touched John Barron; and it cooled his hot blood for a brief moment, and he
swore to himself he would try to paint her again as she was. He would fight
Nature for once and try if pure intellect was strong enough to get the face
he wanted on to the canvas without the gratification of his flesh and
blood. In which determination glimmered something almost approaching to
self-sacrifice in such a man. He did not answer Joan's last remark, but
rose and went to his picture, and she, thinking herself snubbed by his
silence after her avowal, grew hot and uncomfortable.
"The weather is going to change, sweetheart," he said, allowing himself the
luxury of affectionate words in the moment of his half-hearted struggle;
"the weather-glass creeps back slowly. We must not waste time. Come, Joan;
we are the children of Nature, but the slaves of Art. Let me try again."
But she, who had spoken in all innocence and with a child's love, was
pained that he should have taken no note of her speech. She was almost
angry that he had power to conjure such words to her lips; and yet the
anger vanished from her mind quickly enough and her thoughts were all happy
as she resumed her pose for him.
The past few days had vastly deepened and widened her mental horizon; and
now Barron for the first time saw something of what he wanted in her eyes
as she gazed away over the sea and did not look at him as usual. There,
sure enough, was the soul that he knew slept somewhere, but had never seen
until then. And the sight of it came as a shock and swept away his
sophistries and ugly-woven ideas. Inclination had told him that Nature,
through one channel only, would bring the mystery of hidden thought to
Joan's blue eyes, and he had felt well satisfied to believe it was so; but
now even the plea of Art could not excuse the thing which had grown within
him of late, for experiences other than those he dreamed of had glorified
the frank blue eyes and brought mind into them. Now it only remained for
him to paint them if he could. Not wholly untroubled, but never much more
beautiful than that morning, Joan gazed out upon the remote sea. Then the
thoughtful mood passed, and she laughed and babbled again, and the new-born
beauty departed from her eyes for a season, and the warm blood raced
through her veins, and she was all happiness. Meanwhile nothing came of his
painting and he was not sorry when she ended the ordeal.
"The bwoats be comin' back home along, Mister Jan. I doan't mark faither's
yet, but when 'tis wance in sight he'll be to Newlyn sooner'n me. So I'd
best be gwaine, though it edn' more than noon, I s'pose. An' my heart's a
tidy sight lighter now than 'tweer issterday indeed."
"I'm almost afraid to let you go, Joan."
She looked at him curiously, waiting for his bidding, but he seemed moody,
and said no more.
"When be you comin' next?"
"To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, my pearl above price. It is so
hard, so very hard," he answered. "Fine or wet I shall be here to-morrow,
for I am not going back to Newlyn again till my work is done. Three more
sittings, Joan, if you have enough patience--"
"In coorse, Mister Jan."
She did not explain to him what difficulties daily grew in the way of her
coming, how rumor was alive, and how her stepmother had threatened more
than once to tell Gray Michael that his wayward daughter was growing a
gadabout. Joan had explained away her roaming with a variety of more or
less ingenious lies, and she always found her brain startlingly fertile
where the artist and his picture were concerned. She felt little doubt that
three more visits to Gorse Point might be achieved--ay, and thirty more if
necessary. But afterward? What would follow the painting of the picture?
She asked herself the question as he kissed her, with a kiss that was
almost rough, while he bid her go quickly; and the former reply to every
doubt made answer. Her fears fled as usual before the invigorating
spectacle of this sterling, truth-loving man. With him all the future
remained and with him only. Hers was the pleasant, passive task of
obedience to one utterly trusted and passionately loved. Her fate lay
hidden in his heart, as the fate of the clay lies hid in the brain of the
potter.
And so home she went, walking in a sunshine of her own thoughts. The clouds
were gone; they massed gloomily on the horizon of the past; but looking
forward, she saw no more of them. All time to come was at the disposition
of the wisest man she had ever met. She did not know or guess at the battle
which this same wise man had fought and lost under her eyes; she gathered
nothing of the truth from his gloom, his silence, his changed voice, his
sudden farewell. She did not know passion when she saw it; and the ugly
visible signs thereof told no tale to her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
STORM
That night the change came and the wind veered first to the south, then to
the southwest. By morning, gray clouds hid the sky and hourly grew darker
and lower. As yet no rain fell, but the world had altered, and every
light-value, from an artist's standpoint, was modified.
John Barren sat by his stove in the byre, made himself a cup of black
coffee, and presently, wrapped in a big mackintosh, walked out to Gorse
Point. His picture he left, of course, at the shed, for painting was out of
the question.
Nature, who had been smiling so pleasantly in sunshine these many days, now
awoke in a grim gray mood. The sea ran high, its white foam-caps and ridges
fretting the rolling volume of it; the luggers fought their way out with
buried noses and laboring hulls; rain still held off, but it was coming
quickly, and the furze and the young grasses panted for it on Gorse Point.
Below the cliffs a wild spirit inhabited the sea fowl, and they screamed
and wheeled in many an aerial circle, now sliding with motionless
outstretched wing upon the gathering gale, now beating back against it, now
dancing in a fleet and making music far away in the foam. Upon the beach
the dry sand whipped round in little whirls and eddies where wind-gusts
caught it; the naked rocks poked shining weed-covered heads out of a low
tide, and the wet white light of them glimmered raw through the gray tones
of the atmosphere. Now and then a little cloud of dust would puff out from
the cliff-face where the wind dislodged a dry particle of stone or mould;
elsewhere Barren saw the sure-rooted samphire and tufts of sea-pink,
innocent of flowers as yet; and sometimes little squeaking dabs of down
might also be observed below where infant gulls huddled together in the
ledges outside their nests and gazed upon a condition of things as yet
beyond their experience.
Joan came presently to find the artist looking out at the sea.
"You ban't gwaine to paint, I s'pose, 'cause o' this ugly fashion weather?"
she said.
"No, sweetheart! All the gold has gone out of the world, and there is
nothing left but lead and dross. See how sharp the green is under the gray,
and note the clearness of the air. Everything is keen and hard upon the eye
to-day; the sky is full of rain and the sea is a wild harmony in gray and
silver."
"Iss, the cleeves be callin' this marnin'. 'Tis a sort o' whisper as comes
to a body's ear, an' it means that the high hills knaws the rain is nigh.
An' they tell it wan to t'other, and moans it mournful over the valleys
'pon the wind. 'The storm be comin', the storm be comin',' they sez."
The south and west regions of distance blackened as they sat there on the
cliff, and upon the sea separate heavy gusts of wind roughened up the
hollows of the waves. Which effect seen from afar flickered weirdly like a
sort of submarine lightning shivering white through dark water. Presently a
cloud broke, showing a bank of paler gray behind, and misty silver arrows
fell in broad bands of light upon the sea. They sped round, each upon the
last, like the spokes of a gigantic wheel trundling over the world; then
the clouds huddled together again and the gleam of brightness died.
"You'm wisht this marnin', Mister Jan. You abbun so much as two words for
me. 'Tis 'cause you caan't paint your picksher, I reckon."
He sighed and took her hand in his.
"Don't think that, my Joan. Once I cared nothing for you, everything for my
picture; now I care nothing for my picture, everything for you. And the
better I love you, the worse I paint you. That's funny, isn't it?"
"Iss, 'tis coorious. But I'm sure you do draw me a mighty sight finer than
I be. 'Tis wonnerful clever, an' theer edn' no call to be sad, for no man
else could a done better, I lay."
He did not answer, and still held her hand. Then there came a harder breath
of wind with a sob of sound in it, while already over the distant sea swept
separate gray curtains of rain.
"It's coming, Joan; the storm. It's everywhere, in earth and air and water;
and in my blood. I am savage to-day, Joan, savage and thirsty. What will be
the end of it?"
He spoke wildly, like the weather. She did not understand, but she felt his
hand clinch tightly over hers, and, looking at the white thin fingers
crooked round her wrist, they brought to her mind the twisted claws of a
dead sea-gull she remembered to have found upon the beach.
"What will be the end of it, Joan? Can't you answer me?"
"Doan't 'e, Mister Jan; you'm hurtin' my hand. I s'pose as a sou'westerly
gale be comin'. Us knaws 'em well enough in these paarts. Faither reckoned
theer was dirty weather blawin' up 'fore he sailed. He was away by
daylight. The gales do bring trouble to somebody most times."
"What will be the end of us, I mean, not of the weather? The rain will come
and the clouds will melt, and we know, as sure as God's in heaven, that we
shall see sunshine and blue sky again. But what about our storm, Joan; the
storm of love that's burst in my heart for you--what follows that?"
His question frightened her. She had asked herself the same and been well
content to leave an answer to him. Here he was faced with a like problem
and now invited her to solve it.
"I dunnaw. I thot such love never comed to no end, Mister Jan. I thot
'tweer good to wear; but--but how do I knaw if you doan't?"
"You trust me, Joan?"
"Why, who should I trust, if 'tweern't you? I never knawed any person else
as set such store 'pon the truth. I doan't s'pose the cherrybims in heaven
loves it more'n what you do."
"Here's the rain on the back of the wind," he said.
A few heavy drops fell, cold as ice upon his burning face, and Joan laughed
as she held out her hand, on which a great splash as big as a shilling had
spread.
"That be wan of Tregagle's tears," she said, "an' 'tis the voice of en as
you can hear howlin' in the wind. He's allus a bawlin' an' squealin', poor
sawl, but you can awnly hear en now an' again 'fore a storm when the gale
blaws his hollerin' this way."
"Who was Tregagle?"
"He was a lawyer man wance, an' killed a many wives, an' did a many
shameful deeds 'fore he went dead. Then, to Bodmin Court, theer comes a law
case, an' they wanted Tregagle, an' a man said Tregagle was the awnly
witness, and another said he wadden. The second man up an' swore 'If
Tregagle saw it done, then I wish to God he may rise from's graave and come
this minute.' Then, sure enough, the ghost of Tregagle 'peared in the
court-house an' shawed the man was a liar. But they couldn' lay the ghost
no more arter; an' it was a devil-ghost, which is the worstest kind; an' it
stuck close to thicky lyin' man an' wouldn' leave en nohow. But at last a
white witch bound the spirit an' condemned it to empty out Dosmery Pool wi'
a crogan wi' a hole in it. A crogan's a limpet shell, which you mightn't
knaw, Mister Jan. Tregagle, he done that party quick, an' then he was at
the man again; but a passon got the bettermost of en an' tamed en wi'
Scripture till Tregagle was as gentle as a cheel. Then they set en to work
agin an' bid en make a truss o' sand down in Gwenvor Cove, an' carry it
'pon his shoulder up to Carn Olva. Tregagle weer a braave time doin' that,
I can 'sure 'e, but theer comed a gert frost wan winter, an' he got water
from the brook an' poured it 'pon the truss o' sand, so it froze hard. Then
he carried it up Carn Olva; an' then, bein' a free spirit agin, he flew off
quicker'n lightning to that lyin' man to tear en to pieces this time. But
by good chance, when Tregagle comed to en, the man weer carryin' a lil
baaby in's arms--a lil cheel as had never done a single wicked act, bein'
tu young; so Tregagle couldn' do no hurt. An' they caught en again, an'
passon set en 'pon another job: to make a truss o' sand in Whitsand Bay
wi'out usin' any fresh water. But Tregagle caan't never do that; so he
cries bitter sometimes, an' howls; an' when 'e howls you knaw the storm's a
comin' to scatter the truss o' sand he's builded up."
Barron followed the legend with interest. Tregagle and his victim and the
charm of the pure child that saved one from the other filled his thought
and the event to which Fate was now relentlessly dragging him. He argued
with himself a little; then the rain came down and the wind leaped like a
lion over the edge of the land, and the man's blood boiled as he breathed
ocean air.
"Us'll be wetted proper. I'll run for it, Mister Jan, an' you'd best to go
up-long to your lil lew house. Wet's bad for 'e, I reckon."
"No," he said, "I can't let you go, Joan. Look over there. Another flood is
going to burst, I think. Follow me quickly, quickly."
The rain came slanting over the gorse in earnest, but Joan hesitated and
hung back. Louder than the wind, louder than the cry of the birds, than the
howling of Tregagle, than the calling of the cleeves, spoke something. And
it said "Turn, on the wing of the storm; fly before it, alone. Let this man
walk in the teeth of the gale if he will; but you, Joan Tregenza, follow
the wind and set your face to the east, where the sole brightness now left
in the sky is shining."
Sheets of gray swept over them; the world was wet in an instant; a little
mist of water splashed up two inches high off the ground; the gorse tossed
and swayed its tough arms; the sea and the struggling craft upon it
vanished like a dream; from the heart of the storm cried gulls, themselves
invisible.
"Come, Joan, we shall be drowned."
He had wrapped her in a part of the mackintosh, and laughed as he fastened
them both into it and hugged her close to himself. But she broke away,
greatly fearing, yet knowing not what she feared.
"I reckon I'd best run down fast. Indeed an' I want to go."
"Go? Where? Where should you go? Come to me, Joan; you shall; you must. We
two, sweetheart--we two against the rain and the wind and the world. Come!
It will kill me to stand here, and you don't want that."
"But--"
"Come, I say. Quicker and quicker! We two--only we two. Don't make me
command you, my priceless treasure of a Joan. Come with me. You are mine
now and always. Quicker and quicker, I say. God! what rain!"
Still she hesitated and he grew angry.
"This is folly, madness. Where is your trust and belief? You don't trust,
nor love, nor--"
"Doan't 'e say that! Never say that! It edn' true. You'm all to me, an' you
knaws it right well, an' I'll gaw to the world's end with 'e, I will--ay,
an' trust 'e wi' my life!"
He moved away and she followed, hastening as he hastened. Unutterable
desolation marked the spot. Life had vanished save only where sheep
clustered under a bank with their tails to the weather, and long-legged
lambs blinked their yellow eyes and bleated as the couple passed. Despite
their haste the man and the girl were very wet before reaching the shelter
of the byre. Rain-water dribbled off his cap on to his hot face and his
feet were soaking. Joan was breathless with haste; her draggled skirts
clung to her; and the struggle against the storm made her giddy.
So they reached the place of shelter; and the gale burst over it with a
great, crowning yell of wind and hurtle of rain. Then John Barren opened
the byre door and Joan Tregenza passed in before him; whereupon he followed
and shut the door.
A loose slate clattered upon the roof, and from inside the byre it sounded
like a hand tapping high above the artist's bed of brown fern--tapping some
message which neither the man nor the girl could read--tapping, tapping,
tapping tirelessly upon ears wholly deaf to it.
BOOK TWO
NATURE
CHAPTER ONE
AN INTERVAL
For a week the rain came down and it blew hard from the west. Then the
weather moderated, and there were intervals of brightness and mild, damp
warmth that brought a green veil trembling over the world like magic. The
elms broke into a million buds, the pear trees in sunny corners put forth
snowy flowers; the crimson knobs of the apple-blossom prepared to unfold.
In the market gardens around and about Newlyn the plums were already
setting, the wallflowers, which make a carpet of golden-brown beneath the
fruit-trees in many orchards, were velvety with bloom; the raspberry canes,
bent hoop-like in long rows, beautifully brightened the dark earth with
young green; and verdure likewise twinkled even to the heart of the
forests, to the stony nipples of the moor's vast, lonely bosom. So spring
came, heralded by the thrush; borne upon the wings of the western wind. And
then followed a brief change with more heavy rains and lower temperature.
The furzes on Gorse Point were a scented glory now--a nimbus of gold for
the skull of the lofty cliff. Here John Barren and Joan Tregenza had met
but twice since the beginning of the unsettled weather. For her this period
was in a measure mysterious and strange. Centuries of experience seemed to
separate her from the past, and, looking backward, infinite spaces of time
already stretched between what had been and what was. Now overmuch sorrow
mingled with her reflections, though a leaven of it ran through all--a
sense of loss, of sacrifice, of change, which flits, like the shadow of a
summer cloud, even through the soul of the most deeply loving woman who
ever opened her eyes to smile upon the first day-dawn of married life. But
Joan's sorrow was no greater than that, and little unquiet or uneasiness
went with it. She had his promises; from him they could but be absolute;
and not a hundred attested ceremonies had left her heart more at ease. In
fact she believed that John Barren was presently going to marry her, and
that when he vanished from Newlyn, she, as the better-loved part of
himself, would vanish too. It was the old, stale falsehood which men have
told a hundred thousand times; which men will go on telling and women
believing, because it is the only lie which meets all requirements of the
case and answers its exact purpose effectively. Age cannot wither it, for
experience is no part of the armor of the deceived, and Love and Trust have
never stopped to think since the world began.
As for the artist, each day now saw him slipping more deeply, more
comfortably back into the convolutions of his old impersonal shell. He had
been dragged out, not unwilling, by a giant passion, and he had sacrificed
to it, sent it to sleep again, and so returned. He felt infinitely kind to
Joan. A week after her visit to the linhay he, while sitting alone there,
had turned her picture about on the easel, withdrawn its face from the wall
and studied his work. And looking, with restored critical faculty and cold
blood, he loved the paint for itself and deemed it very good. The storm was
over, the transitory lightnings drowned lesser lights no more, and that
steady beacon-flame of his life, which had been merged, not lost, in the
fleeting blaze, now shone out again, steadfast and clear. Such a revulsion
of feeling argued well for the completion of his picture, ill for the model
of it.
They sat one day, as the weather grew more settled, beside a granite
bowlder, which studded the short turf at the extremity of Gorse Point,
where it jutted above the sea. Joan, with her chin upon her hands, looked
out upon the water; Barron, lying on a railway-rug, leaned back and smoked
his pipe and studied her face with the old, keen, passionless eagerness of
their earliest meetings.
"When'll 'e tell me, Jan love? When'll 'e tell me what 'e be gwaine to do?
Us be wan now--you an' me--but the lines be all the lovin'est wife can
p'int to in proof she _be_ a wife. Couldn't us be axed out in church
purty soon?"
He did not make immediate answer, but only longed for his easel. There, in
her face, was the wistful, far-away expression he had sighed for; a measure
of thought had come to the little animal--her brains were awake and her
blue eyes had never looked liked this before. Joan asked the question
again, and Barren answered.
"The same matter was in my own mind, sweetheart. I am in a mighty hurry
too, believe it. You are safe with your husband, Joan. You belong to me
now, and you must trust the future with me. All that law demands to make us
man and wife it shall have; and all religion clamors for as well, if that
is a great matter to you. But not here--in this Newlyn. I think of you when
I say that, Joan, for it matters nothing to me."
"Iss. I dunnaw what awful sayin's might go abroad. Things is all contrary
to home as 'tis. Mother's guessed part an' she tawld faither I weer gwaine
daft or else in love wi' some pusson else than Joe. An' faither was short
an' sharp, an' took me out walkin', an' bid me bide at home an' give over
trapsin' 'bout. An' 'e said as 'ow I was tokened to Joe Noy an' bound by
God A'mighty to wait for en if 'twas a score years. But if faither had
knawed I weer never for Noy, he'd a' said more'n that. I ban't 'feared o'
faither now I knaws you, Jan, but I be cruel 'feared o' bein' cussed,
'cause theer's times when cusses doan't fall to the ground but sticks.
'Twouldn' be well for the likes o' you to have a ill-wished, awver-luked
body for wife. An' if faither knawed 'bout you, then I lay he'd do more'n
speak. So like's not he'd strike me dead for't, bein' that religious. But
you must take me away, Jan, dear heart. I'm yourn now an' you must go on
lovin' me allus, 'cause theer'll never be nobody else to not now. I've
chose you an' gived 'e myself an' I caan't do no more."
He listened to her delicious voice, and shut out the crude words as much as
might be while he marked the music. He was thinking that if Joan had
possessed a reasonable measure of intellect, a foundation for an education,
he would have been satisfied to keep her about him during that probably
limited number of years which must span his existence. But the gulf between
them was too wide; and, as for the present position, he considered that no
harm had been done which time would not remedy. Joan was not sufficiently
intelligent to suffer long or much. She would forget quickly. She was very
young. Her sailor must return before the end of the year. Then he began to
think of money, and then sneered at himself. But, after all, it was natural
that he should follow step by step upon the beaten track of similar events.
"Better not attempt originality," he thought, "for the thing I have done is
scarce capable of original treatment. I suppose the curtain always rings
down on a check--either taken or spurned."
"So you think you can give them all up for poor me, Joan? Your home, your
father, brother, mother--all?"
"I've gived up a sight more'n them, Jan. I've gived 'e what's all to a
maiden. But my folks weern't hard to give up. 'Tis long since they was
ought to me now. I gaws an' comes from the cottage an' sez, all the time,
'this ban't home no more. Mister Jan's home be mine,' I sez to myself. An'
each time as I breaks bread, an' sleeps, an' wakes, an' looks arter
faither's clothes I feels 'tis wan time nigher the last. They'll look back
an' think what a snake 'twas they had 'bout the house, I s'pose. Mother'll
whine an' say, 'Ah! 'er was a bitter weed for sartain,' an' faither'll
thunder till the crocks rattle an' bid none dare foul the air wi' my name
no more. But I be wearyin' of 'e wi' my clackin', Jan, dear heart?"
"Not so, Joan--never think that. I could listen to you till Doomsday. Only
we must act now and talk presently. I know you're tired of the picture, and
you were cross last time we met because I could speak of it; but I must for
a moment more. It cries out to be finished. A few hours' good work and
all's done. The weather steadies now and the glass is rising, so our
sittings may begin in a day or two. Let me make one last, grand struggle.
Then, if I fail, I shall fling the picture over this cliff, and my palette
and brushes after it. So we will keep our secret a little longer. Then,
when the picture is made or marred, away we'll go, and by the time they
miss you from your old home you will be half way to your new one."