One morning towards the end of March Frank Armstrong was sitting in
Charles' studio with a writing-pad on the table in front of him, a
sucked out pipe upside down between his lips, a corrugated forehead,
rumpled hair, and an expression of the wickedest ill-humour on his
face. Beside him on the floor a waste-paper basket vomited half
sheets of futile manuscript, and other crumpled up and rejected pages
strewed the floor. At the far end of the studio Charles was encamped,
he and his manuscript on the model's stand, painting, as he had done
in the portrait of his mother, from a position above the sitter. It
gave an opportunity of subtle foreshadowing which was a holy joy if
you could do it right, which he was quite convinced he could. An
expression of vivid and absorbed content--absorbed he was by the sight
of Frank wrestling with his work, and cursing and swearing at his
difficulties--pervaded his face. To him, from the artistic point of
view, that angry scowling countenance was a beatific vision. Frank
had come earlier than he had expected that morning, bringing his work
with him as desired, and Charles, half dressed only in loose shirt and
flannel trousers, had hopped on to his seat immediately, for Frank
with scarcely a word of greeting had sat down at once to struggle with
a troublesome situation. Seated there, with his sheaf of spear-like
paint-brushes, and his young and seraphic face, he looked like some
modern variation of St. Sebastian. Frank had already remarked this with
singular annoyance.
Charles smiled and stared and painted.
"If you could manage to put that pipe out of your mouth for five
minutes, Frank," he said tentatively.
"But I couldn't."
"It doesn't matter a bit," said Charles cordially.
Frank instantly took it out, and Charles had to stop painting for
a moment, for he was so entertained by the brilliance of his own
guilefulness that his hand trembled. But in a moment he got to work
again, and began whistling under his breath.
"Oh, do stop that row," said Frank.
The picture had been begun a month ago, and was nearing completion.
At present Charles was pleased with it, which is saying a good deal.
His mother on the other hand thought Mr. Armstrong was not quite
such a bear as that. And Mr. Armstrong had said "You don't know much
about bears." Charles' first request to paint him had met with a firm
refusal. But very shortly after Frank had said,
"You can do a picture of me if you like, Charles. But on one condition
only, that you let me buy it of you in the ordinary way."
This time the refusal came from the artist. But a second attempt on
Frank's part met with better success.
"You don't understand about the picture," he said. "I really want it
for mercantile reasons. I'll pay you whatever Mrs. Fortescue paid, and
I shall think I've made an excellent bargain, just as she does. People
are talking about you. You'll get double these prices next year. Then
I shall sell my picture and buy some more beer and perhaps give you a
tip. I'm as hard as nails about money: don't you think I'm doing you a
favour. And as a word of general advice, do get rid of a little of your
sickly humility. You're like Uriah Heep. Isn't he Mrs.--Mrs. Heep?"
Mrs. Lathom looked up at him very gravely.
"There is something in what you say, Master Copperfield," she observed.
* * * * *
This morning, after Charles' whistling had been thus peremptorily
stopped, the work went on in silence for some quarter-of-an hour. Then
Frank gave a great shout.
"I've got it," he said, and began scribbling and reading as he
scribbled. "It isn't that you don't believe me, it's that you are
able not to believe me. Yes: that's it, and the British public won't
understand the least what it means, so we'll put 'Long pause.' And then
they will give a great sigh as if they did. Now it's plain sailing."
His face cleared, as the pen began to move more rapidly, and when
Charles looked up at him again, the St Sebastian air left him
altogether.
"You are perfectly useless if you smile in that inane manner," he said.
"Perfectly useless: perfectly useless," said Frank absently.
But soon his inane smile left him: he was in difficulties again, and
Charles greatly prospered.
* * * * *
Frank got up and yawned.
"I'm worked out," he said. "Charles, it's a dog's life. And all the
time I'm not doing it for myself: there's the rub. I've been grinding
here all morning, and have done a couple of pages: if I sit and grind
every day like this for a couple of months perhaps I may get it done.
And then I shall go with my hat in my hand, on bended knee to that old
fat cross-legged Buddha, who sits there sniffing up the incense of our
toil, and say 'Please, Mr. Craddock, will this do? Will you deign to
accept this humble token from your worshipper?'"
"I can hear you say it," said Charles, half shutting his eyes to look
at his work, and not attending to Frank.
Frank jumped up onto the model stand, putting his hand on Charles'
shoulder to steady himself.
"No you can't," said Frank, "because I never shall say it. Charles, I'm
sure that's libellously like me. Shall I bring an action against you
for it, or shall I merely topple you and the stool over onto the floor?"
"Whichever you please. It is pretty like you, you know."
Charles looked up at him.
"But not when you look like that. Why this unwonted good temper?"
"It will soon pass. I think it's because I've done a good bit of work.
Oh, Lord, it will soon pass. All for Craddock, you know. I wish to
heaven I could infect you with some of my detestation of him."
Charles frowned.
"Oh, do give up trying," he said. "It's no use arguing about it. Of
course he's making the devil of a lot of money out of you, and it's
very annoying if you look at that fact alone. But where would you
have been if he hadn't put on 'Easter Eggs' for you? Sleeping beneath
the church-yard sod as like as not. And I daresay he's going to make
something out of me. Well, where would I have been if he hadn't bought
that picture of Reggie, and come to look at my things? In the Sidney
Street garret still. Instead of which----" and Charles waved a paint
brush airily round his studio.
Frank relit his pipe, and began gathering up the débris of his rejected
manuscript.
"You oughtn't to be allowed about alone," he said. "You say 'Kind man!'
too much. You're like a fat baby that says 'Dada' to everybody in the
railway carriage. I tell you people aren't kind men. They want to 'do'
you. They want to get the most they can out of you."
"And you out of them," said Charles.
"Within limits. Kind Craddock hasn't got any limits. Besides, I don't
humbug people."
"Nor does----"
"Well, he tries to. He tried to humbug me, telling me he took such an
interest in me and my work. He didn't: he took an interest in the
money he thought he could make out of it. Oh, it isn't only Craddock:
it's everybody: it's the way the world's made. I'm not sure women
aren't the worst of all. Look at the way they all took me up when
'Easter Eggs' came out. I didn't see why at first. But it's plain
enough now. They thought I should make some more successes--just like
Craddock,--and then I should take them to the theatre and give them
dinner----"
"Oh, bosh," said Charles very loud.
"It's not bosh. The idea that fellows like you have of women is enough
to make one ill. You think they are tender, and self-sacrificing, and
helpless and trustful and loving. Helpless! Good Lord. An ordinary
modern girl is as well able to take care of herself among men as a
Dreadnought among fishing smacks. She sidles along just turning her
screw and then 'Bang, Bang!' she blows them all out of the water if she
doesn't want them, and sucks them in if she does, and lets down a great
grappling iron from her deck and hauls them on board. And when they are
married they are supposed to be clinging and devoted and absorbed in
their husbands and babies. Was there ever such a misconception? Why,
supposing you find a block of women on the pavement opposite a shop,
you may bet ten thousand to one that that shop is a dress-maker's, or
a seller of women's clothes. They stand glued to the glass like flies
on fly paper, thinking how sweet they would look in that eight guinea
walking dress. And when they have to move away they walk with their
heads still looking at the windows, stupefied and fascinated, still
gazing at some dreadful white corset trimmed with lace, or open-work
stockings. And they aren't thinking how ravished their silly Dick or
Harry will be to see them in that new skirt, with the foolish open-work
stockings peeping out below it, they are thinking how ravishing they
will look when other women see them in it, and how greenly jealous
other women will be. If they were thinking of their husbands, they
would be imagining how ravishing darling Dick or Harry would look in
that cheviot tweed. But not they!"
"Oh, put it all into one of your rotten plays," said Charles.
"Not I, thank you. The Dreadnoughts would blow me out of the water.
But I'm saying it to you for your good. You trust people too much, men
and women alike. You go smiling and wagging your tail like a puppy,
thinking that everybody is going to be kind and tender and unselfish.
Especially foolish is your view of women. You've got a sense of
chivalry, and a man with a sense of chivalry always gets left. You're
just as absurd about men too: you think people are nice to you, because
they like you: it is very conceited of you----"
"Oh, I was Uriah Heep not long ago," remarked Charles.
"So you are still. But the truth is that people seem to like one in
order to be able to get something out of one. Who of all men in the
world now is going about saying perfectly fulsome things about me?
Why, that slimy Akroyd, because he is making his fortune out of me. But
he tried to 'do' me all right over the play. Craddock too: I'm told he
is always saying nice things about me. That's because he wants me to
put my very best work into the plays I have got to write for him."
Charles remembered that Craddock had said not altogether nice things
about Frank on one occasion. He often remembered that, but, as often
he remembered also that they were expressly meant for his private ear.
The fact lurked always in his mind, in the shadow into which he had
deliberately pushed it.
"And here we are back at Craddock," he said.
"Yes. Oh, by the way, Charles, I saw a flame of yours last night, a
very old flame in fact, Lady Crowborough. I daresay you would have
thought she was being tender and solicitous about you. I thought that
she was merely extremely inquisitive."
"About me?" said Charles.
"Yes. She wanted to know all I could tell her about you. She reminded
me of somebody wanting to engage a servant from a previous employer."
Charles looked thoroughly puzzled.
"Lady Crowborough?" he asked again. "About me?"
"Yes, I've already said so. What's the matter?"
Charles had risen, and came across to where Frank sat in the window
seat. Into his head there had instantaneously flashed the episode of
his proposing himself to go down to the Mill House to look at his
Reynolds' copy, and the inexplicable letter of Mr. Wroughton's.
"Nothing's the matter," he said, sitting down close to Frank. "But
please tell me just all you can. Did you ask her why she wanted to
know?"
"Not I. It was perfectly clear that somebody had been gently hinting
things about you. But I told her a good deal."
Frank's face grew quite gentle and affectionate.
"I told her you were the best chap in the world," he said. "That's
about what it came to. I think I made her believe it too."
Then hurrying away from anything approaching to sentiment,
"Of course we have to lie on behalf of a friend," he said briskly. "I
daresay she wanted to be sure she could trust herself in your studio
without a chaperone."
Charles did not smile at this.
"But you think some one has been telling damned lies about me?" he
asked.
"Probably. Why not? And what does it matter? Don't be upset, Charles.
I wish I hadn't told you. At least I don't think I do. It may convince
you that there's somebody in the world not set to a hymn-tune. Now do
dress, and you will then come and lunch with me in my flat, and you
may be able to hear Craddock walking about overhead. That'll make you
happy, and you can get a step-ladder and kiss the ceiling!"
But there was another idea now that had to be put in the shadow of
Charles' mind. It was far uglier than the first and had to be poked
away in the darkest of recesses.
* * * * *
As soon as money had begun at all to flow his way last autumn, Charles
had hounded his mother (as she put it) out of her disgusting rooms (so
he put it) in Sidney Street, and had established her modestly indeed
but comfortably in Grieve's Crescent not far from his new studio.
To-night he was going to dine at home, and he looked forward to the
serenity that always seemed as much a part of her as her hands or her
hair, as a man after a hot and dusty day may look forward to a cool
bath. Pictures that were candidates for the Academy had to be sent in
before the end of this week, and he had spent an industrious afternoon
working steadily at the background and accessories in his portrait of
Frank. Craddock had advised him to send this, and the portraits of his
mother and Mrs. Fortescue to the august tribunal, and had promised to
speak helpful words, if such were necessary, in authoritative ears. But
to-day the joy of painting had wholly deserted him, and as he worked,
his conscious mind occupied with light and shadow, his unconscious mind
had done a great deal of meditation, and the disagreeable objects he
had so loyally stuffed away in the dark, seemed gambolling there like
cats, active and alert. Every now and then one or other seemed to leap
out of the shadow and confront him, and with Frank's face always before
him on the canvas, they seemed in some nightmare sort of fashion to
be using their mask of paint to communicate with him. It was as if
Frank knew all that Charles had been so careful not to tell him ...
it was as if he said "Oh, he warned you against me, did he? That was
so like him." Worse still Frank seemed to say, "And he's warned other
people against you. That's why you weren't welcome at the Mill House.
He wanted to cut you off from the Wroughtons. I wonder why: what motive
can he have had?... Look for a bad one. Let me see, wasn't there a
girl? Why, yes, I bet she is the girl among the forget-me-nots. What
a liar you are, Charles! You always said it was a picture out of your
head. Are you a rival, do you think?"
All afternoon this sort of vague unspoken monologue rang in his
ears. Again and again he pulled himself up, knowing that these were
conversations internal to himself, not to be indulged in, but the
moment his conscious and superficial mind was occupied again with his
craft they began again.
There were other voices mixed with them ... he almost heard Lady
Crowborough say "five thousand pounds for a lick of paint." He almost
heard Reggie say "drew a cheque for ten thousand and one hundred
pounds."... And again he pulled himself up, he felt that he would be
suspecting his mother next for overcharging him for board and lodging.
It was all Frank's fault, with his cynical false views about the
rottenness of mankind.
For once Charles felt glad that the light was beginning to fail, and
that he could honestly abandon work. But before he left his studio he
turned Joyce's picture round to the light, and stood looking at it for
a moment.
"I can't and won't believe it," he said.
There was still an hour to spare before he need go home to dinner, and
he bustled out for a walk in the Park in the fading day. Spring was
languorous in the air, but triumphantly victorious in the spaces of
grass, where she marched with daffodils and crocuses for the banner
of her advancing vanguard. The squibs of green leaves had burst from
their red sheaths on the limes, and planes were putting forth tentative
and angled hands, as if groping and feeling their way, still drowsy
from the winter's slumber, into the air, under the provocation of the
compelling month. All this did Charles good: he liked the sense of the
silent plants, all expanding according to their own law, minding their
own business which was just to grow and blossom, and not warning each
other of the untrustworthiness of their neighbours. Frank ought to be
planted out here, with a gag in his clever mouth, and an archangel or
two to inject into his acidulated veins the milk of human kindness....
Charles smiled at the idea: he would make a cartoon of it on a postcard
and send it to him.
And then suddenly his heart hammered and stood still, and out of his
brain were driven all the thoughts and suspicions that he had been
stifling all day. Frank and his cynicism, Craddock and his clung-to
kindnesses, his art, his mother, his dreams and deeds were all blown
from him as the awakening of an untamed wind by night blows from a
sultry sky the sullen and low-hung clouds, leaving the ray of stars
celestial to make the darkness bright and holy again, and down the
broad path towards him came Joyce. Until she had got quite close to him
she did not see him, but then she stopped suddenly, and suddenly and
sweetly he saw the unmanageable colour rise in her face and knew that
in his own the secret signal answered hers.
"Oh, Mr. Lathom," she said, "is it you? Grandmamma telegraphed for me
to come up this morning: I am here for a night."
"Not ill, I hope?" said Charles.
Joyce laughed.
"No, I am glad to say. She was not in when I got to her house, and I
had to come out.... Spring, you know."
Their eyes met in a long glance, and Charles drew a long breath.
"I discovered it ten minutes ago," he said. "Spring, just Spring: month
of April."
For another long moment they stood there, face to face, spring round
them and below and above them, and in them. Then Joyce pointed to the
grass.
"Oh, the fullest wood!" she said. "I don't know why Grannie sent for
me. I must be getting back. I am late already: is there a taxi, do you
think?"
Charles' ill-luck prevailed: there was, and he put her into it, and
stood there looking after its retreat. As it turned the corner not
fifty yards away out of the Park most distinctly did he see Joyce lean
forward and look out.... And though not one atom of his ill-defined
troubles or suspicions was relieved, he walked on air all the way home
instead of wading through some foul resistant stickiness of mud.... The
great star, the only star that really mattered, had shone on him again,
not averting its light.
But though he walked on air, the mud was still there.
* * * * *
"A visitor to tea, Charles. I wish you had been home earlier. Three
guesses."
"Mother lies," remarked Reggie. "You do--you enjoyed being asked those
things. That would never have happened if Charles had been at home."
This was rather like the uncomfortable though not uncommon phenomenon
of feeling that the scene now being enacted had taken place before.
Charles experienced this vividly at the moment.
"My first guess and last is Lady Crowborough," he said. "Right, I
fancy."
"Near enough," said Reggie. "And her questions?"
Charles felt himself descend into the mud again. It closed stiffly
about him, and he thrust something back into the darkness of his mind.
"Perfectly simple," he said. "She wanted to know exactly all about me,
as if--as if she was going to engage me as a servant, and was making
enquiries into my character."
"Very clever. How was it done?" asked Reggie.
"Never mind. It is done, isn't it, mother?"
"Yes, dear, but how did you know?"
"It had to be so, that is all. Oh, I've had a tiresome day all but
about half a minute of it. And my portraits have to go in before the
end of the week, and they will all be rejected."
"Dear, there's not much conviction in your voice," observed Mrs.
Lathom. "Aren't you being Uriah-ish, as Mr. Armstrong says?"
"Probably. But Frank was sitting to me this morning, and his tirades
put me out of joint. The worst of it is ..."
He had stuck fast again in the slough, and again things with dreadful
faces and evil communications on tongue-tip looked at him from the
darkness. The sight of Reggie also had given birth to others: there
they stood in a dim and lengthening line, waiting for his nod to come
out into the open.
"You may as well let us know the worst," said Reggie encouragingly. "I
can't bear the suspense. What is it Akroyd says: 'It--it kills me.'
That's over the fourth turning. Much the funniest. What did Frank
tirade about, Charles? I wish I had been there. I love hearing his
warnings about the whole human race. It makes me wonder, when I can't
account for a sixpence, whether you haven't taken it out of my trousers
pockets while I was asleep."
"I suppose that's the sort of thing you really enjoy thinking about,"
said Charles savagely.
"Yes: it's so interesting. Sometimes I think you are rather bad for
Frank. He said to me the other day 'You can always trust Charles.' I
asked him if he didn't feel well. It wasn't like him."
Mrs. Lathom got up. It was perfectly evident that something worried
Charles, and it was possible he might like to talk alone either with
Reggie or her. If she took herself upstairs, Charles could join her,
and leave his brother, or wait with him here, if he was to be the
chosen depository.
"Don't be too long, boys," she said, going out.
Charles did not at once show any sign of the desire to consult, and
Reggie, who had left Thistleton's Gallery in the winter, and obtained
a clerkship in a broker's office in the city, politely recounted a
witticism or two from the Stock Exchange, with a view to reconciling
his brother to the human race. They fell completely flat, and Charles
sat frowning and silent, blowing ragged rings of smoke.
At length he got up.
"Reggie, I've been worried all day," he said, "and seeing you has put
another worry into my mind."
Reggie linked his arm in his brother's.
"I'm so sorry, Charles," he said, "and I've been babbling goatishly on.
Why didn't you stop me? Nothing I've done to worry you, I hope?"
Reggie went anxiously over in his mind a variety of small adventurous
affairs ... but there was nothing that should cause the eclipse of his
brother's spirits.
"No, it doesn't concern you in any way, except as regards your memory.
If you aren't perfectly certain about a couple of points I want to ask
you, say so."
"Well?"
"The first is this. Do you remember last June an American called Ward
drawing a cheque at your desk at Thistleton's? I want you to tell me
all that you remember about it."
Reggie leaned his arm on the chimneypiece.
"Ward and Craddock came out together," he said after a pause.
"Ward asked for my pen and drew a cheque for five thousand pounds,
post-dating it by a day or two. I'm not sure how long----"
"It doesn't matter," said Charles. "The cheque----"
"The cheque was for some Dutch picture he had bought. There was a Van
der Weyde, I think----"
"But Dutch pictures? You never told me that. Are you sure?"
"Quite. Is that all? And what's wrong?"
Charles was silent a moment. One of the figures in the shadow leapt out
of it, and seemed to nod recognition at him.
"No, there's one thing more. Didn't the same sort of affair happen
again?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, much later: I should say in October. Ward did exactly the
same thing, drew another cheque out at my desk, I mean, for rather an
odd sum. What was it? Ten thousand, ten thousand and something--ten
thousand one hundred I think. He drew it to Craddock as before. Yes,
I'm sure it was for that. But how does it all concern you? Or why does
it worry you? May I know, Charles?"
Charles wondered whether his horrible inference was somehow quite
unsound, whether to another his interpretation would seem ingenious
indeed, but laughably fantastic. He felt he knew what Frank would make
of it, but to Reggie the whole affair might seem of purely imaginary
texture.
"Yes, I'll tell you," he said. "And I can't say how I long to find that
you think I am suspicious and devilishly-minded. The facts are these.
Craddock paid Mr. Wroughton five thousand pounds for his Reynolds,
giving him a cheque of Ward's who purchased it. But you tell me this
cheque was for Dutch pictures. The picture did not go to him till
much later, I don't know when. And Craddock gave me fifty pounds for
copying it. Do you see? What if--if Ward gave Craddock a cheque for ten
thousand pounds for the picture with a hundred for me for the copy?
Now, am I worse than Frank, more suspicious, more--more awful?"
Reggie was staring at him with wide-open eyes and shook his head.
"No," he said. "It sounds, it sounds--but surely it's impossible."
"Oh, I'm tired of saying that to myself. By the way, don't say a word
to anyone. There are other things too. Oh, Reggie, can't you think of
any explanation that is at all reasonable?"
Again Reggie shook his head.
"No," he said. "The first cheque was for some Dutch pictures."
"Well, let's go upstairs," said the other.
Later in the evening when Mrs. Lathom went to bed, Charles followed her
up to her room, and sat down in front of her fire while she brushed her
hair. It was not rarely that he did this and these minutes were to him
a sort of confessional. Generally, the confession was a mere babble of
happy talk, concerning his pictures, and his projects, but to-night he
sat silent until the hair-brushing was nearly over. Then he spoke.
"Mother, darling," he said, "I saw Miss Joyce this evening, and--and
she was jolly and friendly and natural. It lifted me up out of--what
is it--out of the mire and clay. But I've gone back again, oh, much
deeper. I want your advice."
She instantly got up, and came across to him. He put her in his chair,
and sat down on the rug by her, leaning against her knees.
"Ah, I'm so glad, my darling," she said, "that you want to tell me
what's wrong. These are my jewels."
"I can't tell you explicitly what is wrong. But I suspect someone whom
I have always trusted immensely. Who has been very good to me, of--of
swindling, and perhaps worse. What am I to do?"
She stroked his hair.
"Oh, my dear, if it is only suspicion dismiss it all from your mind or
make a certainty of it one way or the other."
"But how?"
"I can't be sure without knowing the facts. But if your suspicion is
reasonable, if, I mean, you can see no other explanation except the
bad one, go as soon as you can to anyone who can give you certain
information. But if there's a loophole for doubt----"
"I don't see that there is," said Charles quickly.
"Then make certain somehow and quickly," she said. "Not in a hurry,
of course, for you must not act foolishly, but as soon as you can
with wisdom. Oh, Charles, we can none of us risk keeping suspicion in
our minds! There is nothing so poisoning to oneself. It--it shuts the
wisdom of your soul: it turns everything sour; it spreads like some
dreadful contagion, and infects all within us, so that there is no
health left, or sense of beauty, or serenity. It is like walking in a
cloud of flies. But, my dear, unless your suspicion is--is terribly
well founded, don't give it another thought, if you can possibly avoid
it. Be very certain that you can't explain things away otherwise."
Charles turned a shining face to her, shining for her through all his
trouble.
"Thanks, mother darling," he said. "It really is a beastly position.
And I'm such a coward."
"So are we all, dear," she said. "But most of us don't turn back
really. Perhaps we aren't such cowards as we think. It is so easy to
make the worst of oneself."
Charles got up.
"Yes, but I'm pretty bad," he said.
"I know, dear. You are a continual sorrow and trouble to me. Ah, bless
you! And you saw Joyce. That's something, isn't it?"
"Well, a good deal," said he. "Good-night. I must get back home."
Charles had labelled himself coward, and indeed, as in the manner of
youth, whose function so clearly in this life is to enjoy, he shrank
from pain instinctively, not seeing beyond the present discomfort,
but living in the moment. Yet it was not his bravery that was here
attacked: it was at his trust that the blow at which he cowered was
aimed, at the confidence in his fellows which was so natural to him.
As he lay tossing and turning that night, he could not imagine himself
taking the only step that seemed to be able to decide his suspicions,
which was to go to Craddock himself with the whole history of them.
There was just one other chance, namely, that Lady Crowborough's
purpose in making these inexplicable enquiries about him might declare
itself. That in a manner ruthlessly convincing would settle everything,
if her purpose was that which he could not but surmise. And at the
thought he felt his face burn with a flame of anger, at the possibility
of so monstrous an explanation. Yet all this agitating thought was just
the secret nurture and suckling of suspicion against which his mother
had warned him. How right she was: how the poison encroached and spread!
Frank turned up early next morning for his final sitting, with an evil
eye and a brisk demeanour.
"A plan at last," he announced, "a real plan, and a good plot for a
play. It's all quite serious, and I'm going to do it. It's taken me
five months to puzzle it out, and last night it all burst upon me. New
play of mine, which I shall begin working at immediately. I'm stale
over the other, and this will be a change. I daresay Craddock will like
it so much that he will ask me to put the other aside a bit. You see
it's about Craddock. He's an egotist, you see: he will like that."
Charles was touched on the raw.
"Oh, do leave him alone, Frank," he said with a sudden appeal, as it
were, to his own vanished confidence. "We disagree about him, you know,
as we settled yesterday. It isn't really very nice of you to abuse a
man who's a friend of mine."
"Nor is it nice of you to stick up for an enemy of mine," remarked
Frank. "You should respect my dislike just as much as I should respect
your affection. As you never do, I shall proceed."
Charles packed himself on his painting-stool. He could at least try to
absorb himself in his work, for the sake of stifling his own thoughts
even more than for distracting them from what Frank said.
"Rumple your hair," he said, "and stop still."
"I'm going to submit the scenario to Craddock this evening if I can
see him," he said, obligingly rubbing up his hair. "Golly, it's a good
plot. I've really only thought out the first two acts, but that will be
enough for him to judge by. It's called 'The Middleman.' There's a lot
in a title."
Charles sighed.
"You needn't groan," he said. "I can tell it you. He's a great big fat
chap, popular and wealthy and hearty, engaged to a delightful girl.
Then it comes out that he sweats young men of genius, you and me, of
course, takes them up when they are unknown, and gets options on their
future works. Isn't that it?"
"'Where's the plot then?' You don't see the hang of it. One of those
young men of genius, that's me, goes to him in the play with a play of
which what you have just said is the sketch--Hamlet's not in it any
more--and says, 'Now let me out of these options of yours, or I shall
write a play like that.' And then it will faintly dawn on Craddock
that the play is really happening to him and that in real life, that I
shall do exactly what the young man of genius says he will do. Do you
see? Simultaneously another of the young men of genius, that's you--you
can be in love with 'The Middleman's' girl, says 'I'm going to paint a
portrait called the Middleman, a great big fat chap, with gold dust on
his coat collar. There's a play called the Middleman coming out at the
same time: you may have heard of it. Now will you let me out of your
options?' The Middleman in a burst of righteous indignation exclaims
'This is a conspiracy.' And they both say 'It is a conspiracy. What
then?' He's in rather a hole, isn't he?"
Charles did not answer.
"You're an ungrateful dog, Charles," said Frank, "it gets you out of
your options too. That shall be part of my bargain. I really am going
to Craddock with that scenario. There's no third act, it is true,
but he will give me credit for thinking of something spicy. Tranby
would take that sort of play like a shot. Craddock has 'done' me.
Why shouldn't I 'do' him? Do those whom you've been done by. A very
Christian sentiment, and an application of abstract justice."
Charles put down his palette and got off his stool. There was a
Frank-ish, a fiendish ingenuity about this, which, in ordinary mental
weather, so to speak, with a gleam of sun on his own part to give
sparkle to the east wind of it, could not have failed to make brisk
talking. But to-day with his nightmare of doubt swarming bat-like round
him, he found no humour but only horror in it.
"Sometimes I hardly think you're human, Frank," he said. "If you really
believe Craddock is a swindler, how can you make jokes about it? If
it was true, it would be too terrible to speak of. But you believe
it is true, and yet you dwell on it, and gloat on it. I think you're
a sort of devil, rubbing your hands when you see poor souls damning
themselves."
"Hullo!" said Frank, rather startled by this.
"It's no good saying 'hullo.' It isn't news to you," said Charles,
standing in front of the fire, flushed and troubled and looking younger
than ever. "I've often told you I hate your attitude towards Craddock.
It hurts me to hear a jolly good friend of mine abused, and you're
continually doing it."
It would have required a prodigiously dull fellow not to see that there
was something serious at the bottom of this. For all Frank's cynicism,
for all the armoured hardness with which he met the world, there was
just one person for whom he felt an affection, a protective tenderness
that he was half-ashamed of, and yet cherished and valued more than any
of the other tinned foods, so to speak, in his spiritual larder. It had
fragrance, the freshness of dew on it.... He got up, and put his hands
on Charles' shoulders.
"Charles, old chap," he said. "You never told me in that voice, you
know."
Charles shook his head.
"I know I didn't," he said. "I never felt it in--in that voice before.
But I do now. I can't bear the thought of anybody I know cheating and
swindling and lying. Suppose I found out that you had been cheating me,
or blackguarding me, should I be able to laugh about it, do you think,
or sketch out a damned little play to read to you, which would show you
up?"
"Yes, but you always say that Craddock's been so good to you," said
Frank. "Till now, you have always half laughed at me when I slanged
him. And who has been blackguarding you, I should like to know? What
does that mean? Or ... or are you referring to what Lady Crowborough
asked me? I talked some rot about the explanation being that some one
had been abusing you."
Charles grasped at this rather appealingly.
"Yes, it was rot, wasn't it, Frank?" he said.
"Of course it was. Charles, I never dreamed it would stick in your mind
like this--but what has that got to do with Craddock and his nimble
option?"
Charles interrupted clamourously.
"Nothing, nothing at all!" he said. "I've got the blues, the hump, the
black cat, what you please. Now be a good chap, and don't think any
more about it. I want to finish your hair. It won't take long."
* * * * *
The interrupted sitting had not been in progress many minutes before
the telephone-bell stung the silence, and Charles went to it where it
hung in a corner of the studio. A very few words appeased that black
round open mouth and Charles put back the receiver. Frank noticed that
his hands were a little unsteady.
"Craddock's coming down here almost immediately, Frank," he said. "He's
bringing a man called Ward with him, for whom I copied Wroughton's
Reynolds."
"Customer, I hope," said Frank. "What do you want me to do, Charles?"
Charles flared out at this with the uncontrolled irritability of his
jangled nerves.
"Stop here, and behave like a gentleman, I hope," he said. If any other
man in the world had said that he would assuredly have found the most
convenient hard object in full flight for his head.
"All right, old boy," said Frank.
* * * * *
Craddock arrived not a quarter of an hour later, with Mr. Ward. He
was in the height of cheerful spirits, having, only an hour before,
disposed of his entire lunatic asylum of post-Impressionist pictures to
a friend of Ward's whose ambition it was to spend as much as possible
over the embellishment, in a manner totally unprecedented and unique,
of his house in New York. The dining-room was called the Inferno; it
had black walls with a frieze of real skulls.... The floor of the
drawing-room was on a steep slant, and all the tables and chairs
had two short and two long legs in order to keep their occupants
and appurtenances on the horizontal. It was for this room, brightly
described to him by the owner, that the post-Impressionists were
designed, and Craddock, in sympathy with his client's conviction that
they were predestined for it, had put an enormous price on them, and
the bargain had been instantly completed. After that he cheerfully gave
up an hour to do Charles this good turn of taking Mr. Ward down to his
studio, and on the way he found himself hoping that the picture of Mrs.
Lathom had not yet gone in to the Academy. On the way, too, he gave the
patron a short résumé.
"I think you never saw young Lathom when he was at your work on your
Reynolds," he said. "You will find him a charming young fellow, and
he, as soon as the Academy opens this year, will find himself famous.
He will leap at one bound to the top of his profession. I strongly
recommend you to get him to do a portrait of you now, in fact. His
charge for a full length at present is only four hundred pounds.
However, here we are, and you will judge for yourself on the value of
his work."
Craddock made himself peculiarly amiable to Frank, while Ward looked
at the portraits in the studio. Before the one of Charles' mother, he
stopped a long time, regarding it steadily through his glasses. He was
a spare middle-aged man, grey on the temples, rather hawk-like in face,
with a low very pleasant voice. From it he looked at Charles and back
again.
"You may be proud to have your mother's blood in you, Mr. Lathom," he
said, "and I daresay she's not ashamed of you. I wish I'd got you to
copy some more pictures for me at a hundred pounds apiece."
Craddock had given up wasting amiability on that desert of a
playwright, and was standing close to the other two. Quite
involuntarily Charles glanced at him, and he had one moment's remote
uneasiness ... he could not remember if he had given Charles a hundred
pounds or not. But it really was of no importance. Should Charles say
anything, what was easier than to look into so petty a mistake and
rectify it? But Charles said nothing whatever.
Ward turned and saw Craddock close to him.
"I was saying to Mr. Lathom," he said, "that there were no more full
length copies to be had for a hundred pounds, any more than there are
any more original Reynolds of that calibre to be had for what I gave
for Mr. Wroughton's."
"What did you give?" asked Charles deliberately. He felt his heart beat
in his throat as he waited for the answer.
"Well, don't you tell anyone, Mr. Lathom," he said, "but I got it for
ten thousand pounds. But I've felt ever since as if I had been robbing
Mr. Wroughton."
This time Charles did not look at Mr. Craddock at all.
"Yes, I suppose that's cheap," he said, "considering what an enormous
price a fine Reynolds fetches."
"Yes: now I suppose, Mr. Lathom, that portrait of your mother is
not for sale. I am building, I may tell you, a sort of annex, or
Luxembourg, to my picture gallery at Berta, entirely for modern
artists. I should like to see that there: I should indeed."
Charles smiled.
"You must talk over that with Mr. Craddock," he said. "It belongs to
him."
"You may be sure I will. And now I should be very grateful to you if
you could find time and would consent to record--" Mr. Ward had a
certain native redundancy--"to record at full length your impression
of my blameless but uninteresting person. Your price, our friend tells
me, is four hundred pounds, and I shall think I am making a very good
bargain if you will execute your part of the contract."
* * * * *
Charles saw Craddock, from where he stood, just behind Mr. Ward, give
him an almost imperceptible nod, to confirm this valuation. If he had
not seen that it is very likely that he would have accepted this offer
without correction. As it was that signal revolted him. It put him into
partnership with ... with the man in whose studio he now stood. Now and
for all future time there could be nothing either secret or manifest
between them.
"You have made a mistake about the price," he said to Ward. "I only
charge two hundred for a portrait. I shall be delighted to paint you
for that."
From a little way off he heard Frank make the noise which is written
"Tut," and he saw a puzzled look cross Craddock's face, who just
shrugged his shoulders, and turned on his heel.
"I am very busy for the rest of this week," said Charles, "but after
that I shall be free."
He glanced at Craddock, who had moved away, and was looking at the
portrait of Mrs. Fortescue.
"I am changing my studio," said Charles in a low voice. "I will send
you my new address."
Craddock did not hear this, but Frank did. It seemed to him, with his
quick wits, to supply a key to certain things Charles had said that
morning. He felt no doubt of it.
Mr. Ward involved himself in a somewhat flowery speech of _congé_.
"Next week will suit me admirably," he said, "and I shall think it an
honour to sit to you. The only thing that does not quite satisfy me is
the question of price. You must allow me at some future time to refer
to that again. The picture I may tell you is designed to be a birthday
present for Mrs. Ward, and though the intrinsic merit of the picture, I
am sure, will be such that the donor--" he became aware that he could
never get out of this labyrinth, and so burst, so to speak, through
the hedge--"well, we must talk about it. And now I see I have already
interrupted a sitting, and will interrupt no longer. Mr. Craddock, I
shall take you away to have some conversation in our taxi about that
picture of Mr. Lathom's mother."
Charles saw them to the door, and came back to Frank.
"I suppose you guess," he said. "Well, you've guessed right."
He threw himself into a chair.
"He has swindled Mr. Wroughton," he said. "He has swindled me, me, of a
paltry wretched fifty pounds, which is worse, meaner than the other."
"And Mr. Wroughton?" asked Frank.
"He gave him five thousand for the Reynolds, receiving ten. That's not
so despicable: there's some point in that. But to save fifty pounds,
when he was giving me this studio, getting me commissions, doing
everything for me! There's that damned telephone: see who it is, will
you?"
Frank went to the instrument.
"Lady Crowborough," he said. "She wants to see you particularly, very
particularly. Can you go to her house at three?"
"Yes," said Charles.
He got up from his chair, white and shaking.
"There may be something worse, Frank," he said. "She may have something
to tell, much worse than this. Good God, I wish I had never seen him."
Frank came back across the studio to Charles.
"Charles, old chap," he said, "I've often told you there are swindlers
in the world, and you've run up against one. Well, face it, don't wail."
Charles turned a piteous boyish face to him.
"But it hurts!" he said.
He paused a moment
"My father killed himself," he said, "because he had gambled everything
away, and none of us knew, nor suspected. That's where it hurts, Frank.
It's not anything like that, of course, but somehow it's the old place."
"We've all got an old place," said Frank. "Wounds? Good Lord, I could
be a gaping mass of wounds if I sat down and encouraged myself. Buck
up! And if you find there's anything to be done, or talked about, well,
ring me up, won't you? Now, you're not going to sit here and mope. You
are coming straight off with me to have lunch. There's nothing like
food and drink when one is thoroughly upset. And afterwards I shall
leave you at the house of that very mature siren."
Suddenly it occurred to Charles that Joyce was staying with her, or
at any rate had done so last night. Till then his first outpouring of
amazed disgust had caused him to forget that.... And it is a fact that
he ate a very creditable lunch indeed.