After lunch Frank and Margery went down to the river and cruised about
in a little boat, exploring, as they had explored a hundred times
before, the unexpected but well-known little creeks which ran up
between the hummocks of the broad-backed hills, shut in and shadowed
by delicate-leaved beech-trees. When the tide was high it was possible
to get some way up into these wooded retreats, and by remaining
very still, or going quickly and silently round a corner, you might
sometimes catch sight of a kingfisher flashing up from the shallows
and darting along the lane of flecked sunlight like a jewel flung
through the air. There had been a frost, the first of the year, the
night before, and the broad-leaved docks and hemlocks lining the banks
had still drops of moisture on their leaves like pearls or moon-stones
_semées_ on to green velvet. The woods had taken a deeper autumnal tint
in the last two days, and already the five-ribbed chestnut leaves,
the first of all to fall, were lying scattered on the ground. Every
now and then a rabbit scuttled away to seek the protection of thicker
undergrowth, or a young cock pheasant, as yet unmolested, stood and
looked at the intruders.
Margery was surprised to find how great the relief of getting Frank
away from his picture was. The horrible guilty look on the portrait's
face, and, more than that, the knowledge that it was a terribly true
realization of her husband's expression, disturbed her more than she
liked to admit even to herself.
But nothing, she determined--not if all the ghosts out of the
_Decameron_ sat in her husband's eyes--should make her abandon her
resolution of compelling Frank to finish it. She did not believe in
occult phenomena of this description; no painting of any portrait
could alter the painter's nature. To get tired and anxious was not the
same as losing your personality; the first, if one was working well
and hard, was inevitable; the second was impossible, it was nonsense.
Decidedly she did not believe in the possibility of his losing his
personality. But with all her resolutions to the contrary, she could
not help wondering what the other fear, which she had forbidden him
to tell her, was. Vaguely in her own mind she connected it with that
strange shudder she had felt when she saw him the night before; and
quite irrelevantly, as it seemed to her, the image came into her mind
of something hidden rising to the surface--of the sea giving up its
dead....
It was on this point alone she distrusted herself and all the
resolutions she had made. She did not yet know clearly what she feared,
but she realized dimly that there was a possibility of its becoming
clearer to her, and that when it became clearer she would have to
decide afresh. At present her one desire was that he should finish the
portrait, and finish it as quickly as possible. But at any rate she had
Frank with her now, as she had known him and loved him all their life
together. That love she would not risk, but at present she did not see
where the risk could come in. With her, and away from the portrait, he
was again completely himself. He looked tired and was rather silent,
and often when she turned from her place in the bow (where she was
looking for concealed snags or roots in the water) to him, as he punted
the boat quietly along with an oar, for the stream was narrow to row
in, she saw him standing still, oar in hand, looking at her, and when
their eyes met he smiled.
"It is like that first afternoon we were here, Margy, isn't it?" he
said on one of these occasions. "Do you remember? We got here on a
September morning, after travelling all night from London, and after
lunch we came up this very creek."
"Yes, Frank, and I feel just as I did then."
"What did you feel?"
"Why--why, that I had got you all to myself at last, and that I did
not care about anything else."
"Ah, my God!" cried Frank, suddenly.
"What is it?" asked she.
Frank ran the boat into a little hollow made in the side of the creek
by a small stream, now nearly summer dry, and came and sat down on the
bank just above her.
"Margy dear," he said, "I want to ask you something quite soberly. I
am not excited nor overwrought in any way, am I? I am quite calm and
sensible. It is not as if that horrible thing were with us. It is about
that I want to talk to you--about the picture. All this morning, as I
told you, I knew I ought not to go on with it, but I went on because it
had a terrible evil fascination for me. And now, too, I know I ought
not to go on with it. It is wicked. This morning I thought of that
afternoon we spent here before, and I knew I was sacrificing that. Then
I did not care, but now you are all the world to me, as you always have
been except when I am with that thing. It was that first day we came
here to this very spot that was fixed in my mind. And now we are here
in the same place, and on just such another day, let us talk about it."
"Oh, Frank, don't be a coward," said Margery, appealingly. "You know
exactly what I think about it. Of course all my inclination goes with
you, but, but--"
She raised herself from the boat and put her hand on his knee.
"Frank, you don't doubt me, do you? There is nothing in the world I
could weigh against you and your love, but we must be reasonable. If
you had a very strong presentiment that you would be drowned as we
sailed home I should very likely be dreadfully uncomfortable, but I
wouldn't have you walk back instead for anything. There are many things
of which we know nothing--presentiments, fears, all the horrors, in
fact--and it would be like children to take them into our reckoning or
let them direct us. It is for your sake, not mine, that I want you to
go on with that portrait. If I followed my inclination I should say,
'Tear it up and let us sit here together for ever and ever.'"
Frank leaned forward and spoke entreatingly.
"Margy, tell me to tear it up--ah, do, dear, and you may do with me
whatever you wish--only tell me to destroy it!"
Margery shook her head hopelessly.
"Don't disappoint me, Frank," she said. "I care for nothing in the
world compared to you; but what reason could I give for doing this? I
think you often get excited and upset over your work, but that is worth
while, because you do good work and you are not permanently upset. You
wouldn't give up being an artist for that. And if I saw any reason for
telling you to stop this, I would do it. It is because I care for you
and all your possibilities that I tell you to go on with it."
Margery thought for a moment of the portrait and the terrible likeness
it bore to her husband, and she hesitated. But no; the whole thing was
too fantastic, too vague. She did not even know what she was afraid of.
"It isn't the pleasant or the easy course I am taking," she continued.
"That wasn't a pleasant look on your face when you shouted at me to
give you your palette this morning?"
Frank looked puzzled.
"What did I do?" he asked. "When did I shout at you?"
"This morning, just before we came out. You shouted awfully loud, and
you looked like Macbeth. It is just because I don't want you to look
like Macbeth permanently that I insist on your going on with it. I want
you to get Macbeth out of your system. That fantastic idea of yours,
that you would run a risk, was the original cause of all this nonsense,
and when you have finished the picture and seen that you have run no
risk, you will know that I am right."
Frank stood up.
"To-morrow may be too late," he said. "Do you really tell me to go on
with it?"
"Frank, dear, don't be melodramatic. You were just as nice as you could
be all the way up here. Yes, I tell you to go on with it."
Frank's arms dropped by his side, and for a moment he stood quite
still. The leaves whispered in the trees, and the rippling stream
tapped against the boat. Then for a moment the breeze dropped, and the
boat swung round with the current. The water made no sound against
it as it moved slowly round, and there was silence--tense, absolute
silence.
Then Margery lay back in the boat and laughed. Her laugh sounded
strange in her own ears.
"I am sure this is one of the occasions on which we ought to hear only
the beating of our own hearts; but, as a matter of fact, I don't. Come,
Frank, don't stand there like a hop-pole."
Frank slowly let his eyes rest on her, but he did not answer her smile.
Margery paused a moment.
"Come," she said again, "let us go a little higher. There is plenty of
water."
Frank pushed the boat out from the bank and jumped in.
"Then it is all over," he said. "I must go home at once. I must get on
with the portrait immediately. I cannot last if I am not quick. There's
no time to lose, Margy. Please let me get back at once."
He paused a moment.
"Margy, give me one kiss, will you?" he said. "Perhaps, perhaps-- Ah,
my darling, cannot you do what I ask?"
He had raised himself and clung round her neck, kissing her again and
again. But she, afraid of yielding, afraid of sacrificing her reason
even to that she loved best in the world, unwound his arms.
"No, Frank, I have said I cannot. Oh, my dear, don't you understand?
Frank, Frank!"
But he shook his head and took up the oar.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" she asked, after a moment, seeing he did
not look at her again. "What time is it?"
"I don't know," said Frank, quickly. "I only know that if I am to
finish it I must finish it at once. It will take us nearly an hour to
get home, and it is too dark to work after five."
The wind, since that sudden lull, had blown only fitfully by gusts,
and by the time they had emerged into the estuary it had died out
altogether.
"The wind has dropped," said he. "The winds and the stars fight against
me. We sha'n't be able to sail."
He took up the sculls, and rowed as if he were rowing a race.
"What's the matter?" asked Margery. "Why are you in such a hurry? It is
not late."
"You don't understand," he said. "There is a hurry. I must get back.
Oh, why can't you understand? I must have you or it, and you--you have
given me up."
"Frank, what do you mean?" asked Margery, bewilderedly.
"You have given me up for it--it, that painted horror you saw,
that--that-- Margery, do listen to me just once more. You don't
understand, dear, but I don't mind that. Only trust me; only tell me to
stop painting it--to destroy it!"
He leaned on his oars a moment, waiting for her answer.
"What is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why do you speak to me
like that? What nonsense it all is! I can't advise you to give it up
because I think it much better for you that you should go on with it."
He waited for her answer, and then bent to the oars again. The green
water hissed by them as the light boat cut through the calm surface.
Margery was sitting in the stern managing the rudder, and it required
all her nerve to guide the boat among the rocks that stood out from the
shallower water. Frank's terrible earnestness troubled her, but it did
not shake her resolution. Look at it what way she might, her deliberate
conclusion was that it was better he should go on with it. There was
no reason--there really was no reason why he should not, and there was
every reason why he should. She wondered if he had better see a doctor.
That he was in good health two days ago she knew for certain, but the
mind can react upon the body, and his mind was certainly out of sorts.
However, she had decided that the best ultimate cure for his mind was
to finish the picture, and she determined to let things be.
"When will it be done?" she asked, after a pause.
"To-morrow," said Frank, without stopping rowing, "and the part that is
important will be done to-night. Don't come into the studio, please,
till it is too dark to paint. I can't paint with you there."
Margery felt a little hurt in her mind. She had meant to sit with him,
as he had asked her to that morning. However, it was best to let him
have his way, and she said no more.
It was scarcely half an hour after they had left the creek that they
came opposite the little iron staircase leading down to the rocks. The
tide was out, and Frank beached the boat on the shingle at the bottom
of the rocks, jumped out, and drew it in. His pale face was flushed and
dripping with sweat.
"You'd better change before you begin work," said Margery, as he helped
her out, "or you'll catch cold."
Frank burst out with a grating, unnatural laugh.
"Change! I should think I am going to change! I wonder if you'll like
the change!"
He walked on in front of her, and when he reached the terrace broke
into a run. Margery heard the door of the studio bang behind him.