A dark October day with slanting flows of peevish rain tattooing on
the big north window of Charles' new studio, was drawing to a chill
and early close, and the light was rapidly becoming too bad to paint.
His mother, at whose picture he had been working all day, was sitting
in front of the plain deal table from his old studio, with fingers
busily rattling on her typewriter, and Charles had put his easel on the
model's-stand and worked from this elevation, since the figure in the
picture was looking upwards. It was nearing completion, and the last
steps which were costing him so much biting of the ends of his brushes,
and so continual a frown that it seemed doubtful if his forehead could
ever again lose its corrugations, were being taken, and his progress
which up till now had been so triumphantly uninterrupted was beginning
to shuffle and mark time. Admirable though the wistful welcoming love
in her face was, thrice admirable as Craddock had thought it, Charles
knew now it did not completely represent what he saw. All day he had
been working at it, making his patient model keep rising and looking at
him, and not only was he dissatisfied with the inadequacy of it, but he
knew that he was losing the simplicity and brilliance of his earlier
work on it. Hence these knottings in his forehead, and the marks of
teeth in the handles of his brushes.
"Mother, darling," he said, "stand up once more, will you, and that
will be all. Now!"
By incessant repetition she had got the pose with unerring accuracy,
and she pushed back her chair and rose facing him. He looked back
from her to his canvas, and from it back again to her, and the frown
deepened. It was not the best he could do, but he could not better it
by patching and poking at it. For one moment he wavered; the next he
had taken up his palette knife and with three strokes erased the whole
of the head. Then he gave a great sign of relief.
"Thank God, that's done," he said, "and to-morrow I will begin all over
again. I was afraid I wasn't going to do that."
"My dear, what have you done?" she asked, leaving her place and coming
to look. "Oh, Charles, you've scraped it all out."
"Yes, thank God, as I said before."
"But when Mr. Craddock saw it this afternoon he said it was so
wonderful."
"Well, I daresay it wasn't bad. But if Craddock thinks that I'm going
to be content with things that aren't bad, he's wrong," said Charles.
"It'll be time for me to say 'That will do,' in twenty years from now.
For the present I'm not going to be content with anything but the best
that I can do, and that wasn't the best, and that is why there's that
pat of paint on my palette knife, and no head on your dear shoulders."
Mrs. Lathom still looked troubled.
"But he had ordered it, dear," she said. "He had chosen it as the
picture he was going to buy from you this year."
Charles rapidly turned on all the electric light.
"I don't care a straw," he said. "Nobody is going to have pictures of
mine that aren't as good as I can make them. I see more than I saw when
I painted it first, and I couldn't inlay that into it. Your face isn't
a patch-work counter-pane. No, we begin again. Now, mother dear, do
be kind and toast muffins for tea, while I give the place where your
head was a nice wash-down with turpentine, so that there's no speck
of paint left on it. Reggie's coming in, and as soon as we've got
greasy all over our faces with muffins we'll go and stand in the queue
at the theatre. We shall have to go pretty early. 'Easter Eggs' is a
tremendous hit and the pit's always crammed."
Charles scrubbed away at his canvas for a minute or so in silence,
beaming with satisfaction at his erasure of the head.
"I'm blowed if we stand in the queue at all," he said. "As a
thanks-offering for my own honesty, I shall go and get the three
best places that are to be had. Now I won't be thwarted. I shall get
fifty pounds this week for the Reynolds copy, and I choose, madam, I
choose to go to the stalls. I will be economical again to-morrow for
weeks and weeks. Hullo, here's the child. Reggie, come and look at my
picture of Ma. Haven't I caught the vacant expression of her face quite
beautifully? I think I shall let Craddock have it just as it is, and
he can call it 'The guillotine at play.'"
"Charles, you are the most tiresome----" began his mother.
"I know: I touch the limits of endurance. But I am pleased to have
wiped your face for you. I shall want you at ten o'clock to-morrow
morning. Goodness, how it rains! I am glad I'm not going to stand
outside for a couple of hours."
Reggie had subsided into a large chair, and was toasting his feet at
the fire.
"Mother's morose," he said, "when I was prepared to enjoy myself. She
always was a kill-joy. Mother, darling, you shouldn't indulge in these
melancholy fits. Consider what a great girl you are. Consider anything,
but put lots of butter on the muffins. Charles, history repeats itself.
Mr. Ward--opulent American, you know--came in again to-day with
Craddock, and again he drew a cheque at my desk, and again, though I
lent him my pen, he didn't tip me. He must be indecently rich, because
to-day he gave Craddock a cheque for ten thousand and one hundred
pounds."
"What had he bought?"
"Dunno. Some little trifle for the servants' hall I suppose. Ten
thousand for the picture, one hundred for the frame, do you think? Oh,
another thing: there was a long notice in the 'Whitehall' about the
Exhibition at the 'British Painters and Etchers.' I brought it home.
It says all kinds of things about the picture of me. Here it is: catch
hold."
Charles snatched at the paper with all a boy's natural pride in being
for the first time noticed in the press. Nor was the morose Mrs. Lathom
less eager, for with muffin on toasting-fork she left the fire and read
over his shoulder, and the moroseness vanished.
"Oh, Charles," she cried, "'Brilliant achievement--masterly
technique--the gem of a rather mediocre exhibition--figure of a
graceful stripling.'--Reggie, my graceful stripling, that's you--'a new
note in English painting'--You darlings, what a pair of you! I should
like to know who wrote it. I wish the people would sign their names."
But as Charles read his first impulse of pleasure faded altogether. At
the end he crumpled the paper up, and threw it into the fender.
"Good Lord, what rot!" he said.
"Lays it on thick, doesn't it?" said Reggie. "But I like the part about
the graceful stripling."
"You would," said Charles.
The studio which was part of Craddock's bargain with Charles was
admirable in design and appointment. A huge sky-light, set in the slope
of the roof, looked towards the north, and an apparatus of blinds made
it easy to get as much or as little light as was required. The walls
were of that most neutral of all tints, the grey-green of the underside
of olive leaves, and the parquet floor had a few sober-hued rugs over
it. But colour was there in plenty: a couple of brilliant screens,
one of lacquer, one of stamped Spanish leather, intercepted possible
draughts, and gave a gorgeous warmth of hue to their neighbourhoods,
and a big open fireplace with Dutch tiles, and a little congregation
of chairs round about it, added to a mere workroom a delightful focus
of rest and comfort. The faithful skeleton and the flayed man kept each
other company in a sequestered corner, where they might be supposed
to entertain each other with dismal tales of how they came to be what
they were, for the room was no longer the study of a student, but the
living-place of a practitioner. Beyond these things there was little
to attract the attention, or seduce the eye, for the vision that comes
from within must feed on what it suggests to itself, and not be tickled
with what others have done and thought.
At the time when Craddock had made his offer to Charles, the room,
with its little chamber adjoining, was already in his hands, and he
had thought of using it as an overflow gallery from Thistleton's,
but he had drawn a longer bow in offering it to Charles, for his
speculation there he believed to hold a larger financial possibility
than an extension of Thistleton's promised. And his furnishing it, in
accordance with what he thought to be Charles' psychical requirements,
was not less than masterly. Morning by morning, when Charles arrived
there, he felt instinctively that he saw clearly here, that his own
vision was unharassed by things that were ugly and inconvenient, and
yet not distracted by the challenge of beauty that demanded attention.
In this temperate, colourless place he grew as plants grow on warm grey
days, not soaked or scorched, but realizing themselves, and expanding
accordingly to their own irresistible vitality. A month ago, Charles
could not have scraped out the face that to-day he so joyfully erased
from his canvas. No doubt these utterly congenial conditions did not
produce his development, but they presented nothing that hindered.
Above all, the constant gnawing at his heart of the thought that he
earned nothing, contributed nothing to those who worked for him, was
removed. To some natures such conditions are a spur, to him they had
only been a drag. They had never retarded his industry, but they had
always caused him that inward anxiety which, though he knew it not,
shackled the perfect freedom of his service to art. To-day he had no
touch of such cramp or stiffness: he felt entirely untrammelled: his
soul stood nude and unimpeded, like some beautiful runner or wrestler.
There was nothing to hinder its leap and swiftness.
* * * * *
Arthur Craddock had been exceedingly busy this autumn; indeed, since
the month that he had spent at Marienbad during August, when he
atoned for the plethora of nourishment which he had taken during the
year before, and cleared his decks, so to speak, for action again,
he had hardly spent a night out of town. The bulk of his work was
in connection with the production of "Easter Eggs," for, since he
knew that no acting manager would look at it, for not containing a
star-part, or if he did, would quite infallibly spoil it by making a
star part out of it, he, on rather a magnificent scale of speculation,
had taken a theatre himself, and himself engaged the actors whom
he desired to see in it. These were without exception ladies and
gentlemen who had not hitherto been so fortunate as to attract
attention; for this reason their services were more cheaply secured,
which was an advantage, but the corresponding disadvantage was that
they were not possessed of any great histrionic experience, and thus
needed the more drilling and instruction. Craddock had engaged an
excellent stage-manager, who fully entered into his conception of the
manner in which the play must be presented, but there was scarce a
rehearsal at which he was not himself present, and after which he did
not confabulate with his stage-manager. Sometimes from the incessant
hearing of the scenes, they seemed to him to lack all significance
and dramatic force, and be, as their despairing author had openly
avowed them, the merest twaddle. But even when hope burned lowest,
and Craddock seriously wondered how great would be the loss he would
have to face, he still stuck to his opinion that there were marketable
elements in this quiet drama.
He had another cause for financial disquietude. During the summer
there had been an outrageous exhibition of post-Impressionists at
one of the London galleries, and though from an artistic point of
view he considered that these nightmare canvases had as little to
do with art as the "tasteful" decorations of a saloon-carriage, he
had through an agent made very considerable purchases of them, with
a view to unloading again on the confiding public. Since his return
from Marienbad he had caused them to be hung in Thistleton's gallery,
and had written several signed articles in the "Whitehall" which he
considered should have proved provocative of purchasers. But up to the
present the gallery had been barren of buyers, and even though himself
pointed out to Mr. Ward, to whom his recommendation had hitherto
been always sufficient, the marvels of this new mode of vision, and
masterly defiant absence of all that had hitherto been known as drawing
or painting, the latter, though lamenting his artistic blindness,
had altogether declined to make breaks in the frieze of nightmare
which brooded on the gallery walls. But though for the present his
money--a considerable sum of it--was locked up in these monstrous and
unmarketable wares he did not (which would have affected him far more
poignantly), lose prestige as a critic and appraiser of art, since
he had bought under an agent's name, and the secret of his identity
with Thistleton's Gallery was at present inviolate. His astute young
clerk, as has been seen, had conjectured as much, but it was only a
conjecture, and the conjecturer was only Reggie. Had Craddock known of
Reggie's brotherhood to his new protégé, he might perhaps have devoted
a little thought as to whether he should take any steps to ensure
secrecy: as it was he neither knew Reggie's name, nor suspected his
conjecture or relationship.
A third disagreeableness had chequered September for Craddock, and
added a further burden to his anxieties during the weeks of rehearsal
for this play. Four years before he had purchased one of his convenient
options on the literary work of a slow-labouring and diabolically-canny
Scotchman, who had failed to find a publisher for a story which
Craddock had judged to be a very beautiful and delicate piece of work.
He had given this execrable Pict the sum of three hundred pounds for
it, coupled with the right to purchase any future work by him during
the next three years for the same sum. Whereupon the execrable Pict,
having made quite sure that he had mastered the terms of his agreement,
had sat down in his frugal house in Perthshire and devoted himself to
study and porridge and reflection. For those three years he had not
set pen to paper, but lived a life of meditation that would have done
credit to a student of Râja Yogi attaining Samâdhi, and, the period
of his apprenticeship to Craddock being finished and the contract
terminated, had written a book over which, when it was published during
September, the whole world, it seemed, had laughed and wept. Never
was there a more tender and exquisite idyll, reviewers hailed him as
Scotland's most transcendent sun, round which all lesser lights must
for ever burn dim. Hot and hot the editions poured from the press, and
Craddock, impotent and dismayed, saw the little fortune which he felt
was justly his pour into the purse of this disgusting Northerner. The
execrable Pict was a Danae. He sat with gold showering round him, the
gold that he had acquired in those three years when he sordidly lived,
thanks to Craddock's bounty, on porridge and meditation. Craddock had
not, it will be observed, lost money over this unfortunate transaction,
since he had more than gathered back his original outlay, but the
thought of what he had missed woke him early in the morning, after the
remembrance of the last rehearsal had prevented his going to sleep
at night. Legally, he believed he might be judged to have some claim,
since the book in question was, if not blackly written with ink on
paper, invented and thought over and prepared during those years in
which he had a claim on the author's work, but for personal reasons
he did not desire that this pathetic history should be exposed to the
unsympathetic ventilation of the law-courts. But it confirmed to him
the wisdom of doing business, wherever possible, with the young and
inexperienced.
Though these financial clamours were loud round him, Craddock was not
so distracted by them as to neglect his interests in the work of his
new artist, and it says much for his equanimity in troublesome times
that, between these discouraging rehearsals, and the contemplation of
the execrable Pict and the unmarketable post-Impressionists, he devoted
his full attention to the furnishing of such a studio for Charles as
would give him the best possible conditions for work. He himself chose
its furniture and embellishment: he sat with his white face on one side
and his little eyes half-closed to select the colour for the walls: he
himself pulled the blinds up and down over the big north light to make
sure that this novel system of springs worked smoothly. He did not, of
course, go so far as to believe that a suitably-appointed studio can do
anything whatever towards the ripening of a possible genius, but his
own thoroughness and common-sense told him that when you are dealing
with a brain and hand so sensitive as that of a true portrait-painter,
it is the falsest economy to spare either money or trouble in securing
for him the best possible conditions for his work. And when, this
afternoon, he paid a visit to the studio, an hour before Charles
triumphantly and joyously expunged that sweet and tender face from his
canvas, Craddock thought himself justified.
It will be readily understood that among this multiplicity of ventures
and perplexities, Craddock had little time or psychical stuff to
devote to the girl who, it is not too much to say, had brought a new
type of emotion into his life. But though he had no time to address
himself actively to thoughts of her, her image lived somewhere in
the background of his mind, without loss of vividness. Indeed,
without volition on his part, it seemed to be gently soaking into the
businesses with which he was more acutely concerned, so that, for
instance, even when his brain was most attentive to some lugubrious
rehearsal, he would see himself and her with perhaps Lady Crowborough
as chaperone, and Frank Armstrong as perspiring author, seated in the
stage box on the night of the first representation. Perhaps he would
not ask Armstrong: as there was a fierce rugged kind of strength about
him that a girl might possibly find attractive.... But, such is the
blindness with which ironical fate smites her puppets, no such qualms
with regard to Charles, who had, so he had learned, stayed at the Mill
House, on Lady Crowborough's invitation, for a week after the summer
had broken in torrential rain, towards the end of July, ever entered
his head.
Then only a week ago, for the date of production had to be postponed
and yet again postponed until the rehearsals went with a smoothness
that no friction disturbed, came the first night of "Easter Eggs," and
before the evening was half over the conduct of the execrable Pict,
and the apparent permanence of the post-Impressionist pictures on the
walls of his gallery, had been smoothed out of Craddock's mind, as a
wrinkle in the sand is erased by the incoming tide. From the first
moment the simple and brilliant little play, with its neat construction
and well-etched delineation of character, charmed and captivated the
house. It was not necessary for the audience to put too strenuous a
call on their intelligences, and, as Craddock had foreseen, they found
an entertainment much to their minds in watching and enjoying the
unfolding of the unpretentious but absorbing little chronicle. It had
something of the fragrance of Cranford about it, and its gaiety was
of some little bonneted Quakeress, suddenly moved to dance in a shy
decorous manner. Nor did the faint patronizing blame and praise of the
critics next morning disturb him in the slightest: he knew well from
the manner of its reception, and the pleased chattering crowd that
waited for their vehicles in the lobby when the last act was over that
he need have no fear for the solidity of its first night's success.
Being a critic himself, he knew how seldom his colleagues spotted the
right horse. Indeed, the only jarring note was the attitude of the
sardonic author, when, subsequently, he supped with the owner, and in
reply to Craddock's congratulations returned those congratulations
into his bosom. Armstrong, in fact, seemed rather vexed at the success
of the evening, and Craddock remembering, for a brief moment, his own
feelings on the success earned by the book of the execrable Pict,
understood something of the young man's ingratitude.
Certainly the ill-luck which followed Craddock these last months--even
at Marienbad the number of pounds of the too too solid which he had
lost, were not what he had hoped for--seemed to have turned, for
"Easter Eggs," when it had run a week, gave evidence by its advance
bookings, of the security of its favour with the public, and the
critics also were airily beginning to say that "they had said so all
along." So, with the removal of these financial anxieties, Craddock
was at leisure to turn his mind to the riverside again, and on the
evening of the day on which he had visited Charles, just previous to
the ruthless destruction of the head in his portrait, he went down
again to Thorley to dine and sleep at Philip Wroughton's house. He had
two ostensible reasons for so doing: in the first place he wanted to
see Charles' copy of the Reynolds, in the second he wanted to talk over
his friend's plans for the Egyptian winter. He was minded to spend a
month or two in Egypt himself, and wondered whether a little judicious
hinting would cause Philip to make a suggestion that he would be eager
to fall in with.
He found, and was not ill-pleased to find, that Lady Crowborough was
not in residence, but had gone back to town, where she was accustomed
during the winter months to hermetically seal herself up, in the manner
of a hybernating dormouse, in a small dark house in Half-Moon Street.
But he found when the subject of Egypt was mentioned at dinner, that
she had gone to town principally in order to supply herself with
linen frocks and veils that should thwart the freckling powers of the
Egyptian sun.
"My dear mother," said Philip, as he passed the port to Craddock, "has
got it into her head that she would like to accompany Joyce and me, and
when she has got any plan of any kind in her head, Joyce and I find it
useless to protest. She does not listen to any arguments, nor does she
reply to them. She carries out her plan. I do not entirely applaud this
one. As likely as not it will be I who will have to look after her, for
I am sure she will find the journey and the heat very trying. And as I
planned this expedition with a view to regaining such measure of health
as may be possible for a confirmed invalid, I do not quite applaud her
resolution. But as I say, she is quite indifferent to applause or its
absence. Sometimes I think that old people tend to become a little
selfish."
He frowned slightly, as he poured himself out the water with which he
was to facilitate the entry of his after-dinner cachet.
"And she will expect Joyce to be with her, and read to her and look
after her," he continued, "and I shall be companionless. Shut up and
condemned to an invalid life, as I have been, I find it difficult
to think of anybody who might accompany us, and relieve me of the
solitude which will so largely be mine. But the world in general and
even one's friends, soon forget an invalid like myself. But certainly I
should like, now that my mother has settled to come with us, a further
addition to our party."
Philip was sufficiently astute to observe others, when he was not
entirely absorbed in himself, and as he looked at Craddock now, it
seemed to him that there was a certain suggestion of expectancy of
tension even about him: in fact he had raised his wine-glass from the
table, as if to drink, but sat with it poised, neither drinking nor
replacing it.
"If only I could induce you to come with us," he said.
Craddock put his glass down.
"I think if you had not suggested that," he said, "that I should have
risked a rebuff and done it myself."
He paused a moment.
"Only one thing might have deterred me," he added, "namely the fear
that my presence, after what happened when I was here last, might be
distasteful to Miss Joyce."
Philip waved this away with his thin white hand.
"I know that the young are often very selfish," he said, "but I do not
believe that Joyce would for her own sake wish to deprive me of so
congenial a companion, even if your suggestion was well-founded. But
I am sure it is not. Indeed, I think your being able to come with us
is a very fortunate circumstance for her, and, if I may say so, for
you, as well as for myself. She will have ample opportunities for
knowing you better, and appreciating you more truly. Shall we go into
the next room? Ah, by the way, since you will now be seeing about your
journey and your hotel accommodation in Egypt, perhaps it would not
be troubling you to make arrangements for us also. My mother I know
will take a maid, who will look after her and Joyce. I cannot afford a
similar luxury."
* * * * *
The rain and gale that had clamorously wept all day, had vastly
increased at nightfall, and when the two men left the dining-room
they found Joyce sitting in the drawing-room with open windows in the
attempt to clear the room of the smoke that had been blowing down the
chimney. This rendered the room impossible for her father to sit in,
and since his own sitting-room was in no better plight, Joyce was
despatched to see whether her room, which was on the other side of
the house and sheltered from the fury of the wind, was more tenable.
Her report was favourable, and her father, coughing and feeling sure
that this quarter of a minute's exposure to the open window of the
drawing-room had chilled him, went upstairs with her, leaving Craddock
to look at the copy of the Reynolds which hung in the dining-room. He
had had dusky glimpses of it during dinner, but now when he examined it
by a fuller illumination, the execution of it amazed him. Not only was
it faithful in line and colour but in that indefinable quality of each
which marks off the inspired from the merely intelligent copy. There
was the same gleeful mystery in that turned and radiant face ... it
was as if Charles no less than the painter of the original picture had
known this entrancing girl, had penetrated by his artistic insight into
the joy and vitality that enveloped her. And how like she was to Joyce!
He was swift to see, and the picture did not long detain him, but on
his way upstairs he very sincerely congratulated himself on the tide
in his affairs that was proving so fortunate. "Easter Eggs" he already
counted as a gold-mine, three pictures of Charles', one of them that
admirable portrait of his mother, were enviable possessions, and
there was the winter in Egypt, and the golden possibilities which it
contained already his own. He determined, or almost determined, to give
Charles the hundred pounds which he had received from his customer,
in payment for the copy made of the Reynolds, instead of the fifty
he had promised him. He could easily say that Mr. Ward had been so
delighted with it that in a fit of altruistic generosity (seeing that
the copy was not his) he wished to make a larger remuneration. Charles
would be so ingenuously grateful, and Craddock liked gratitude and
ingenuousness. They contained the elements of security.
Joyce gave him a charming welcome to her room; she had just heard from
her father that Craddock would join their party.
"It is delightful that you will come to Egypt with us," she said. "A
party of four is the ideal number."
There was an absence of the personal note in this, which Craddock, as
he caressed the side of his face, did not fail to observe.
"Quantitatively, then, we are all right, Miss Joyce," he said. "But is
the latest addition qualitatively satisfactory?"
Joyce wore raised eyebrows and a slightly puzzled smile at these
polysyllabic observations. But it is probable that she understood very
well.
"It is delightful that you are coming," she repeated.
* * * * *
Craddock might have attempted to get a more personal welcome than this,
but at the moment his very observant eye caught sight of a small framed
sketch that stood in the circle of lamplight on the table. Instantly
his attention was diverted there, nor was it only his artistic
attention that was thus captured, for in a glance he saw that this
sketch concerned him in ways other than artistic. He put out his hand
and drew the picture more immediately under the light, unconscious that
he had not even acknowledged Joyce's repeated speech of welcome.
There she knelt in Charles's sketch, on the carpet of forget-me-nots
at the water's edge. Her head was turned as in the Reynolds picture,
to face the spectator, while her body was in profile. It was possible
enough that Charles had begun this water-colour replica of her head
from the Reynolds itself, but there were differences in it, subtle and
insistent, that showed beyond all doubt that the girl had sat to him
for it also. She was engaged, as to her hands, with a white blot of a
tea-cup; the dish-cloth which she held in her other hand was green with
reflection from the bank beside her which basked in brilliant sunshine.
Behind was the weir with its screen of trees, above, a dab of blue was
sufficient--neither more nor less--to indicate the serenity of the
summer day. Critic to his finger-tips Craddock could appreciate, none
better than he, the slenderness of the means employed to portray these
things, and the adequacy. No one but a great artist would have dared
to omit so much: the foreground of forget-me-nots was two mere swirls
of paint, the weir a splash of brown with a smudge of grey to indicate
the shadowed water, while a mere twirl of the brush showed the swift
current of the river. But in the midst of these mere symbols and notes
of colour was her face, and that was a marvel of portraiture, into
which an infinity of care was absorbed. Of the same quality were the
vague lines that showed the girl's slim body: it was she and no other
who knelt among the forget-me-nots. And it seemed to Craddock that just
as none but a son could have painted that portrait of Charles' mother,
so none but a lover could have painted this. He saw the difference
between Joyce and the Reynolds picture now; previously he had only seen
the marvellous similarity. But here the blood and heart-beat of the
artist throbbed in the exquisite handiwork.
But his artistic sense took the first call on his faculties.
"But a little masterpiece!" he said. "I have never seen a happier
moment. That's an inspired boy!"
Philip just shrugged his shoulders at this admiring explosion.
"Ah, that little picture of Joyce," he said. "It has always seemed to
me rather sketchy and unfinished. But if you admire it so much, I am
sure Joyce would be delighted to let you have it."
Joyce turned quickly to her father, and for the first time Craddock saw
her troubled and disturbed.
"Oh, father, I can't possibly," she said quickly. "Mr. Lathom gave it
me----"
She broke off short, and her face and neck were flushed with the blood
that sprang there. Then bright-eyed and rosy as the dawn she turned to
Craddock.
"It is a clever sketch, isn't it?" she said. "And all the background is
only three dabs and a smudge. I suppose they happen to be put in the
right place. He did it one afternoon when Granny and I were having tea
with him."
She gave him a few seconds more for looking, and then quickly held her
hand out for it, and replaced it on the table. Then she baldly and
ruthlessly changed the subject.
"I don't think you have even been up here before, Mr. Craddock," she
said. "It was my nursery once, as the rocking-horse and the doll's
house witness, then my school-room, as the time-table of lessons
above the chimney-piece witnesses, and please let it now become your
smoking-room and light another cigarette. Now do tell us about Egypt. I
know darling Granny will want to stop in Cairo, and go to every dance
and dinner-party."
The new topic effectively diverted her father from the channel
concerning Charles and his sketch, for he was always more ready to
talk about things that concerned his own comfort than any topic which
was unrelated thereto. But a week in Cairo, before going up the Nile
to settle down for a month's sunshine at Luxor, was not unreasonable:
if Lady Crowborough desired more Cairo, there was, of course, no cause
why she should not indulge herself to any extent in its pleasures and
festivities. But she would be obliged to indulge herself alone: the
party whose sole object was the pursuit of health for Philip, could
not be expected to hamper their guest. Joyce had no inclination, so he
assumed then, for gaieties like these; the temples of Karnak were much
more to her mind....
* * * * *
Joyce left the two men before there was any sign of the discussion
growing lukewarm, and went to her bedroom. This was on the other side
of the house fronting the full bugling of the gale, and the maddened
tattoo of the rain on her panes. It was impossible in this onslaught of
elemental fury to open her windows, but she felt in the very bones and
blood of her a longing for the out-of-doors, whatever its conditions.
Up and down her room she walked, strangely and unwontedly excited, and
had she obeyed her impulse, she would have put on a cloak, and let
herself out of the house, to walk or to run, or even to stand in the
blackness of the night, and the bellowing of the wind, and feel herself
one with the wild simplicity and force of the storm. Better even than
that she would have liked to go forth and plunge herself, naked under
the hueless night, with the torrent and froth of the weir, to struggle
and be buffeted by the furious water, to be herself and nobody else,
not anybody's daughter, not anybody's companion, not even his with whom
her soul seemed suddenly mated. She had gone out for a drenching walk
to this weir only this afternoon, and had leaned over its grey wooden
railing, and watched the water in flood over the promontory where a
tent had stood. Below her a carpet of forget-me-nots, where she had
knelt, and she could have found it in her heart to wade through the
foam of the flood to kneel there again, and recapture the first thrill
of the knowledge that had come to her then. That unbidden flash of
desire had lightened on her but for a second, and she had instantly
shoved it away again, slamming the door on it, and turning the key, and
shooting the bolts. But it had been there, and to-night as she paced
her room, she knew quite well what lay behind the barred doors of her
consciousness, and though she had imprisoned it, giving it no bail
to go abroad, she was not ashamed of it. It burned there within her,
warmly radiant, and though she would not allow herself to see the light
of it, she knew it to be there, and secretly exulted in the knowledge.
But she did not directly want to throw it open to herself: just
now she only wanted to be herself, as she felt she would be if she
could be out in the storm. She did not formulate in her mind the
indubitable necessity of unlocking her inmost self in order to be
herself. Illogically enough, but with a very human inconsistency, she
longed for the conditions that would give her the sense of freedom,
of expansion that she demanded, without contemplating that on which
her whole freedom was based. Yet she knew well that against which she
revolted, from which she longed to escape. In a word, it was the fact,
and the implication founded on that fact, that Arthur Craddock was
coming to Egypt with them. Coupled with it was the idea, so cursorily
introduced by her father, that she should give Craddock the sketch
that Charles had made of her. Literally, no expedition of ingenuity
could have framed a more unfeasible request. There was nothing in the
world she could less easily have parted with. And the suggestion was
just thrown over the shoulder, so to speak, like an idle question, a
meaningless complimentary speech! But now she wondered whether it was
only that. Taken in conjunction with Craddock, and his bloodless wooing
of her, she felt it was possible that this was in the nature of a
test-question. Was it? Was it?
Once more for a moment she desired the night and the storm and the
waters of the swollen river; then, instantly, she knew that all this
was but a symbol of the knowledge that burned behind the closed and
barred door of her mind. She seemed to have no volition in the matter:
she but looked at the doors, and they swung open, and the light that
burned within was made manifest. She ceased from her restless pacing
of her room, and with a little sigh of recovered rest sat down at her
dressing-table, and unlocked one of the drawers. It was empty but for a
couple of letters addressed to her. They were quite short, and nearly
quite formal. But they filled the drawer, and they filled everything
else beside.
She read them.
"Dear Miss Wroughton.
"I hope the copy of the picture satisfies your father. I
didn't see him before I left, and I should so much like to
know that he is pleased with it (if he is). I can't tell
how sorry I was to finish it, for it was such a pleasure to
do it. I should so like to see it in its place, if that is
possible--I often think of you and poor Buz...."
There was nothing here that the merest formalist might not have written
... only a man formalist would not have written it.
She took out the second letter.
"Dear Miss Wroughton.
"I am so glad your father likes the copy. About that silly
little sketch--if you are going to frame it, I think you
had better just have a plain gilt frame, and no mount. A
mount will only make it look more dabby. I am busy with a
portrait of my mother, and it's tremendous fun, chiefly, I
suppose, because she has a perfectly darling face, and is
utterly like her face. But of course any day will suit me
to come down and look at the copy, and I do want to see if
it is fairly satisfactory. I will come on any day and at
any hour that you suggest.
"Sincerely yours, Charles Lathom."
"P. S.--I have got into a new studio, which is lovely.
Won't you be up in town sometime before you go to Egypt,
and won't you come to lunch or tea? Lady Crowborough said
she would, and I will ask her the same day, or if my mother
came, wouldn't it do? But I should like you to see my
things. It has been quite dark for days, and I suppose will
be all the winter. I wish I could put my studio down in
Egypt."
* * * * *
There was nothing here that anybody might not see. But Joyce would not
have shown those letters to anybody. She felt she would have shown his
heart no less than her own in showing them. And for comment on the
text, if any were needed, there was his sketch of her. That was how he
saw her.
All restlessness had utterly subsided: she had only been restless as
long as she had wanted to be herself, without admitting to herself all
that was most real in her, as long as she shut up the bright-burning
knowledge that shone in her innermost heart. Now she had thrown the
closed doors wide, and sat very still, very bright-eyed, with the two
simple little notes on the table in front of her, desiring no more the
air and the tumult of the night, but unconscious of it, hearing it no
longer.
Below the drawer where she kept those letters was another also locked.
After a while she opened that also, and took out what it contained.
Often she had laughed at herself for keeping it, often she had scolded
herself for so doing, but neither her ridicule nor her blows had stung
her sufficiently to make her throw it away or destroy it. In its
present condition it would have been hard to catalogue or describe.
But there was no doubt that this shapeless and mud-stained affair had
once been a straw-hat. She had found it drowned and pulpy just below
the landing-stage of the Mill House the day after Charles had made his
sketch of her.
Meantime Arthur Craddock, though glib and instructive in matters of
hotels and travel, had been very deeply busy over a new condition that
he felt to concern him considerably. Rightly or wrongly he believed
that this boy who had painted that wonderful little water-colour
of Joyce was in love with her. He could not wholly account for his
conviction, but judging intuitively it seemed plain to him. And what
seemed no less plain, and far more important, was the fact that Joyce
peculiarly valued that sketch. No intuition was necessary here: the
trouble and sudden colour in her face when she told her father that
she could not possibly part with it, spoke more intelligibly than her
words even. Had he known or guessed a little more, had he conjectured
that even at this moment Joyce was sitting in her room with those
two little notes spread in front of her, while in a drawer, yet
unopened, there lurked the dismal remains of Charles' straw-hat, he
might have suspected the futility of the abominable interference that
he was even now concocting. For little meddling lies have seldom the
vitality to enable them to prevail against needs that are big and
emotions that are real. Soon or late by logical or chance discovery
comes the vindication of the latter, and they assert themselves by
virtue of their inherent strength: soon or late, for the air is full
of thousands of stray sparks, comes the explosion that shatters such
petty fabrications, the chance circumstance that blows it sky-high. But
he only thought that he was dealing with the calf-love of a boy whom
he had rescued, if not from a gutter, at any rate from a garret, and
who was altogether insignificant save for his divine artistic gift,
the fruits of which he was bound to sell at so reasonable a price to
himself, and with, he supposed, the fancy of a girl who knows nothing
of the world, for a handsome young face.
So in this dangerous state of little knowledge, he planned and invented
as he talked about steamers and hotels, till even his companion was
convinced that the utmost possible would be done for his convenience
and comfort. Then, for he was now ready, Craddock took up Charles'
sketch again.
"Certainly that young Lathom has a wonderful gift," he said, "and I
congratulate myself on having obtained you so fine a copy of your
Reynolds. He stayed with you, did he not, when the weather broke?"
Philip glanced at the clock: it was already half-past ten, but he did
not mind having a word or two about Charles. Indeed, it is possible he
would have initiated the subject.
"Yes, he was with us a week," he said, "though the invitation was not
of my asking. He seemed a well-behaved young fellow."
Craddock caressed the side of his face before replying.
"I wish I could share your good opinion of him," he said. "Of course,
when I recommended him to you for the work which he has certainly done
very well, it never occurred to me that you would have him in the house
like that. But I have no wish to enter into details, and since his
connection with you is over, there is no reason why I should."
Philip got up.
"Indeed, I am glad to know that," he said, "because there certainly
was considerable friendliness between him and Joyce, which I did
not altogether like, though it was hard to prevent. Now I have a
reason which my duty forbids me to disobey, for refusing to allow any
resumption of their acquaintance--I am not sorry for that."
Craddock got up also.
"Then let us leave the subject," he said. "Now I know your bedtime is
half-past ten, so pray do not be ceremonious with me, but allow me to
sit here for a quarter of an hour more, while you go to bed. Listen
at the storm! But by this day month, I hope we shall both be in that
valley of Avalon basking in the warm sunshine of Nile-side. For the
present it is goodnight and goodbye, for I have to go early to-morrow.
I will write to Miss Joyce fully about our travelling arrangements."
* * * * *
Craddock lit another cigarette after his host was gone, and knowing he
would not see him again in the morning, thought over what he had just
said, to assure himself that he had managed to convey that indefinite
sufficiency which he had in view. He thought that he had probably
succeeded very well, for he had given his host an excuse, which he
was clearly glad to make use of, for stopping any future intercourse
between this young fellow and his own circle. And he had effected this
without being positively libellous, for he had said no more than that
he wished he could share Philip's good opinion of him. He felt that it
was certainly time to prevent the ripening of this acquaintanceship,
that Joyce had better have it conveyed to her, as assuredly she would,
that she would not see the author of that sketch any more.
The sketch stood by him on the table, and once again he took it up,
and found it even more admirable than he had thought. And even as he
looked, the injury and wrong that he had done to its artist made him
feel for the first time a curious dislike of him: he disliked him
just because he had injured him. But this dislike did not extend to
his pictures, and the thought that the portrait of his mother and two
more canvases besides, would pass into his possession, gave him the
keenest sort of satisfaction, since he augured for their author a fame
and a future of no ordinary kind. What would that hand be capable of
when its power was fully matured? Certainly it should not be for want
of recognition that he should any longer remain unknown. He himself,
though anonymously, had written the notice to the "Whitehall" regarding
Charles' picture of his brother at Thorley Weir, and next week
under his own signature would appear a column's notice of the same
Exhibition, practically devoted to that one canvas. At any rate, that
would have the effect of making the world in general turn their eyes
to that which had evoked from him so apparently extravagant a eulogy,
and he completely trusted the picture itself to convince them that no
extravagance had been committed. People would be set talking, and in
next year's Academy would be hung the portrait of Charles' mother. That
would be sufficient.
He got up and lit his bedroom candle. It seemed to him that he had
arranged Charles' future very satisfactorily. He would do the most
that could be done for a young man with regard to his artistic career,
and as regards his private affairs, he had made arrangements for them
already in half a dozen sentences that had not been spoken amiss. But
his new born dislike of him made him reconsider his resolve to pay
him the hundred pounds which Mr. Ward had been so pleased to give
for the copy of the Reynolds. After all, Charles had been promised
only half that sum, and had been more than content to close with that
bargain. The fact that Mr. Ward had paid more for it was a thing that
lay outside questions that concerned him. Craddock had promised him
fifty pounds for the copy, and Craddock would pay it.... But he did not
definitely settle either on one sum or the other.
It was three days after this that Craddock's word of warning to Joyce's
father bore fruit. She had come into his study that morning before
lunch, and found him singularly well pleased at the proposed itinerary
which Craddock had sent him that morning. Sleeping-berths had already
been secured, they would not have to change trains at Paris, and the
sleeping-car went, on arrival at Marseilles, straight through to the
quay where their ship was berthed....
"And you came in to ask me something, Joyce," he said, when he had
explained this.
"Yes, father. I have heard from Mr. Lathom, asking when he can come
down to see his picture framed and in its place--I suppose any day will
do, will it not? Shall I ask him to stay the night?"
Philip had been expecting this. He remembered a cordial invitation
conveyed by his mother to the artist, to come back and see his
handiwork when it was framed and in the room of the original picture.
But it was a little uncomfortable to be obliged to give a reply so
different to that which Joyce expected, and there was nothing in
the world which he disliked so much as being uncomfortable. Bodily
discomfort, of course, was the worst form of that imperfection, but
mental discomfort was odious also.
"I think Mr. Lathom may take it for granted that his picture looks
well, and pleases me," he said. "We have less than three weeks here,
before we actually start for Egypt. There is an infinity of things to
do. You will be very busy without the extra burden of entertaining
people."
Joyce did not at once assent to this, or even reply to it. All her
secret knowledge seethed within her.
"He was asked to come to see it," she said.
A more definite statement was necessary. Philip had been glad enough
of Craddock's information, but he did not find it quite easy to use
it with Joyce's young eager face looking at him. Yet its eagerness
gave him an added courage. It was too eager: in spite of the excellent
reasonableness of her words, he felt the unreasonable wish behind them.
"By my mother," he said, "who does not regulate all my affairs.
Frankly, my dear Joyce, I do not want Mr. Lathom in my house again. I
do not hear a very good account of him. To copy a picture for me is
one thing; to have him proposing himself even though asked, is quite
another. You may take it that we have finished with Mr. Lathom."
Joyce's instinct and desire urged her.
"I don't see how I can write a letter to him on those lines," she said.
"Am I to say that you don't wish to see him again? If that is so,
father, you must write it yourself. I--I was very friendly with him
when he was here. Why should I appear to cease to be so?"
Philip went into the rage of a weak man. He had not meant to argue the
point with Joyce. He had, in his imagination, framed this interview
on quite different lines. In his imagination it was enough for him to
have said that Charles' proposed visit was inconvenient, and that Joyce
would have written a note that should embody his wish. But while he
delayed and fussed with the little appurtenances of his writing table,
adjusting sealing-wax, and putting pens level, Joyce spoke again.
"He isn't quite like a bootmaker or a tailor," she said, "whom you can
order down, and who will send in what you have commanded. He has been
staying with us. I can't say to him that we have finished with him."
The weak rage burst out.
"That is what you are to say," he cried. "You will make it clear that
he is not to come here again. You will show me your note when you
have written it. Quite polite, of course, but it must be made clear
that we have finished with him. He came to paint a portrait, and he
has done so, and he has been paid, no doubt, for his trouble. That is
all. We are going to Egypt within a week or two. His visit will be
inconvenient. He may come after we have gone away, if he chooses, and
look at his picture. He wants to see it: very well, he shall see it
after the third week in November."
He beat with his feeble closed hand on his table.
"Do you understand?" he said. "You will tell him that he may come here
when we are gone. Not before, and not after we get back. He can look
at his picture every day for three months. You may tell him that if
you choose. And you have no consideration for me, Joyce: you make me
excited, and make me raise my voice, which, as you know quite well,
always gives me a fit of coughing."
Joyce came back from the window, and sat down by her father at his
table.
"If I am to write such a letter, father," she said, "I must know why I
write it. You must tell me something which accounts for it."
She had her voice perfectly in control, but she could not control
her colour. She felt that her face had become white, and though she
detested herself for this palpable sign of emotion, she was powerless
to prevent it.
"It is easy for me to account for it," said Philip, "though I should
have hoped that my wish was enough."
"It isn't enough," said Joyce quietly. "I have treated him like a
friend."
"You must treat him as a friend no longer, and as an acquaintance no
longer. He is not a desirable friend for you nor an acquaintance. He is
nothing to you: he painted a portrait. He begins and ends with that. He
is not the sort of man I want to know, or want my daughter to know."
The weak rage subsided: but the calmer tone which followed was not less
ineffectual.
"You must take my word for it, dear Joyce," he said. "You are young and
inexperienced, and you must obey me, and not see any more of this young
man. I have excellent authority for telling you that he is undesirable
as friend or acquaintance. I am sorry for it: he seemed harmless enough
and even well-bred!"
Joyce got up. The accumulated weight of the habit of filial obedience
was heavy, but her heart was in declared rebellion. Nor did she believe
what had been told her.
"Will you tell me who this excellent authority is?" she asked.
"No: you must take its excellence on trust from me."
Joyce turned to him. She spoke quite respectfully, but quite firmly.
"Then I can't write that letter," she said. "I am very sorry, but it is
quite impossible."
"And do you intend also to disobey me with regard to neither seeing nor
communicating with Mr. Lathom again?"
Joyce hesitated.
"No, I intend to obey you," she said. "At least--at least I promise to
tell you if I ever intend to do otherwise."
For the first time it struck him that he was dealing with a force
greater than any that was at his command. Hitherto, Joyce had never put
herself into open opposition to him, and he had had no experience of
the power which her habitual serenity held within it.
"You are vastly obliging," he said. "I had no idea I had so obedient a
daughter."
"I am sorry, father," she said. "But you have been asking me to do
things I can't do."
"Things you won't do," said he. "You have made me feel very unwell with
your obstinacy."
"I am sorry for that, too," she said.