleeves that
outlined it, and it was on the further side of the stream. By this time
the moon had swung clear to the horizon, and though the boat was still
shadowed, Joyce and Craddock standing on the lawn were in the full
white light. At the moment the musical comedy song came to an end,
and the voice of some imprudent person from the canoe, forgetting the
distinctness with which sound traverses water, spoke in a voice that
was perfectly audible to Joyce, though not to Craddock.
"Charles, there's the girl of the punt and her fat white man," it
observed.
Charles was more circumspect. His answer was a murmur quite inaudible,
and instantly he thrummed his guitar again. The melody was new to
Joyce, and though he might not have great skill in singing, he had a
crisp enunciation, and the delicious old words were clearly audible:
"See the chariot at hand here of Love
Wherein my Lady rideth."
Louder and more distinct every moment, as the canoe drifted closer
came the beautiful lyric. The singer was not using more than half his
voice, but as the distance between canoe and audience diminished,
the light boyish tenor was sufficiently resonant to set the windless
air a-quiver. Just as the canoe emerged into the blaze of moonlight
opposite came the final stave, and the white-shirted singer sang from a
full and open throat:
"Or have smelt o' the bud o' the briar?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O, so white, O, so soft, O, so sweet is she!"
The silence of the night shut down like the lid of a jewel-box. Then
after a little while came the drip of a paddle, and the canoe grew
small and dim in the distance down-stream.
"Those jolly boys again," said Joyce.
Arthur Craddock heaved a long sigh, horribly conscious of his years and
riches, and Joyce heard the creak of his shirt-front.
"That young man has diplomatic gifts," he said. "It is clear that he
intended to serenade you, and he chose the far side of the river,
so as to make it seem that he had no intention of any kind. It is
a reasonable supposition that if serenading was his object, and it
certainly was, he might be supposed not to see you standing here. So he
serenaded with the open throat. If I tried to do the same, which sorely
tempts me, I should only convince you that I had not an open throat but
a sore one. Nobody has ever heard me sing, not even when I was as young
as that white shirted youth in the canoe. He will paddle back to his
tent before long, unless you stay here visible in the moonlight, and
dream steadily about you till morning."
Joyce laughed.
"Oh, what nonsense, Mr. Craddock," she said, knowing in the very secret
place of her girl's heart that it was not nonsense at all. "Boats with
guitars and singers go by every night, and often half the night. They
can't all be serenading me."
"I cannot imagine why not. A Mormonism of serenading young men is not
illegal. I would join them myself, Miss Joyce, if I could sing, and
if I did not think that any Canadian canoe in which I embarked would
instantly sink."
Philip Wroughton, in addition to the glass of champagne he had drunk
at dinner permitted himself the further indulgence of sitting up for
nearly an hour beyond his usual bedtime to talk to his guest and read
more about the delectable climate of the Upper Nile. While Craddock and
Joyce were out in the garden, a train of thoughts had been suggested to
him by his very shrewd mother before she began her Patience, which he
was preparing to indicate ever so lightly to that gentleman after Joyce
had gone upstairs. "He's got your picture, Philip," said that observant
lady, "and now he's after your daughter. Why don't you send Joyce up
to town for a month, and give the girl a chance? You're a selfish
fellow you know, like all Wroughtons." But she had not succeeded in
provoking him to a retort, nor had she affected the independence of
his own conclusions. It required no great perspicacity to see that
Craddock was considerably attracted by the girl, and it seemed to her
father that she might easily marry less suitably for him. She had led
a very solitary and sequestered life with him, and he did not propose
to alter his habits in order that she might come more in contact with
the world. True, in this projected Egyptian winter she was likely to
meet more young men than she had ever come across in her life before,
but he could not imagine any one who would suit him (as if it was
his own marriage that was in contemplation) better than Craddock.
Philip found him quiet and deferential and agreeable, and since it was
certainly necessary that Joyce and her husband (if she was permitted
to marry) should be with him a good deal, these were favourable
points. He detested young men with their high spirits and loud laughs
and automatic digestions, and he did not for a moment intend to have
such a one about the house. Furthermore Craddock was certainly very
well off (Philip would have had a fit if he had known that he and his
picture were in the act, so to speak, of enriching him more) and it was
clearly desirable to have wealth about the house. Possibly some one
more eligible might discover himself, but Philip had little difficulty
in convincing himself that he would be failing in his duty towards his
daughter if he did not let Craddock know that his attentions to Joyce
were favourably regarded by her father. But if his meditations were
stripped of the fabric of unrealities, until truth in bare austerity
was laid open, it must be confessed that he planned Joyce's possible
marriage with a single eye for his own comfort.
A game of bézique succeeded Craddock's stroll with Joyce and a
cigarette with a whisky and soda consoled him for the withdrawal of the
ladies.
"And you have positively to go up to town again to-morrow," said
Philip. "Cannot we by any means persuade you to stay another night?
You in your modesty have no idea what a refreshment it is to us in our
retirement to get a whiff of air from the busy bustling world. Yes, I
may say 'us,' for my dear little Joyce was so pleased at your coming.
Would you not be more prudent to close that window? I am sure you are
sitting in a draught."
This, of course, meant that Philip was, and Craddock did not
misunderstand.
"I was saying that Joyce was so pleased," repeated her father.
"I ask nothing better than to please Miss Joyce," said Craddock.
"You do please her: I am sure of it. Dear Joyce! I know it cannot be
long that I shall be able to give her a home. Her future continually
occupies my thoughts. I daresay she will meet someone when we winter
in Egypt who will attract her. She is not ill-looking, is she? I think
there must be many suitable men whom she would be disposed to regard
not unfavourably. Yes, yes."
It was all spoken very softly and tunefully: the calm sunset of
declining day seemed to brood over it. The effect was that Arthur
Craddock got up and paced the room once or twice in silence.
"Will you give me your permission to ask Miss Joyce if she will make me
the happiest of men?" he asked.
"My dear friend!" said Philip, with hand outstretched.