Sanderson accordingly came down, and on the whole his short visit was a
success. Why he came at all was a mystery to those who heard of it, for
he never paid visits and was certainly not the kind of man to court a
customer. There must have been something in Bittacy he liked.
Mrs. Bittacy was glad when he left. He brought no dress-suit for one
thing, not even a dinner-jacket, and he wore very low collars with big
balloon ties like a Frenchman, and let his hair grow longer than was
nice, she felt. Not that these things were important, but that she
considered them symptoms of something a little disordered. The ties
were unnecessarily flowing.
For all that he was an interesting man, and, in spite of his
eccentricities of dress and so forth, a gentleman. ‘Perhaps,’ she
reflected in her genuinely charitable heart, ‘he had other uses for the
twenty guineas, an invalid sister or an old mother to support!’ She had
no notion of the cost of brushes, frames, paints, and canvases. Also
she forgave him much for the sake of his beautiful eyes and his eager
enthusiasm of manner. So many men of thirty were already blasé.
Still, when the visit was over, she felt relieved. She said nothing
about his coming a second time, and her husband, she was glad to
notice, had likewise made no suggestion. For, truth to tell, the way
the younger man engrossed the older, keeping him out for hours in the
Forest, talking on the lawn in the blazing sun, and in the evenings
when the damp of dusk came creeping out from the surrounding woods, all
regardless of his age and usual habits, was not quite to her taste. Of
course, Mr. Sanderson did not know how easily those attacks of Indian
fever came back, but David surely might have told him.
They talked trees from morning till night. It stirred in her the old
subconscious trail of dread, a trail that led ever into the darkness of
big woods; and such feelings, as her early evangelical training taught
her, were temptings. To regard them in any other way was to play with
danger.
Her mind, as she watched these two, was charged with curious thoughts
of dread she could not understand, yet feared the more on that account.
The way they studied that old mangy cedar was a trifle unnecessary,
unwise, she felt. It was disregarding the sense of proportion which
deity had set upon the world for men’s safe guidance.
Even after dinner they smoked their cigars upon the low branches that
swept down and touched the lawn, until at length she insisted on
their coming in. Cedars, she had somewhere heard, were not safe after
sundown; it was not wholesome to be too near them; to sleep beneath
them was even dangerous, though what the precise danger was she had
forgotten. The upas was the tree she really meant.
At any rate she summoned David in, and Sanderson came presently after
him.
For a long time, before deciding on this peremptory step, she had
watched them surreptitiously from the drawing-room window--her husband
and her guest. The dusk enveloped them with its damp veil of gauze.
She saw the glowing tips of their cigars, and heard the drone of
voices. Bats flitted overhead, and big, silent moths whirred softly
over the rhododendron blossoms. And it came suddenly to her, while
she watched, that her husband had somehow altered these last few
days--since Mr. Sanderson’s arrival in fact. A change had come over
him, though what it was she could not say. She hesitated, indeed, to
search. That was the instinctive dread operating in her. Provided it
passed she would rather not know. Small things, of course, she noticed;
small outward signs. He had neglected _The Times_ for one thing,
left off his speckled waistcoats for another. He was absent-minded
sometimes; showed vagueness in practical details where hitherto he
showed decision. And--he had begun to talk in his sleep again.
These and a dozen other small peculiarities came suddenly upon her with
the rush of a combined attack. They brought with them a faint distress
that made her shiver. Momentarily her mind was startled, then confused,
as her eyes picked out the shadowy figures in the dusk, the cedar
covering them, the Forest close at their backs. And then, before she
could think, or seek internal guidance as her habit was, this whisper,
muffled and very hurried, ran across her brain: ‘It’s Mr. Sanderson.
Call David in at once!’
And she had done so. Her shrill voice crossed the lawn and died away
into the Forest, quickly smothered. No echo followed it. The sound fell
dead against the rampart of a thousand listening trees.
‘The damp is so very penetrating, even in summer,’ she murmured when
they came obediently. She was half surprised at her own audacity,
half repentant. They came so meekly at her call. ‘And my husband is
sensitive to fever from the East. No, _please_ do not throw away your
cigars. We can sit by the open window and enjoy the evening while you
smoke.’
She was very talkative for a moment; subconscious excitement was the
cause.
‘It is so still--so wonderfully still,’ she went on, as no one spoke,
‘so peaceful, and the air so very sweet ... and God is always near to
those who need His aid.’ The words slipped out before she realised
quite what she was saying, yet fortunately, in time to lower her voice,
for no one heard them. They were, perhaps, an instinctive expression of
relief. It flustered her that she could have said the thing at all.
Sanderson brought her shawl and helped to arrange the chairs; she
thanked him in her old-fashioned, gentle way, declining the lamps which
he had offered to light. ‘They attract the moths and insects so, I
think!’
The three of them sat there in the gloaming, Mr. Bittacy’s white
moustache and his wife’s yellow shawl gleaming at either end of the
little horseshoe, Sanderson with his wild black hair and shining eyes
midway between them. The painter went on talking softly, continuing
evidently the conversation begun with his host beneath the cedar. Mrs.
Bittacy, on her guard, listened--uneasily.
‘For trees, you see, rather conceal themselves in daylight. They reveal
themselves fully only after sunset. I never _know_ a tree,’ he bowed
here slightly towards the lady as though to apologise for something he
felt she would not quite understand or like, ‘until I’ve seen it in the
night. Your cedar, for instance,’ looking towards her husband again
so that Mrs. Bittacy caught the gleaming of his turned eyes, ‘I failed
with badly at first, because I did it in the morning. You shall see
to-morrow what I mean--that first sketch is upstairs in my portfolio;
it’s quite another tree to the one you bought. That view’--he leaned
forward, lowering his voice--‘I caught one morning about two o’clock
in very faint moonlight and the stars. I saw the naked being of the
thing----’
‘You mean that you went out, Mr. Sanderson, at that hour?’ the old lady
asked with astonishment and mild rebuke. She did not care particularly
for his choice of adjectives either.
‘I fear it was rather a liberty to take in another’s house, perhaps,’
he answered courteously. ‘But, having chanced to wake, I saw the tree
from my window, and made my way downstairs.’
‘It’s a wonder Boxer didn’t bite you; he sleeps loose in the hall,’ she
said.
‘On the contrary. The dog came out with me. I hope,’ he added, ‘the
noise didn’t disturb you, though it’s rather late to say so. I feel
quite guilty.’ His white teeth showed in the dusk as he smiled. A
smell of earth and flowers stole in through the window on a breath of
wandering air.
Mrs. Bittacy said nothing at the moment. ‘We both sleep like tops,’ put
in her husband, laughing. ‘You’re a courageous man, though, Sanderson;
and, by Jove, the picture justifies you. Few artists would have taken
so much trouble, though I read once that Holman Hunt, Rossetti, or some
one of that lot, painted all night in his orchard to get an effect of
moonlight that he wanted.’
He chattered on. His wife was glad to hear his voice; it made her feel
more easy in her mind. But presently the other held the floor again,
and her thoughts grew darkened and afraid. Instinctively she feared the
influence on her husband. The mystery and wonder that lie in woods, in
forests, in great gatherings of trees everywhere, seemed so real and
present while he talked.
‘The Night transfigures all things in a way,’ he was saying; ‘but
nothing so searchingly as trees. From behind a veil that sunlight
hangs before them in the day they emerge and show themselves. Even
buildings do that--in a measure--but trees particularly. In the daytime
they sleep; at night they wake, they manifest, turn active--live. You
remember,’ turning politely again in the direction of his hostess, ‘how
clearly Henley understood that?’
‘That socialist person, you mean?’ asked the lady. Her tone and accent
made the substantive sound criminal. It almost hissed, the way she
uttered it.
‘The poet, yes,’ replied the artist tactfully, ‘the friend of
Stevenson, you remember, Stevenson who wrote those charming children’s
verses.’
He quoted in a low voice the lines he meant. It was, for once, the
time, the place, and the setting all together. The words floated out
across the lawn towards the wall of blue darkness where the big Forest
swept the little garden with its league-long curve that was like
the shore-line of a sea. A wave of distant sound that was like surf
accompanied his voice, as though the wind was fain to listen too:
Not to the staring Day,
For all the importunate questionings he pursues
In his big, violent voice,
Shall those mild things of bulk and multitude,
The trees--God’s sentinels ...
Yield of their huge, unutterable selves.
* * * * *
But at the word
Of the ancient, sacerdotal Night,
Night of the many secrets, whose effect--
Transfiguring, hierophantic, dread--
Themselves alone may fully apprehend,
They tremble and are changed:
In each the uncouth, individual soul
Looms forth and glooms
Essential, and, their bodily presences
Touched with inordinate significance,
Wearing the darkness like a livery
Of some mysterious and tremendous guild,
They brood--they menace--they appal.
The voice of Mrs. Bittacy presently broke the silence that followed.
‘I like that part about God’s sentinels,’ she murmured. There was no
sharpness in her tone; it was hushed and quiet. The truth, so musically
uttered, muted her shrill objections though it had not lessened her
alarm. Her husband made no comment; his cigar, she noticed, had gone
out.
‘And old trees in particular,’ continued the artist, as though to
himself, ‘have very definite personalities. You can offend, wound,
please them; the moment you stand within their shade you feel whether
they come out to you, or whether they withdraw.’ He turned abruptly
towards his host. ‘You know that singular essay of Prentice Mulford’s,
no doubt, “God in the Trees”--extravagant perhaps, but yet with a fine
true beauty in it? You’ve never read it, no?’ he asked.
But it was Mrs. Bittacy who answered; her husband keeping his curious
deep silence.
‘I never did!’ It fell like a drip of cold water from the face muffled
in the yellow shawl; even a child could have supplied the remainder of
the unspoken thought.
‘Ah,’ said Sanderson gently, ‘but there _is_ “God” in the trees, God
in a very subtle aspect and sometimes--I have known the trees express
it too--that which is _not_ God--dark and terrible. Have you ever
noticed, too, how clearly trees show what they want--choose their
companions, at least? How beeches, for instance, allow no life too
near them--birds or squirrels in their boughs, nor any growth beneath?
The silence in the beech wood is quite terrifying often! And how pines
like bilberry bushes at their feet and sometimes little oaks--all trees
making a clear, deliberate choice, and holding firmly to it? Some trees
obviously--it’s very strange and marked--seem to prefer the human.’
The old lady sat up crackling, for this was more than she could permit.
Her stiff silk dress emitted little sharp reports.
‘We know,’ she answered, ‘that He was said to have walked in the
garden in the cool of the evening’--the gulp betrayed the effort that
it cost her--‘but we are nowhere told that He hid in the trees, or
anything like that. Trees, after all, we must remember, are only large
vegetables.’
‘True,’ was the soft answer, ‘but in everything that grows, has life,
that is, there’s mystery past all finding out. The wonder that lies
hidden in our own souls lies also hidden, I venture to assert, in the
stupidity and silence of a mere potato.’
The observation was not meant to be amusing. It was _not_ amusing. No
one laughed. On the contrary, the words conveyed in too literal a sense
the feeling that haunted all that conversation. Each one in his own
way realised--with beauty, with wonder, with alarm--that the talk had
somehow brought the whole vegetable kingdom nearer to that of man. Some
link had been established between the two. It was not wise, with that
great Forest listening at their very doors, to speak so plainly. The
Forest edged up closer while they did so.
And Mrs. Bittacy, anxious to interrupt the horrid spell, broke suddenly
in upon it with a matter-of-fact suggestion. She did not like her
husband’s prolonged silence, stillness. He seemed so negative--so
changed.
‘David,’ she said, raising her voice, ‘I think you’re feeling the
dampness. It’s grown chilly. The fever comes so suddenly, you know, and
it might be wise to take the tincture. I’ll go and get it, dear, at
once. It’s better.’ And before he could object she had left the room to
bring the homoeopathic dose that she believed in, and that, to please
her, he swallowed by the tumbler-full from week to week.
And the moment the door closed behind her, Sanderson began again,
though now in quite a different tone. Mr. Bittacy sat up in his chair.
The two men obviously resumed the conversation--the real conversation
interrupted beneath the cedar--and left aside the sham one which was so
much dust merely thrown in the old lady’s eyes.
‘Trees love you, that’s the fact,’ he said earnestly. ‘Your service to
them all these years abroad has made them know you.’
‘Know me?’
‘Made them, yes,’--he paused a moment, then added,--‘made them
_aware of your presence_; aware of a force outside themselves that
deliberately seeks their welfare, don’t you see?’
‘By Jove, Sanderson--!’ This put into plain language actual sensations
he had felt, yet had never dared to phrase in words before. ‘They get
into touch with me, as it were?’ he ventured, laughing at his own
sentence, yet laughing only with his lips.
‘Exactly,’ was the quick, emphatic reply. ‘They seek to blend with
something they feel instinctively to be good for them, helpful to their
essential beings, encouraging to their best expression--their life.’
‘Good Lord, Sir!’ Bittacy heard himself saying, ‘but you’re putting
my own thoughts into words. D’you know, I’ve felt something like that
for years. As though--’ he looked round to make sure his wife was not
there, then finished the sentence--‘as though the trees were after me!’
‘“Amalgamate” seems the best word, perhaps,’ said Sanderson slowly.
‘They would draw you to themselves. Good forces, you see, always
seek to merge; evil to separate; that’s why Good in the end must
always win the day--everywhere. The accumulation in the long run
becomes overwhelming. Evil tends to separation, dissolution, death.
The comradeship of trees, their instinct to run together, is a vital
symbol. Trees in a mass are good; alone, you may take it generally,
are--well, dangerous. Look at a monkey-puzzler, or better still, a
holly. Look at it, watch it, understand it. Did you ever see more
plainly an evil thought made visible? They’re wicked. Beautiful too, oh
yes! There’s a strange, miscalculated beauty often in evil----’
‘That cedar, then----?’
‘Not evil, no; but alien, rather. Cedars grow in forests all together.
The poor thing has drifted, that is all.’
They were getting rather deep. Sanderson, talking against time, spoke
so fast. It was too condensed. Bittacy hardly followed that last bit.
His mind floundered among his own less definite, less sorted thoughts,
till presently another sentence from the artist startled him into
attention again.
‘That cedar will protect you here, though, because you both have
humanised it by your thinking so lovingly of its presence. The others
can’t get past it, as it were.’
‘Protect me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Protect me from their love?’
Sanderson laughed. ‘We’re getting rather mixed,’ he said; ‘we’re
talking of one thing in the terms of another really. But what I mean
is--you see--that their love for you, their “awareness” of your
personality and presence involves the idea of winning you--across the
border--into themselves--into their world of living. It means, in a
way, taking you over.’
The ideas the artist started in his mind ran furious wild races to and
fro. It was like a maze sprung suddenly into movement. The whirling
of the intricate lines bewildered him. They went so fast, leaving but
half an explanation of their goal. He followed first one, then another,
but a new one always dashed across to intercept before he could get
anywhere.
‘But India,’ he said, presently in a lower voice, ‘India is so far
away--from this little English forest. The trees, too, are utterly
different for one thing?’
The rustle of skirts warned of Mrs. Bittacy’s approach. This was a
sentence he could turn round another way in case she came up and
pressed for explanation.
‘There is communion among trees all the world over,’ was the strange
quick reply. ‘They always know.’
‘They always know! You think then----?’
‘The winds, you see--the great, swift carriers! They have their ancient
rights of way about the world. An easterly wind, for instance, carrying
on stage by stage as it were--linking dropped messages and meanings
from land to land like the birds--an easterly wind----’