occupied with what had gone before.
"'Pears, when all's said, you'd sooner have the picksher Joan than the real
wan. 'Tis all the picksher an' the picksher an' the picksher."
This was not less than the truth, but of course he blamed her for so
speaking, and said her words hurt him.
"'Tis this way," she said, "I've larned so much since I knawed 'e, an' I be
like as if I was woke from a sleep. Things is all differ'nt now; but 'tis
awnly my gert love for 'e as makes me 'feared sometimes 'cause life's too
butivul to last. An' the picksher frights me more'n fancy, 'cause,
seemin'ly, theer's two Joans, an' the picksher Joan's purtier than me.
'Er's me, but better'n me. 'Er's allus bright an' bonny; 'er's never
crossed an' wisht; 'er 'olds 'er tongue an' doan't talk countrified same as
me. Theer'll never be no tears nor trouble in her eyes; she'll bring 'e a
name, an' bide purty an'--an' I hates the picksher now, so I do."
Barron listened with considerable interest to these remarks. There was
passion in Joan's voice as she concluded, and her emotion presently found
relief in tears. She only uttered thoughts long in her mind, without for an
instant guessing the grim truth or suspecting what his work was to the man;
yet, things being as they were, she felt some real passing pain to find him
devote so much thought to it. Before the storm his painting had sunk to
insignificance, since then it began to grow into a great matter again; and
Joan was honestly jealous of the attention the artist bestowed upon it now.
If she had dared, she would have asked him to destroy it; but something
told her he would refuse. No fear for the future was mingled with this
emotion. Only his mighty interest in the work annoyed her. It was a natural
petty jealousy; and when John Barron laughed at her and kissed her tears
away, she laughed too and felt a little ashamed, though none the less glad
that she had spoken.
But while he flung jests at her anger, Barron felt secretly surprised to
note the strides his Awdrey's mind was making. Much worth consideration
appeared in her sudden attack upon the picture. She had evidently been
really reflecting, with coherence and lucidity. That astonished him. But
still he answered with a laugh.
"Jealous, Joan! Jealous of yourself--of the poor painted thing which has
risen from the contents of small tubes smeared over a bit of canvas! My
funny little dear delight! Will you always amuse me, I wonder? I hope you
will. Nobody else can. Why, the gorse there will grumble next and think I
love my poor, daubed burlesque of its gold better than the thing itself. If
I find pleasure in the picture, how much the more must I love the soul of
it? You see, I'm ambitious. You are quite the hardest thing I ever found to
paint, and so I go on trying and trying. Hard to win and hard to paint,
Joan."
She stretched out her hands to him and shook her head.
"Not hard to win, Jan. Easy enough to win to you. I ne'er seed the likes o'
you in my small world. Not hard to win I wasn't."
"You won't refuse me a few more sittings, then, because you have become my
precious wife?"
"In coorse not. An' I'm so sorry I was cranky. I 'dedn' mean what I said
ezacally."
To-day, coming fresh to his ear after a week's interval, after several days
spent with cultured friends and acquaintances in Newlyn, Joan's rustic
speech grated more painfully than usual. Once he had found pleasure in it;
but he was not a Cornishman to love the sound of those venerable words
which sprinkled Joan's utterances and which have long since vanished from
all vocabularies save those of the common people; and now her language
began to get upon his nerves and jar them. He was tired of it. Often, while
he painted, she had prattled and he, occupied with his work, had heard
nothing; but to-day he recognized the debt he owed and listened patiently
for a considerable time. Her deep expectancy irritated him too. He had
anticipated that, however, and was aware that her trust and confidence in
him were alike profound. Perhaps a shadow of fear, distrust or uneasiness
had pleased him better. He was snugly back in his tub of impersonality from
which he liked to view the fools' show drift pass. His last experiment in
the actively objective had ruined a girl and promised to produce a fine
picture. And that was the end of it. No fellow-creature could ever share
this cynic's barrel with him.
Presently Joan departed upon her long tramp home. She had gone to convey a
message to one of Thomasin Tregenza's friends at Paul. And when the girl
left him, with a promise to come at all costs upon the next sunny morning,
Barron began to think about money again. He found that the larger the
imaginary figures, the smaller shadow of discomfort clouded his thoughts.
So he decided upon an act of princely generosity, as the result of which
resolve peace returned and an unruffled mind. For the musty conventionality
of his conclusion, it merely served as a peg upon which to hang thoughts
not necessary to set down here.
CHAPTER TWO
THE PARTING
Joan had only told her lover a part of what happened in her home when
Thomasin broke her suspicions to Gray Michael. He had taken the matter very
seriously indeed, delivered a stern homily and commanded his daughter to
read the Book of Ecclesiasticus through thrice.
"'The gad-about is a vain thing and a mighty cause for stumblin'.' You mind
that, an' take better care hencefarrard to set a right example to other
maids an' not lead 'em wrong. Theer shan't be no froward liver under this
roof, Joan Tregenza, an' you, as be my awn darter's the last I'd count to
find wanderin'."
She lied as to particulars. She had no fear of her father now as a man, but
hard words always hurt her, and superstition, though she was fast breaking
from many forms of it under Barron's tuition, still chained her soul in
some directions. Did her father know even a shadow of the truth, some dire
and blasting prediction would probably result from it, and though
personally he was little to her now, as a mouthpiece of supernatural powers
he might bring blighting words upon her; for he walked with God. But
Michael's God was Joan's no more. She had fled from that awful divinity to
the more beautiful Creator of John Barron. He was kind and gentle, and she
loved to hear His voice in the hum of the bees upon the gorse and see His
face everywhere in the fair on-coming of spring. Nature, as she understood
it now, chimed with the things her mother had taught Joan. She found room
for all the old, pretty stories in this new creed. The dear saints fitted
in with it, and their wonders and mysteries, and the comprehensive if vague
knowledge that "God is Love." She believed she understood the truth about
religion at last; and Nature smiled very sweetly at her and shared in the
delight of the time. So she walked dreaming on toward the invisible door of
her fool's paradise, and never guessed how near it was or what Nature would
look like from the other side.
She still dwelt at the little home on the cliff, so unreal and shadowy now;
she built cloud castles ablaze with happiness; she found falsehood not
difficult, for her former absolute truthfulness deadened her stepmother's
suspicion. Certain lies told at home enabled her to keep faith with the
artist; and the weather also befriending him, three more sittings in speedy
succession brought John Barron to the end of his labors. After Joan's
exhibition of jealousy he was careful to say little about his work and
affect no further interest in it. He let her chatter concerning the future,
told her of his big house in London, and presently took care to drop hints
from time to time that the habitation was by no means as yet ready to
receive his bride. She always spoke on the assumption that when the picture
was done he would leave for London and take her with him. She already
imagined herself creeping off to join him at the station, sitting beside
him in the train, and then rolling away, past Marazion, into the great
unfamiliar world which lay beyond. And he knew that no such thing would
happen. He intended that Joan should become a pleasant memory, with the
veil of distance and time over it to beautify what was already beautiful.
He wanted to remember the music of her throbbing voice, and forget the
words it used to utter. The living girl's part was played and ended. Their
lives had crossed at right angles and would never meet again. "Nature makes
a glorious present to Art, and I am privileged to execute the deed of
gift," thought Barron; "that is the position in an epigram." He felt very
grateful to Joan. He knew her arm must have ached often enough, but whether
her heart would presently do so he hardly felt qualified to judge. The
incidents of that stormy day might have been buried in time ten years, so
faint was his recollection of them now. He remembered the matter with no
greater concern than the image of the shivering negresses in the blue water
at Tobago.
And so the picture, called "Joe's Ship," was finished, and while it fell
far short of what Barron had hoped, yet he knew his work was great and the
best thing he had done. A packing case for the canvas was already ordered
and he expected it upon the identical day that saw his farewell to Joan.
Bit by bit he had broken to her that it was not his intention to take her
with him, but that he must go to his house alone and order things in
readiness. Then he would come back and fetch her. And she had accepted the
position and felt wondrous sad at the first meeting with Barren after the
completion of the picture. It seemed as though a great link was broken
between them, and she realized now what folly her dislike of his work had
been.
"I wish I could take you right away with me, Joan, my little love; but a
bachelor's house is a comfortless concern from a woman's point of view. You
will hear from me in a day or two. You must call at the post-office in
Penzance for letters, because I shall not send them here."
"You'll print out what you writes big, so's I doan't miss nort, won't 'e?"
"I'll make the meaning as clear as possible, Joan."
"'Tis wisht to think as theer'll be hunderds o' miles 'twixt us. I doan't
know how I be gwaine to live the days out."
"Only a fortnight, remember."
"Fourteen whole days an' nights."
"Yes, indeed. It seems a terribly long time. You must comfort me,
sweetheart, and tell me that they will be very quickly done with."
Joan laughed at this turning of the tables.
"I reckon a man's allus got a plenty things to make time pass for en. But
'tis different wi' a gal."
She trusted him as she trusted God to lift the sun out of the eastern sea
next morning and swing it in its solemn course over heaven. And as there
was no fear of danger and no shadow of distrust upon her, Joan made a
braver parting than her lover expected.
"Some men are coming to see my picture presently," he said, very gently. "I
expect my sweet Joan would like to be gone before they arrive."
She took the hint, braced her heart for the ordeal, and rose from where
they had been sitting on Gorse Point. She looked dreamily a moment at the
furzes and the place whereon she had stood so often, then turned to the man
and came close and held up four little spring lilies which she had brought
with her. Her voice grew unsteady, but she mastered it again and smiled at
him.
"I brot these for 'e, dear Jan. Us calls 'em butter-an'-eggs, 'cause o' the
colors, I s'pose. They'm awnly four lil flowers. Will 'e keep 'em? An'--an'
give me summat as I can knaw's just bin in your hand, will 'e? 'Tis
fulishness, dear heart, but I'm thinkin' 'twould make the days a dinky bit
shorter."
He took the gift, thought a moment, and gave her a little silver ring off
his finger. Then he kissed her, pressed her close to him and said
"good-by," asking God to bless her, and so forth.
With but a few tears rebelling against her determination, Joan prayed good
upon his head, repaid the caress, begged him for his love to come quickly
back again, then tore herself away, turned and hastened off with her head
held bravely up. But the green fields swam and the sea danced for her a
moment later. The world was all splashed and blotched and misty. "I'll be
braave like him," she thought, smothering the great sobs and rubbing her
knuckles into her eyes till she hurt them. But she could not stem the
sorrow in a moment, and, climbing through a gap in the hedge, she sat down,
where only ewes and lambs might see, and cried bitterly a while. And so
weeping, a sensation, strange, vague, tremendous, came into her being; and
she knew not what it meant; but the mystery of it filled her with great
awe. "'Tis God," she said to herself, "'tis God's hand upon me. He've
touched me, He've sealed me to dear, dear Jan. 'Tis a feelin' to bring
happiness along with it, nor sorrer." She battled with herself to read the
wonder aright, and yet at the bottom of her heart was fear. Then physical
sensations distracted her; she found her head was aching and her body
feeling sick. Truly the girl had been through an ordeal that day, and so
she explained her discomfort. "I be wivvery an' wisht along o' leavin' en,"
she said; "oh! kind, good God A'mighty, as hears all, send en back to me,
send en back to me very soon, for I caan't live wi'out en no more."
As for the man, he sighed when Joan disappeared; and the expiration of
breath was short and sharp as the sound of a key in a lock. He had in truth
turned the key upon a diary to be opened no more; for the sweetness of the
closed chapter was embalmed in memory, blazoned on canvas. Yet there was
bitterness, too, of a sort in his sigh, and the result of this sunken
twinge at his heart appeared when Brady, Tarrant and one or two other
artists presently joined him. They saw their companion was perturbed, and
found him plunged into a black, cynic fit more deeply than usual. He spared
no subject, no individual, least of all himself.
Paul Tarrant--a Christian painter, already mentioned--was the first to
find fault with Barron's picture. The rest had little but praise for it,
and Brady, who grew madly enthusiastic, swore that "Joe's Ship" was the
finest bit of work that ever went out of Cornwall. But Tarrant cherished a
private grievance, and, as his view of art and ethics made it possible for
him, from his standpoint, to criticise the picture unfavorably in some
respects, he did so. It happened that he had recently finished a curious
work for the Academy: a painting called "The Good Shepherd." It represented
a young laboring man with a face of rare beauty but little power, plodding
homeward under setting sunlight. Upon his arm he bore a lamb, and behind
his head the sinking sun made a glorious nimbus. Barron had seen this work,
admired some of the painting, but bluntly sneered at the false sentiment
and vulgar parade of religious conviction which, as he conceived, animated
the whole. And now, the other man, in whose heart those contemptuous words
still rankled, found his turn had come. He had bitterly resented Barron's
sarcastic reference to those holy things which guided his life; there was
something of feminine nature in him too; so he did not much regret the
present opportunity.
"And you, Tarrant? This gives you scant pleasure--eh?" asked Barron.
"It is very wonderful painting, but there's nothing under the paint that I
can see."
"Nothing but the canvas--in so far at least as the spectator is concerned.
Every work of art must have a secret history only known to its creator."
"What the divil d'you mean, Paul?" asked Brady.
"You know what I mean well enough," answered the first speaker coldly. "My
views are not unfamiliar to any of you. Here is a thing without a soul--to
me."
"God! you say that! You can look at those eyes and say that?"
"I admire the painting, but _cui bono_? Who is the better, the wiser?
There is nothing under the paint."
"You are one of those who turn shadows into crosses, clouds into angels. Is
it not so?" asked Barron smiling; and the other fired at this allusion to
his best known picture.
"I am one of those who know that Art is the handmaid of God," he answered
hotly. "I happen to believe in Jesus Christ, and I conceive that no picture
is worthy to be called great or worthy of any Christian's painting unless
it possess some qualities calculated to ennoble the mind of those who see.
Art is the noblest labor man can employ time upon. The thing comes from
God; it is a talent only to be employed in the highest sense when devoted
to His glory."
"Then what of heathen art? You let your religion distort your view of
Nature. You sacrifice truth to a dogma. Nature has no ethics. You profess
to paint facts and paint them wrong. You are not a mystic; that we could
understand and criticise accordingly. You try to run with the hare and hunt
with the hounds. You talk about truth and paint things not true."
"From your standpoint possibly. Yours is the truth of naturalism; mine is
the truth of Faith."
"If you are going to entrench yourself behind Faith, I have done, of
course. Only, don't go about saying, as you did just now, that Art is the
noblest labor man can employ time upon. That's bosh, pure and simple. There
are some occupations not so noble, that is all. Art is a heathen and always
will be, and you missionary-men, with a paint-brush in one hand and a Bible
in the other, are even worse than certain objectionable literary
celebrities, whose novels reek of the 'new journalism' and the Sermon on
the Mount--the ridiculous and sublime in tasteless combination. You
missionaries, I say, sap the primitive strength of Art; you demoralize her.
To dare to make Art pander to a passing creed is vile--worse than the
spectacle of the Salvation Army trying to convert Buddhists. That I saw in
India, and laughed. But we won't quarrel. You paint Faith's jewelry; I'll
amuse myself with Truth's drabs and duns. The point of view is all. I
depict pretty Joan Tregenza looking over the sea to catch a glimpse of her
sweetheart's outward-bound ship. I paint her just as I saw her. There was
no occasion to leave out or put in. I reveled in a mere brutal transcript
of Nature. You would have set her down by one of the old Cornish crosses
praying to Christ to guard her man. And round her you would have wrought a
world of idle significance. You would have twisted dogma into the flowers
and grass-blades. The fact that the girl happened to be practically
brainless and a Luke Gospeler would not have weighed with you a moment."
"I'm weary of the old cant about Nature," said Tarrant. "You're a
naturalist and a materialist. That ends it. There is no possibility of
argument between us."
"Would the man who painted that gorse cant?" burst out Brady. "Damn it all,
Tarrant, if a chap can teach us to paint, perhaps he can teach us something
else as well. Look at that gorse, I tell you. That's the truth, won with
many a wrestle and heartache, I'll swear. You know as well as I do what
went to get that, and yet you say there's nothing behind the paint. That's
cant, if you like. And as to your religious spirit, what's the good of
preaching sermons in paint if the paint's false? We're on it now and I'll
say what I believe, which is that your 'Good Shepherd' is all wrong, apart
from any question of sentiment at all. Your own party will probably say
it's blasphemous, and I say it's ridiculous. You've painted a grand sky and
then ruined it with the subject. Did you ever see a man's head bang between
you and a clear setting sun? Any way, that figure of yours was never
painted with a sunset behind him, I'll swear."
"You can't paint truth as you find it and preach truth as you believe it on
the same canvas if you belong to any creed but mine," said Barron calmly.
"You build on the foundations of Art a series of temples to your religious
convictions. You blaze Christianity on every canvas. I suppose that is
natural in a man of your opinions, but to me it is as painful as the
spectacle of advertisements of quack nostrums planted, as you shall see
them, beside railway lines--here in a golden field of buttercups, there
rising above young barley. Of course, I don't presume to assert that your
faith is a quack nostrum; only real Art and Religion won't run in double
harness for you or anybody. They did once, but the world has passed beyond
that point."
"Never," answered Tarrant. "We have proof of it. Souls have been saved by
pictures. That is as certain as that God made the earth and everything on
it."
"There again! Every word you speak only shows how difficult it is for us to
exchange ideas. Why is it so positively certain that God made the earth and
everything on it? To attribute man's origin direct to God is always, in my
mind, the supreme proposition of human conceit. Did it need a God to
manufacture you or me or Brady? I don't think so. Consider creation. I
suppose if an ant could gauge the ingenuity of a steam engine, he would
attribute it without hesitation to God, but it happens that the steam
engine is the work of a creature--a being standing somewhere between God
and the ant, but much nearer the latter than the former. You follow me?
Even Tarrant will admit, for it is an article of his creed, that there
exist many beings nearer to God than man. They have wings, he would tell
us, and are eternal, immortal, everlasting."
"I see," said Brady, "you're going to say next that faulty concerns like
this particular world are the work of minor intelligences. What rot you can
talk at times, old man!"
"Yet is it an honor to God Almighty that we attribute the contents of this
poor pill of a planet to Him? I think it would be an insult if you ask me.
Out of respect to the Everlasting, I would rather suppose that the earth,
being by chance a concern too small for His present purposes, He tosses it,
as we toss a dog a bone, to some ingenious archangel with a theory. Then
you enjoy the spectacle of that seraph about as busy over this notable
world as a child with a mud pie. The winged one sets to work with a will. A
little pinch of life; develops under his skillful manipulation; evolution
takes its remorseless course through the wastes of Time until--behold! the
apotheosis of the ape at last. Picture that well-meaning but muddle-headed
archangel's dismay at such a conclusion! All his theories and conceits--his
splendid scheme of evolution and the rest--end in a mean but obstinate
creature with conscious intelligence and an absolute contempt and disregard
for Nature. This poor Frankenstein of a cherub watches the worm he has
produced defy him and refuse absolutely to obey his most fundamental
postulates or accept his axioms. The fittest survive no more; these
gregarious, new-born things presently form themselves into a pestilential
society, they breed rubbish, they--"
"By God! stop it, John," said Murdoch. "Now you're going too far. Look at
Tarrant. He'd burn you over a slow fire for this if he could. Speak for
yourself at any rate, not for us."
"I do," answered the other bitterly. "I speak for myself. I know what a
poor, rotten cur I am physically and mentally--not worth the bread I eat to
keep me alive. And shall I dare say that God made me?"
"But what's the end of this philosophy of despair, old chap?" asked Brady;
"what becomes of your worst of all possible planets?"
"The end? Dust and ashes. My unfortunate workman, having blundered on for
certain millions of years tinkering and patching and improving his dismal
colony, will give the thing up; and God will laugh and show him the
mistakes and then blot the essay out, as a master runs his pen through the
errors in a pupil's exercise. The earth grows cold at last, and the herds
of humanity die, and the countless ages of agony and misery are over. Yes,
the poor vermin perish to the last one; then their black tomb goes whirling
on until it shall be allowed to meet another like itself, when a new sun
shines in heaven and space is the richer by one more star."
"May God forgive you for your profanity, John Barren," said Tarrant. "That
He places in your hand such power and suffers your brain to breed the
devil's dung that fills it, is to me a mystery. May you live to learn your
errors and regret them."
He turned away and two men followed him. Conversation among those who
remained reverted to the picture; and presently all were gone, excepting
only Barren, who had to wait and see his work packed.