Charles was in camp again at the little peninsula fringed with
meadow-sweet and loosestrife below Thorley Weir, scarcely hearing, far
less listening to its low thunder, diminished by the long continuance
of the drought, scarcely seeing, far less looking at the dusky crimson
behind the trees which showed where the sun had set. Probably his
unconscious self, that never-resting observer and recorder of all the
minutest unremembered incidents of life, saw and took note, but though
his eyes were open and his ears alert, his conscious brain was busy
with what concerned him more vividly than those things. Besides, in a
way he had already made them his own; he had painted them half a dozen
times in sketches and studies, he had guessed their secret, learned the
magic of their romance, and they were his. All that was not his, all
the life that was expanding and opening about him, could not but claim
and receive this surrender of his brain and his heart.
He had come back here two days ago, and on the morning following, had
presented his card at the Mill House to a parlour-maid who had taken it
in, leaving him and the canvas easel and paint-box he had brought with
him to grill at the door. This rather haughty young person returned
after a while and bidding him follow, took him upstairs into what
looked like a disused nursery, overlooking the lawn and river, and
pointed at a picture propped against the end of a sofa.
"Mr. Wroughton hopes there is everything you require," she said, "and
please to ring if you want anything."
She rustled out of the door, which she closed with elaborate
precaution, exactly as if Charles had fallen into the sleep which was
necessary for his recovery.
Charles' grave grey eyes had been twinkling with amusement, as he was
thus led through an empty house, and stowed away like a leper, in this
sequestered chamber, and, left alone, a broad grin spread over his
face. Then before looking at the picture which stood with its face
towards the end of the sofa, his eye made an observant tour of the
room. Certainly it had been a nursery, for here stood a doll's house,
here a child's crib, here a chair with a confining bar between the
arms, so that no child imprisoned there could by any means escape. But
there were signs of a later occupancy, a couple of big arm-chairs, and
a revolving book-case stood there also, on the top of which evidently
in recent use lay a writing-pad with ink-bottle and pen-tray attached.
Also there was that indefinable sense in the air, manifest subtly but
unmistakably that the room was still in use....
A rap at the door which indicated not "May I come in?" but "I am coming
in," interrupted this short survey, and the parlour-maid entered.
She cast a vulturine glance round the room: she saw and annexed the
writing-pad. But again before leaving she spoke like a Delphic oracle
up-to-date.
"If you desire to rest or smoke there is the garden," she observed.
Now Charles had already drawn his conclusions about the room, and he
resented the removal of the writing-pad by anybody but its owner. For
it required but little constructive imagination to reform the history
of this room. Surely it had been the nursery of the girl of the punt,
and was still used by her as a sitting room. She ought to have come
and got her blotting-pad herself. However, she had done nothing of the
sort, and in the meantime it was his business not to dream dreams, but
see and reproduce another painter's vision. He took hold of the picture
that stood against the end of the sofa, turned it round, then gave a
short gasp of amazement. For here was the girl of the punt, inimitably
portrayed. Just so and in no other fashion had she turned opposite
their tent, and looked at Charles while his brother execrated that
which should have been an omelette. There was no question that it was
she: there was no question either that it was a superb Reynolds.
Instantly the artistic frenzy awoke: the dream that lay deep down in
his young soul, dim and faint and asleep, seemed suddenly to awake and
merge and personify itself in the treasure that it was his to copy.
Instantly the whole room, too, burst into life, when this prototype
of its owner was manifested. Nor, apart from the sweet and exquisite
pleasure that it gave him to work here, had the room been badly chosen:
there was an excellent north light and by drawing down the blinds
of the window opposite, he could secure exactly the illumination he
required. In five minutes he had adjusted his easel, and with his
canvas already mapped faintly out into squares to guide his drawing,
the charcoal began its soft grating journeys.
For a long time he worked on in one absorbed pulsation, and was just
beginning to feel that his arm was momentarily unable to continue
without some pause for rest, when an interruption unlooked for and
for the moment inexplicable occurred. A faint continued scratching,
not impatient but entreating, came at the door, and rightly rejecting
the first idea that had presented itself to him, that the indomitable
parlour-maid, suddenly brought low, besought admittance, Charles opened
to the intruder. A big golden collie stood outside, who sniffed at
him with doubt and hesitancy, and then deciding that he was harmless,
came softly by, and established himself on the sofa. Established there
in the haven where it would be, it thumped gently with its tail, as a
signal of gratitude.
Charles stood with the open door in his hand a moment, but it seemed
impossible to continue drawing into the passage, so to speak, and with
a tremor of anticipation in his wicked young heart, he closed it again.
A parlour-maid could remove a writing-pad, but it might easily require
someone with greater authority to entice away that other possession.
Then before going back to his work, he tested the friendliness of
his visitor, and finding he was welcome, spent a minute in stroking
its ears, and received as thanks a rather dry hot nose thrust into
his hand. Clearly the dog was not well, and with that strange canine
instinct, was grateful for the expression of even a stranger's
sympathy. Then it lay down with muzzle on its outstretched paws, and
eyes wide-open and suffering and puzzled. Charles went back to his
canvas, but he expected further interruptions now.
In a little while they began. Through the open window on the side
towards the river, where he had drawn down the blind, he heard a
footstep on the gravel path below, a whistle, and then a voice calling
"Buz!" Buz heard too, for he pricked a languid ear, and just moved a
languid tail, but did not feel equal to a more active recognition.
Again and once again Buz was whistled for and called, and it seemed to
Charles that he was in the position of an unwilling accomplice, who had
better turn King's evidence. So as quietly as he could, he pulled up
the blind and looked out. Below on the grass stood Buz's mistress, and
perhaps the whisper of the blind had caught her listening ear, for on
the moment she looked up, and saw Charles at the window.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I was shown up here, and I think it
must be Buz who asked to come in. He is lying on the sofa."
There was a sudden surprise in the girl's face: it might only be due
to being thus addressed by a stranger from the upper storey. But as a
matter of fact, it was not a stranger quite who addressed her: she
perfectly recognised him, though the surprise was there.
"Oh, thank you," she said. "I will come up to fetch him."
Charles stood there waiting, with his blood somehow strangely a-tingle
and alert. It seemed to him as if this had all happened before, yet he
could not remember what happened next. But it all seemed very natural.
Then he heard her quick step on the stairs and she entered.
She smiled at him rather remotely but not without friendliness, and
certainly without embarrassment.
"Thank you so much," she said. "I could not find him. Buz, dear, come
along."
She stood in the doorway, with head already half-turned to leave the
room again, just as in the hundred-year old portrait of her. Buz
tattooed languidly with his tail.
"I'm afraid he is not very well," said Charles, with the sense of
taking a plunge. "His nose is hot and dry."
"I'm afraid so. The dogs always think of this room as their sick-room
if they don't feel what's called The Thing. Buz, come along."
Buz thought not.
"But won't you leave him here?" said Charles.
Joyce came a couple of steps into the room.
"Oh, I hardly like to," she said. "Won't he disturb you?"
"Not an atom. Do leave him if he feels like stopping. He doesn't object
to me."
That last sentence won Joyce's heart: it was easy to reach it through
her dogs. But she detached herself from Charles again, as it were, and
went up to her ailing dog.
"Buz, darling, I'm so sorry," she said. "You can stop here if you like.
Not quite well? Oh, I'm afraid not well at all."
She bestowed a kiss on Buz's head, who wrinkled puzzled eyebrows at
her. It appeared she could not help him, and he did not understand....
Then she turned to Charles again.
"Please forgive my interrupting you," she said. "And weren't you
painting below Thorley Weir a week ago? Yes: I thought it was you."
Before he had time for more than the bare affirmative, she had left the
room again. And all the way downstairs she mingled with compassion for
Buz, a wonder why she had felt as if she could not help asking that,
although she was perfectly certain it was he.
It was characteristic of Charles that he flew to his drawing again, for
that expressed his feelings better than any mooning reverie would have
helped him to do. He must draw, he must draw, just as an eager young
horse must run, to give outlet to the life that rejoices in its limbs.
Besides, each moment of industry brought him nearer to the painting
of the face and the half turned neck. But before he began again, with
Buz's permission, he kissed the top of his flat golden head, and went
to his work with a heightened colour, feeling a little ashamed of
himself.
* * * * *
Perhaps an hour passed, while from the house came no sound at all
nor any from the room where Charles worked, except the scrape of his
charcoal, and the rather quick uneasy breathing of the dog. Then came
an interruption which did not excite him in the least, for he had not
forgotten the manner of access peculiar to the parlour-maid.
"Will you be working here this afternoon, sir, Mr. Wroughton wants to
know," she said. "And if so will you take some lunch?"
Charles' foolish heart leaped.
"I should be delighted to," he said.
Again silence descended. Then, with a heart that leaped down again, he
heard a subdued clink on the stairs. It was even so--then re-entered
the parlour-maid with a neat tray on which was set an adequate and
austere refreshment. And as Charles ate his excellent cold mutton and
rather stringy French beans, he grinned largely at his mental picture
of himself as the prisoner in solitary confinement, who might take
exercise in the prison yard when he wanted to smoke. But Buz shared
his confinement, and the apparition of Buz's mistress was not unknown.
By and by he would take his exercise.... And then again the glory of
the Reynolds portrait, the exquisite satisfaction, too, of being able
to see, from his studies in the National Gallery, the manner of its
doing, and the knowledge that he could, owing to his long and careful
practice, put on the paint somewhat in that manner, swallowed up his
entire consciousness again.
A gong sounded from below, and Buz from mere force of habit, knowing
this was dinner-time, got off his sofa, before he realized that dinner
was of no use to him. He went but a few steps towards the door, then
turned, and sat down in front of Charles, seeking his eyes with his
own, mournful, not understanding, mutely beseeching to know what was
the matter, asking him to help. Charles tried to convey comfort, and
Buz acknowledged his efforts by a few heavy sighs breathed into his
caressing hands. Then walking stiffly and painfully he went back on
to his sofa again. But Charles felt as if he had been taken into the
poor beast's confidence: Buz had enlisted him to give such aid as was
possible.
The room had grown very hot in the last hour with the unflecked
outpouring of the sun on its roof, and Charles thought with a touch
of not more than secondary rapture of the cool liquid embrace of his
weir. But a more primary ecstasy was in the foreground, and putting
aside his charcoal, he could not resist getting out his paints and
rioting with loaded brushfuls over the expanse of the faded blue of
the sky that toned into pale yellow above the low horizon to the right
of the picture. On the left rose a thick grove of dark serge-clad
trees against which was defined that exquisite head, and to which
there pointed that beckoning hand. Who was the unseen to whom she
beckoned with that gracious gesture, yet a little imperious? To what
did she beckon him? Perhaps only--and that would be the best of
all--to a saunter through the twilight woods with her alone, away from
such crowds as might be supposed to throng the stone terrace, seen
glimmeringly to the front of the picture, to a talk, sitting on the
soft moss, or on some felled tree-trunk, in low voices, as befitted
the quietness of the evening hour, to an hour's remission from the
gabble and gaiety of the world. Or was it he, the unseen onlooker, who
had asked her to give him half an hour ... he had something he wanted
to tell her--Charles could picture him in his satin coat and knee
breeches, stammering a little, a little shy--something for her ear
alone....
Then the mere quality of the splendid work struck and stung him afresh.
What depth of clear and luminous twilight was tangled among the trees
that cast tides of long shadows, clear as running water over the lawn!
The grass had been painted first, and the shadow laid over it.... It
was impossible not to daub in some of that. No one had ever _seen_
quite as Reynolds saw, not quite so simply and comprehensively. And
then suddenly despair benumbed his fingers: it would be a profanity,
were it not so grotesque to think of copying such a wonder. And at
that Charles became aware that both hand and eye were thoroughly and
deservedly tired. Also that he had a searching and imperative need for
tobacco. It was decidedly time to seek the prison yard.
The sun had ceased pouring in at the window when he had raised the
blind to turn King's evidence with regard to Buz, and now a cooler
breeze suggestive of the coming of evening sauntered in. It was this
perhaps that had refreshed the sick dog, for when Charles opened the
door Buz shambled off the sofa and followed him downstairs. There
was no difficulty about finding the way into the garden, for it lay
straight in front of him at the foot of the stairs, and still seeing
no signs of life, he crossed the lawn and walked on a grass path down
between two old yew hedges, Buz still at his heels, towards the river.
Then turning a corner he stopped suddenly.
On a low chair sat a very old lady. Suitably to this hot day she was
dressed in a little print gown, with a linen sunbonnet, and looked
exactly like the most charming of Kate Greenaway's gallery. She was
employed, without the aid of spectacles, on a piece of fine needlework
that looked rather like baby-linen but was probably for her own
embellishment; Joyce, full length on the ground, was reading to her.
She instantly dropped her work. Never, in all her life, had she failed
to make herself agreeable to a good-looking young man, and she was not
going to begin now. Joyce had half-raised herself also and gave Charles
a half smile of welcome, which she augmented into a most complete one
when she saw Buz.
"Buz, dear!" she said.
Lady Crowborough did not quite say "Charles, dear," but she easily
might have if she had known his name.
"Joyce, introduce him to me," she said.
Joyce looked at Charles, raising her eyebrows, and quite taking him
into the confidence of her smile and her difficulty.
"It's the----" she nearly said "boy," but corrected herself--"it's
the gentleman who is copying the Reynolds, granny," she said. Then to
Charles, "May I introduce you to Lady Crowborough."
Lady Crowborough held out her little smooth thin hand.
"Charmed to see you," she said. "Of course, I knew what my silly
granddaughter has told me. Such a to-do as we've had settling where you
were to paint, and where to stow all Joyce's bits of things, and what
not."
Charles had excellent manners, full of deference, and void of
embarrassment.
"And my name's Lathom," he said, as he shook hands.
"Well, Mr. Lathom, and so you've come out for a breath of air,"
continued the vivacious old lady. "Get yourself a chair from the tent
there, and sit down and talk to us. Only go quietly, else you'll wake
up my son, who's having a nap there, and that'll cause him indigestion
or perspiration or a sinking, or I don't know what. Perhaps Joyce had
better get it for you: she won't give him a turn, if he happens to
wake."
"Oh, but I couldn't possibly----" began Charles.
"Well, you can go as far as the tent with her, while she pops round the
corner and carries a chair off, and then you can take it from her. But
mind you come back and talk to us. Or if you want to be useful you can
go to the house and tell them I'm ready for tea, and I'll have it here.
Ring the first bell you see, and keep on ringing till somebody comes.
The whole lot of them go to sleep here after lunch. Such a pack of
nonsense! What's the night for, I say. And then instead of dropping off
at the proper time, they lie awake and say a great buzzing, or a dog
barking, or a grasshopper sneezing prevented their going to sleep."
Charles went swiftly on his errand, and accomplished it in time to
join Joyce outside the tent and take the chair from her. Already the
comradeship which naturally exists between youth and maiden had begun
sensibly to weave itself between them: in addition Charles had been
kind to Buz and seemed to understand the significance of dogs.
"It was good of you to let my poor Buz stop with you," she said. "He
has adopted you, too, for he came out when you came, didn't he?"
"Yes: I hope he feels better. What's the matter?"
"I don't know, and the vet doesn't know, and the poor lamb himself
doesn't know. He's old, poor dear, and suffers from age, perhaps like
most old people, except darling Grannie. I shall send for the vet again
if he doesn't mend."
They had come within earshot of Lady Crowborough, who was profoundly
indifferent to the brute creation. She preferred motors to horses,
mousetraps to cats, and burglar-alarms to dogs. She was equally
insensitive to the beauties of inanimate nature, though her intense
love, contempt, and interest for and in her fellow creatures quite made
up for these other deficiencies.
"Now you're talking about your dog, Joyce," she said. "I'm sure I wish
he was well with all my heart, but if his life's going to be a burden
to him and you, I say, put the poor creature out of his pain. A dab of
the stuff those murderers use in the East End and the thing's done.
I say the same about human beings. Let the doctors do the best they
can for them, but if they're going to be miserable and a nuisance to
everybody, I should like to put them out of their pain, too. Give 'em
time to get better in, if they're going to get better, but if not snuff
them out. Much more merciful, isn't it, Mr. Lathom? I hope they'll
snuff me out before I'm nothing but a mass of aches and pains, but they
haven't got the sense, though I daresay they'll so stuff me up with
drugs and doctor's stuff that I shall die of the very things that were
meant to cure me."
Joyce giggled.
"Darling Granny!" she said. "You wouldn't like it if I came to you one
morning and said, 'Drink it down, and you'll know no more.'"
"Well, I'm not a nuisance yet with rheumatics and bellyache," observed
Lady Crowborough. "Lor', the medicine your father takes would be enough
to sail a battleship in, if he'd collected it all, instead of swilling
it, and much good it's done him, except to give him a craving for more.
Why, when I was his age, a good walk, and leave your dinner alone if
you didn't want it, was physic enough. But I've no patience with all
this talk about people's insides. It's only those who haven't got an
inside worth mentioning, who mention it. And did you come all the way
back from your tent in the heat, Mr. Lathom, to go on painting this
afternoon?"
"Oh, no," said Charles, "they very kindly sent me a tray up with some
lunch on it."
"And you sat there all by yourself, mum as a mouse, and ate up your
tray?" she asked. "You don't do that again, mind! You come and talk to
me at lunch to-morrow. I never heard of such a thing! Joyce, my dear,
pour out tea for us. I want my tea and so does Mr. Lathom. I warrant
he got nothing for lunch but a slice of cold mutton and a glass of
sarsaparilla if your father had the ordering of it. Now I hear you live
in a tent, Mr. Lathom? Tell us all about it. Ain't you frightened of
burglars?"
"There's nothing to steal except a tin kettle and me," said Charles.
"Well, that makes you more comfortable, no doubt. Joyce, my dear,
it's no use giving me this wash. Put some more tea in, and stir it
about, and let it stand. I like my tea with a tang to it. And your
tent doesn't let the rain in? Not that I should like to sleep in a
tent myself. I like my windows closed and my curtains drawn. You can
get your air in the daytime. The outside air is poison to me, unless
it's well warmed up in the sun. But I should like to come and see your
tent."
She regarded Charles with strong approval: he was certainly very good
to look upon, strong and lean and clear-skinned, and he had about him
that air of manners and attentiveness which she missed in the youth
of to-day. He sat straight up in his chair when she talked to him and
handed her exactly what she wanted at the moment she wanted it.
"Ah, but do come and see it," he said. "Mayn't I give you and Miss
Wroughton tea there some afternoon? I promise you it shall be quite
strong."
"To-morrow," said Lady Crowborough with decision. "I'll go in the punt
for once, and Joyce shall push me along."
* * * * *
Charles excused himself soon after, in order to get another hour of his
work, and he was scarcely out of earshot when Lady Crowborough turned
to Joyce.
"Well, my dear," she said. "I don't know what you've done, but I've
fallen in love with that young man. And to think of him having his
lunch all alone, as if he was your father's corn-cutter or hairdresser.
When Philip awakes, he shall know what I think about such rubbish!
Where's my cup? I don't want to tread on it as I did yesterday. Why,
Mr. Lathom's put it back on the table for me!"
"I think he's a dear," said Joyce. "And he was so nice to poor Buz."
"Don't begin again about your dog now," said Lady Crowborough, "though
I daresay Mr. Lathom has been most attentive to him and no wonder."
With which rather Delphic utterance, she picked up her needlework
again, while a smile kept breaking out in chinks, as it were, over
her face. For though she liked presentable young men to be attentive
to her, she liked them also to be attentive to any amount of their
contemporaries. Young men did not flirt enough nowadays to please her:
they thought about their insides and that silly Scotch golf. But she
had noticed the change of expression in Charles' respectful eyes when
he looked at Joyce. She liked that look. It was many years since she
had seen it directed to her, but she kept the pleasantest recollection
of it, and welcomed the sight of it as directed at another. And in her
opinion, Joyce well deserved to have a handsome young fellow looking
at her like that, she, so strictly dieted on the somewhat acid glances
of her father. A little judicious flirtation such as Lady Crowborough
was quite disposed to encourage, would certainly brisken the house up a
bit. At present, in spite of her own presence there, it seemed to have
no more spring in it than unleavened bread.
Next day, according to the indisputable orders of Lady Crowborough,
Charles had taken his lunch with the family, and though Philip
Wroughton had thought good to emphasize the gulf which must exist
between his family and a young man who copied their portraits for them,
by constantly using the prefix "Mr." when he spoke to Charles, the meal
had gone off not amiss. Irrespective of Lady Crowborough there was
the inimitable lightness of youth flickering round it, a lightness
which Joyce by herself felt unable to sustain, but which instinctively
asserted itself when a little more of the proper mixture was added.
Afterwards Charles had paddled back to his encampment in order to
prepare for his visitors, and soon after, while Philip slept the sleep
of the dyspeptic, his daughter and mother left in the manner of a
riverside Juliet and a very old nurse, to go to what Lady Crowborough
alluded to as "the party." She had dressed herself appropriately in
a white linen frock with little rosebud sprigs printed on it, and an
immense straw hat with a wreath of rose to embellish it. She had a
horror of the glare off the water, which might cause her to freckle,
and wore a thick pink veil, which, being absolutely impenetrable,
served the additional purpose of keeping the poisonous air away from
her. Her whole evergreen heart rejoiced over this diversion, for not
only was she going to have tea with her handsome young man--"my new
flirt," as she daringly called him--but, having had a good go of
flirtation herself, she was prepared to encourage the two young people
to advance their intimacy. Most of all she hoped that they would fall
in love with each other, and was then prepared to back them up, for
she had guessed in the twinkling of an eye that Craddock had Philip's
consent in paying attentions to Joyce, and with her sympathies for
youth so keen, and her antipathy for middle-age so pronouncedly
contemptuous, she altogether recoiled from the idea of Joyce ever
having anything to do "with that great white cream-cheese" as she
expressed it to herself. She found the cream-cheese agreeable enough
at lunch and dinner to give her the news of the town, and a "bit of
tittle-tattle" in this desert of a place, but she had no other use for
him, either for herself or her granddaughter.
Charles received them at the edge of his domain, ankle-deep in
forget-me-nots, and conducted them a distance of three yards to the
shadow of his tent where tea was spread. There were two deck-chairs
for the visitors, the box of provisions with a handkerchief on the
top for table, and a small piece of board for himself. He had pinned
up against the tent side two or three of his sketches, and his sole
tumbler stood by the tea things with a bunch of forget-me-nots on it.
He made no apologetic speeches of any description about the rudimentary
nature of the entertainment, because he was aware that he had nothing
else to offer them. Besides the tea was strong, and there was a pot of
strawberry jam.
"Joyce'll be saying she must live in a tent, too," remarked Lady
Crowborough withdrawing her veil. "Upon my word, Mr. Lathom, I like
your dining-room very much. That thicket behind cuts the beastly wind
off. That's the colour I like to see tea."
"It's been standing a quarter of an hour, Lady Crowborough," said
Charles with his respectful glance. "Are you sure it's not a
little--well--a little thick?"
"Not a bit--Joyce and you may add water to yours if you like. And are
those sketches yours? They seem very nice, though I don't know a
picture from a statue."
She looked at them more closely.
"And has Joyce been sitting to you already?" she asked, in a tremor of
delight. (They _had_ been sly about it!)
The ingenious Charles looked mightily surprised.
"Oh, that?" he said, following her glance. "That's only a little
water-colour sketch I did of the head of the Reynolds picture. But it
is like Miss Wroughton, isn't it?"
It was indeed: so for that matter was the Reynolds.
Lady Crowborough was a little disappointed that Joyce hadn't been
giving clandestine sittings, but she knew as well as Charles himself
that he had executed this admirable little sketch with Joyce, so to
speak, at his finger-tip, and not her great-great-grandmother, and her
new flirt rose higher than ever in her estimation.
"And when will you have finished your copying?" she asked.
Here again Charles did not fail.
"I can't possibly tell," he said. "When I came down I imagined it would
take a week or ten days, if I worked very hard. But I see how utterly
impossible it will be to do it in anything like that time. But it's
lovely work. I don't care how long it takes."
"Bless me, how sick and tired you'll get of it," said she.
"Not if you'll come and have tea with me, Lady Crowborough," said this
plausible young man.
Lady Crowborough grinned all over: she knew just how much this was
worth, but she liked it being said.
"Well, anyhow this American, Mr. Ward, is quick enough about his part
of the bargain," she said. "My son received his cheque this morning,
sent by your friend Mr. Craddock, Joyce, my dear. Five thousand pounds!
There's a sum of money!"
Charles paused a moment, some remembrance of an American and a cheque
for £5000 stirred in his brain, without his being able to establish the
connection.
"What? Has he got it for five thousand pounds?" he asked.
"Yes: plenty, too, I should say, for a bit of canvas and a lick or
two of paint on it. I'm sure when you have finished his copy none of
us would be able to tell the one from the other. Isn't five thousand
pounds a good enough price, Mr. Lathom?"
"Well, it's a very good picture," said Charles.
Joyce was watching him, and saw the surprise in his face.
"Why did Mr. Craddock send father the cheque?" she asked.
"Lord, my dear, I don't know," said Lady Crowborough. "Cheques and
Bradshaws are what I shall never understand. I suppose it was what my
bankers call drawn to Mr. Craddock. His name was on the back of it
anyhow. Whenever I get a cheque, which is once every fifty years, I
send it straight to my bank, and ask them what's to be done next, and
it always ends in my writing my name somewhere to show it is mine, I
suppose. But as for Bradshaw, it's a sealed book to me, and I send my
maid to the station always to find out."
Suddenly Charles remembered all about this American and the cheque
for five thousand pounds, and the slight film of puzzle, uncertainty,
though nothing approaching suspicion, rolled off his mind again. Reggie
a week ago had mentioned the drawing of this post-dated cheque at
Thistleton's Gallery. It was all quite clear. But undoubtedly this Mr.
Ward had obtained his picture at a very reasonable figure. Then, as if
to abjure what had never been in his mind, he spoke, not more warmly
than his heart felt, about Craddock.
"Mr. Craddock has been tremendously good to me," he said. "It's
scarcely a week ago that he first saw me, when I was painting here one
afternoon, and you brought him by in the punt, Miss Wroughton. The very
next day he bought my picture off my easel----"
"Well, I hope he gave you five thousand for it, too," said Lady
Crowborough.
Charles beamed at her: she had finished her second cup of positively
oily tea, and was smoking a cigarette with an expression of extreme
satisfaction.
"He did more for me than that, Lady Crowborough," he said, "he gave
me a chance, a start. Then he came to see my studio, and gave me the
commission to paint this copy. And then----"
Charles' simple soul found it hard to be silent, but he remembered
Craddock's parting admonition.
"And then, my dear?" asked Lady Crowborough.
"Then he's made me feel he believes in me," he said. "That's a lot, you
know, when nobody has ever cared two straws before. By Jove, yes, I owe
him everything."
Certainly her new flirt was a charming young fellow, and Lady
Crowborough saw that Joyce approved no less than she. She felt he was
probably extremely unwise and inexperienced, and would have bet her
veil, and gone back veilless, the prey of the freckling sun, that
Craddock had made some shrewd bargain of his own. It was now time for
her flirt to have an innings with Joyce. She was prepared to cast all
the duties of a chaperon to the winds, and inconvenience herself as
well in order to secure this.
"Well, I've enjoyed my tea and my cigarette," she said, "and all I've
not enjoyed is Joyce's punt. I shouldn't wonder if it leaked, and the
gnats on the river were something awful. They get underneath my veil
and tickle my nose, and I shall walk home across the fields, and leave
you to bring the punt back, my dear. And if you've got a spark of good
feeling, Joyce, you'll help Mr. Lathom wash up our tea things first."
And this wicked old lady marched off without another word.
Joyce and Charles were left alone, looking exactly like a young god
and goddess meeting without intention or scheme of their own, in some
green-herbaged riverside in the morning of the world. They did the
obvious instinctive thing and laughed.
"Everyone does what darling Grannie tells them," said Joyce, "so we had
better begin. The only suggestion I make is that I wash up, because I'm
sure I do it better than you, and you sit down and sketch the while,
because I shouldn't wonder if you do it better than me."
"But I wash up beautifully," said Charles.
"I think not. There was egg on my tea-spoon."
"I'm sorry. Was that why you didn't take sugar?"
"Yes."
"Have some now by itself?" said he.
"I think I won't. Where's a tea-cloth?" Charles wrinkled his brows.
"They dry in the sun," he said. "We thread them, tea-cups that is, on
to the briar-rose."
"And the plates? Do begin sketching."
"They dry also. They are placed anywhere. But one tries not to forget
where anywhere is. Otherwise they get stepped on."
Charles plucked down the Reynolds head from the tent wall.
"I began it from the picture," he said, "but may I finish it from you?
If you wash up by the forget-me-nots, and I sit in the punt, at the
far end, I can do it. Oh, how is Buz to-day? He didn't come up to the
nursery."
She neither gave nor withheld permission to finish the head in the way
he suggested, but her eyes grew troubled as she emptied the teapot into
the edge of the water. It was choked with tea-leaves, gorged, replete
with them. He picked up his water-colour box, and climbed out to the
cushions of the punt.
"Buz isn't a bit well," she said. "I've sent for the vet to come again
to-morrow. Oh, isn't it dreadful when animals are ill? They don't
understand: they can't make out why one doesn't help them. Buz has
always come to me for everything, like burrs in his coat and thorns in
his feet, and he can't make out why I don't pick his pain out of him."
"Sorry," said Charles, scooping some water out of the river in his
water-tin, but looking at her. Their eyes met, with the frankness,
you would say, of children who liked one another. But for all the
frankness, only a few seconds had passed before, the unwritten law,
that a boy may look at a girl a shade longer than a girl may look at a
boy, prevailed, and Joyce bent over the tea-cups. She was not the less
sorry for Buz, but ... but there were other things in the world, too.
"I know you're sorry," she said, "and so does Buz, and we both think it
nice of you. And how long really do you think your copy will take? And
what will you do if the weather becomes odious?"
"I shall get a cold in my head," said Charles, drawing his brush to a
fine point, by putting it between his lips.
Joyce looked at him with horror.
"Oh, don't put the brush in your mouth!" she said. "They always used to
stop my doing it at the drawing-school. Some of the paints are deadly
poison."
"Oh, do you paint?" said Charles. "You ought to have painted and I to
have washed up--please stop still for a moment, exactly like that. So
sorry, but I shan't be a minute. Damn!"
An unfortunate movement of his elbow jerked his straw hat which was
lying by him into the Thames: it caught and pirouetted for a moment on
am eddy of water, and then hurried gladsomely down-stream.
"But your hat?" said Joyce in a strangled whisper, as if, being
forbidden to move, she must not speak.
"I'm afraid I've already said what I had to say about that," said
Charles. "Just one second."
He worked eagerly and intensely with concentrated vision and effort of
its realization for half a minute. Then again he used that forbidden
receptacle for paint-brushes, and dragged off the excessive moisture
from his wash.
"Now I'll get it while that dries," he said.
He picked up the punt-pole and ran down the edge of the bank to
recapture his hat. But it had floated out into mid-stream and his
pursuit was fruitless.
"And it looked quite new," said Joyce reproachfully, on his return.
"I'm afraid you are extravagant."
"Just the other way round. It would have been false economy to have
saved my hat--price half-a-crown, and have risked losing the--the sight
I got of you just for that minute while my hat started voyaging. But
now," he said, gleefully washing out his brushes--"now that I've got
you, let the great river take it to the main."
He made the quotation simply in the bubble of high spirits, not
thinking of the context, nor of the concluding and following line,
"No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield." But instantaneously the
sequel occurred to him--for the words were set to a tune which he very
imperfectly sang with his light tenor, and accompanied on his banjo.
"You talk of too many things in one breath, Mr. Lathom," said Joyce.
"You said if the weather broke you would catch cold here, so of course
you must go to the inn in the village, if it rains. Men have no sense:
I believe you would stick on here, while you get congestion and
inflammation and pneumonia. Then you asked me if I painted, and I may
tell you I don't. I used to try: if I have any sketches left the sight
of them would convince you of the truth of what I say."
Charles' art and heart tugged for his whole attention. For another
minute he was silent and absorbed.
"Quite done," he said. "Thank you so much, Miss Wroughton."
Charles looked at her, and all thought of his art passed from him.
She was entrancing, and he suddenly woke to the fact that in the last
quarter of an hour they had made friends.
He came towards her, stripping the sketch off its block.
"Do let me give it you," he said rather shyly. "You see, I shall enjoy
the fruits of your labour, as I shan't have to wash up. It's only fair
that you should have the fruits of mine--at least if you would care for
them at all."
She could not but take in her hand the sketch not yet dry which he
held out to her, and looking at it, she could not but care. Never was
there anything more admirably simple, never had an impression been
more breezily recorded. There was no attempt at making a picture of
it; there were spaces unfilled in, a mere daub of hard edged blue in
the middle of the sky was sufficient note to indicate sky: the weir
was a brown blob, and a brown blot of reflection and a splash of grey,
as if the brush had spluttered like a cross-nibbed pen, showed where
the water broke below. Against it came the triumphant painting of a
head, her own on the head in the Reynolds picture, but so careful, so
delicate--and for the rest of her there was a wash of stained blue for
her dress; a patch of body colour, careless apparently, but curiously
like a tea-cup against it. At her feet was a scrabble of blue lighter
than her dress, but none could doubt that this meant forget-me-nots
... they were like that, though the scrabble of pale blue seemed so
fortuitous. Probably Charles never painted more magically than in
those ten minutes, even when the magic of his brush had become a phrase
in art criticism, a _cliché_. There was all that a man can have to
inspire it there, and the inspiration had all the potential energy of
the bud of some great rose. It had the power of the full blossom still
folded in it, the energy of the coiled spring, the inimitable vigour of
a young man's opening blossom of love.
It was no wonder that she paused when he handed it to her. Her own
face, her own slim body and gesture, as he saw her, leaped at her from
the sketch, and she thrilled to think, "Is that what he sees in me?"
No array of compliments, subtly worded, brilliantly spoken, could
have told her so much of his mind. It was an exquisite maiden that he
saw, and that was she. She could not but see how exquisite he thought
her: she could not fail to glow inwardly, secretly, at his view of
her. Those few minutes' work, at the cost of the straw hat, came as a
revelation to her. He showed her herself, or at least, he showed her
how he saw her. The insatiable and heaven-born love of all girls to be
admired shot in flame through her. Now that she saw his sketch, she
knew that she had longed for that tribute from a man, though till now
she had been utterly unconscious of any such longing. Mr. Craddock
when he proposed to her lacked all spark of such a flame; had even he
but smouldered--She knew she was loved. That in itself seemed almost
terrifyingly sufficient. She let herself droop and lie on it, on the
thought of it ... it was transcendent in its significance.
Her scrutiny lasted but a moment. Then from the sketch she looked
back to Charles again, him who had seen her like that.... And had she
possessed his skill of brush, and could have painted him, there would
have been something in her sketch, as in his, of the glimmering light
that trembles high in the zenith when the day of love is dawning. Back
and forth between them ran the preluding tremor, a hint, a warning
of the fire that should one day break into full blaze, fed by each;
but to the girl, at present, it was but remotely felt, and its origin
scarcely guessed at. To him the tremor was more vibrant, and its source
less obscure; the waters were already beginning to well out from their
secret spring, and he beginning to thirst for them.
The moment had been grave, but immediately her smile broke on to it.
"Oh, that is kind of you," she said. "I shall love to have the sketch.
And I retract: it was worth a lot of straw hats to do that. Perhaps you
have not even lost one. I may overtake it on its mad career as I go
back home. I will rescue it for you, if I come across it, and give it
first aid. I must be getting back now. Thank you ever so much for the
delicious tea, and the delicious sketch. You will be at work again, I
suppose, to-morrow morning?"
* * * * *
Such was the history of the two days, which Charles revolved within
him that evening, after he had eaten his supper and sat out by the
water-side, unwitting of the dusky crimson in the west, and the
outpouring weir. Things fairer and more heart-holding than these
absorbed and dominated his consciousness.
* * * * *
Day by day his copy of this wonderful Reynolds wonderfully grew
beneath the deftness and certainty of his brush. Though he had said
that it would take much longer than he had originally contemplated,
he found that he was progressing with amazing speed, and though he
would gladly have worked more slowly and less industriously so as to
lengthen out the tale of these beautiful days, it seemed to be out of
his power to keep back his hand. He was dragged along, as it were, by
the gloriously-galloping steeds of his own supreme gift: once in the
room opposite the portrait, he could no more keep his fingers off his
brush, or his brushes off his canvas, than could a drunkard refrain,
alone with his cork-drawn intoxicants. Nor could he, for another and
perhaps more potent reason, keep away from the house where the picture
was, or after a reasonable morning's work lounge away the afternoon on
the river. By cords he was drawn to the Mill House, for there was the
chance (of not infrequent fulfilment) of meeting Joyce: and then he had
to go to his extemporized studio, and the other frenzy possessed him.
But poor Buz had no pleasures in these days and as they went by the
old dog grew steadily worse. He was a constant occupant of the sofa,
where he had established himself on the first morning of Charles'
occupation, and if he was not, as was generally the case, in his
place when Charles arrived of a morning, it was never long before
there came at the door the request for admittance, daily feebler and
more hesitating. Charles had to help him to his couch now, for he was
too weak to climb up by himself, but he always managed a tap or two
with his tail in acknowledgment of such assistance, and gave him long
despairing glances out of dulled topaz eyes, that expressed his dumb
bewilderment at his own suffering, the abandonment of his dismay that
nobody could help him. Once, on entering, Charles found Joyce kneeling
by the sofa, crying quietly. She got up when he entered, and openly
wiped her eyes.
"I'm so glad you don't think me silly," she said, "for I feel sure you
don't. Other people would say, as darling Grannie does, 'It's only a
dog.' Only! What more do you want?"
Charles laid a comforting hand on Buz's head, and stroked his ears.
"I could easily cry, too," he said, "for helplessness, and because we
can't make him understand that we would help if we possibly could. What
did the vet say yesterday?"
Joyce shook her head.
"There's no hope," she said. "There would have to be an operation
anyhow, and probably he would die under it. He wouldn't get over it
altogether in any case. He's too old. Mr. Gray told me I had much
better have him killed, but I can't bear it. I know I ought to, but I
am such a beastly coward. He sent a bottle and a syringe this morning.
There it is on the chimney-piece. I can't bear that the groom or
coachman should do it, or the vet. And I can't do it myself, though
it's just the only thing that I could do for poor darling Buz."
Charles turned from the dog to her.
"Let me do it, Miss Wroughton," he said. "I know what you mean. You
can't bear that a stranger like a coachman should do it. But Buz always
liked me, you know, and rather trusted me. You mean that, don't you?"
Joyce gave a great sigh.
"Yes, oh, just that," she said. "How well you understand! But would you
really do it for me?"
Charles went across to the chimney-piece, and looked at what the vet
had sent.
"Yes, it's perfectly simple," he said. "I see what it is. I did it for
a dog of my own once. It's quite instantaneous: he won't feel anything."
"And when?" said Joyce piteously, as if demanding a respite.
"I think now," said Charles. "He's dying: he won't know anything."
Joyce bit her lip, but nodded to him. Then she bent down over the sofa
once more, and kissed Buz on his nose, and on the top of his head. Then
without looking at Charles again she went out of the room.
This aroused Buz, but before many minutes were past he had dozed off
again. Then Charles filled the little syringe, wiped the end of it,
so that the bitterness should not startle him, and gently pushing
back the loose-skinned corner of his lip he inserted the nozzle, and
discharged it. A little shiver went through the dog, and he stretched
out his legs, and then moved no more at all.
* * * * *
Charles went to the door, and found Joyce standing outside.
"It's all over," he said. "Buz felt nothing whatever."
Joyce was not up to speaking, but she took his hand between both of
hers, pressing it.