COINCIDENCES.
For a few days Edward Graham worked at his big canvas under Anerly
Bridge. The weather was superb, the "studio" as quiet as the top of
Horeb, and the artist in the very best of spirits. He had already
dead-coloured his work, and got in some of the most important shadows.
This cavernous chamber had many advantages for a painter. The light
was of the coolest and softest. But few people and fewer vehicles
passed over the bridge to disturb the quiet of the place. Owing to the
moisture of the air, the rattling of waggons or carts did not cause
any dirt or dust to fall from the roof.
Graham had not told any of the people at The Beagle or in the village
that he was going to paint the scene under Anerly Bridge. The morning
after the easel, canvas, and colours arrived he had arisen at four and
carried them to the bridge, and got them over the parapet and under
the arch without anyone seeing them or him. He did not want to be
haunted by village boys or idle men. He wanted to paint his picture,
and to paint it in peace and quietness.
So every morning he arose before the village was stirring, walked to
the bridge, and painted until breakfast-time. He waited until all the
people were at breakfast, then went down the little glen as far as the
church, got into the churchyard, and returned to The Beagle by the
church-path and the main road. He had a simple dinner then at the inn,
a pint of cider and a pipe under the portico, where he sat until all
the village folk were once more at work. Then he went back to the
church again, ascended the glen, and recommenced painting.
A more happy or peaceful time Graham never spent than those hours
beneath Anerly Bridge. He was young, in full health, had enough money
to keep himself comfortably, was by nature light of heart, and had
made a good beginning of a picture which he firmly believed would
establish his fame. Nothing could be more delightful than working away
at his big canvas down there. No one in Town but Cheyne knew where he
was or what he was doing; and even Cheyne had only a general notion
that he was painting a landscape, nothing more. He should get back to
Town in a month or so with his great picture finished. He should not
sell it for awhile, not until he had it on the walls of the Academy
anyway. He could live very well until next spring or summer without
selling this; and he would put a big price on it, and send it to
Burlington House. Suppose it was well hung, he would get his money for
it, and a lot of press-notices besides. Cheyne could arrange one or
two press-notices, anyway.
The afternoon before the gale he had been at work on the sky. The sky
was to be full of pure blue morning light, and across it were to float
shining white clouds. All was to be calm and radiant; and somehow or
another he did not like the look of the sky that afternoon. The colour
aloft was thin and dragged out. There was also a disheartening chill
in the air. He felt no disposition for work after dinner. This
disinclination he attributed to having drank stout instead of cider
with his chop.
"It will never do," he said to himself, "to get any bile or stout into
that sky. Champagne above and maraschino below are what this picture
ought to be painted in. Stout is fit only for still-life and
decorative work."
Therefore, a couple of hours after dinner he left his studio, and,
descending by the glen, reached the churchyard, whence he returned to
the village. It was too early for the elders to assemble, and Graham
did not know exactly what to do with his time. It was not inviting out
of doors, so he went up to his room and cast about him to see if he
could find any not too laborious occupation to fill up the time until
he might go down and smoke a big pipe with the elders in the porch.
It was not easy to find any occupation in that room. It was perfectly
satisfactory as a sleeping-chamber for a bachelor, but it afforded no
means of amusement. Of course Graham could smoke; but merely smoking
was not enough to keep a young man employed for hours. Besides, Graham
was such an inveterate smoker that a pipe was no more to him than a
coat or a pair of boots. It went without saying.
At last he thought he would sit down, and, as he was going to paint
the scene under Anerly Bridge, write out the story of Anerly Church
told him by Stephen Goolby. Cheyne had not made any allusion to the
coincidence between the name of the chief actors in that story and his
own.
He wrote on for a long time, telling the story as plainly and as
tersely as he could. It was close on six before he had finished, and
then he was obliged to leave a blank for the names of the man and
woman who had been married. He knew the man's surname was Cheyne, but
could not recall the christian-name of the man, or either the
christian-name or surname of the woman.
As soon as he heard voices in the porch he went down, and, having
called for cider and a long pipe, joined in the conversation.
Gradually he worked it round to Stephen Goolby's favourite story, and
got the old man to tell him the names once more.
"If you like," said Stephen, "you are welcome to come down and see the
entry yourself."
"Oh no; thank you. I only asked out of curiosity," said Graham.
Soon after that the evening turned suddenly cool, and from cool to
cold. The men took their measures and pipes and tobacco into the
comfortable front parlour, whence, at an early hour, Graham retired to
his room.
Here he took up the story, and having found out the blanks for the
names, wrote them in. It was not until he had filled in the names, and
was reading them over, that another coincidence struck him. Not only
were the surnames of the man married thirty-five years ago and his
literary friend the same, but the christian-names were also identical.
Both men were Charles Augustus Cheyne.
This seemed to Graham a most remarkable circumstance; and when he
remembered that Cheyne never spoke of his father and mother except
when he could not help it, and that he was now about thirty-four years
of age, and that this marriage took place thirty-five years ago, he
was more than surprised--he was interested. He made up his mind to
keep the story by him until he got back to London, and then work
gradually round Cheyne until he got him to tell all he knew of his own
history. Then, if there seemed to be any likelihood of this story
fitting to the real history of Cheyne, he would give him the
manuscript; and if not, he would destroy it.
He went to bed, and slept soundly, so soundly he never heard the gale
that tore across the land from the north-east, and smote the fore
front of the forest, and beat back the unavailing trees, and thrust
the corn flat upon the earth, and winnowed the weakly leaves out of
the roaring woods, and hauled great curtains of cloud swiftly across
the distracted heavens, and held back the current of the persistent
river, and defied the wings of the strongest birds, and beat a level
pathway where the young saplings stood.
He slept unusually long that morning. It was six when he awoke. As
soon as he knew of the storm, he dressed himself hastily, and walked
as quickly as the wind would let him to the bridge.
Here his worst fears were realised. The archway had acted as a funnel,
and focussed the wind coming down the glen. The canvas was not to be
seen; the easel had been flung halfway through the bridge and smashed.
The colour-box, with all the colours out, had been blown out of the
vault, and lay in the foreground below.
He swore at the wind and at himself for his folly in leaving the
canvas there. Then he started in pursuit of the fugitive picture.
He found it, face down, in a shallow pool, just under the church. He
pulled it out of the water, and placed it flat upon the ground. He
then stood back from it a few feet, saw it was all cut and torn;
jumped on it half-a-dozen times; rolled it up carefully; carried it
back to the bridge; and, having emptied the bottle of turpentine over
it, succeeded, after many efforts, in lighting a match and setting it
on fire.
Then he sat down on his camp-stool--the storm had spared that--and
watched the unlucky canvas blaze in the sheltered place he had thrown
it.
"If I had only a fiddle now, and could play it, I'd be a kind of
Modern Nero. But I haven't a fiddle, and if I had I couldn't play it;
so, upon the whole, I think I had better get out of this place."
He rose and went back to the inn. All that day nothing was thought of
or talked of but the storm. By night the wind died away. Next morning
arose bright and serene. He had made up his mind to stay at Anerly no
longer. He would not paint that landscape. He would not try to recover
the wreck of that easel. He would not gather up the scattered contents
of his colour-box. The place had served him a scurvy trick, and he
would leave it without any other recognition of its existence than
that of paying what he owed at The Beagle. He would get back to Town
at once. Be it ever so humble, there was no place like Town.
At breakfast he called for his bill and paid it.
The London morning papers did not reach Anerly until ten o'clock.
Breakfast had softened Graham's mind towards the village. He no longer
called down fire and brimstone from heaven on the unlucky place. After
all, the wind, which had only been, like himself, a visitor, was more
to blame than the place. It was a horrid thing to get to London
in the early afternoon--the odious, practical, dinner-eating,
business-rushing afternoon. No. He would wait until the shades of eve
were falling fast, and then he'd through a Devon village pass, bearing
a banner, with the sensible device, "Nearest railway-station where I
can book for London?" In the meantime he would sit under the porch,
have some cider and a pipe, and look at the London paper, which had
just come.
Having been a severe sufferer from the storm, Graham naturally turned
to the account of it. The first thing that caught his eye was:
"Gallant Rescue of a Yacht's Crew." The Report did not consist of more
than two dozen lines, but it contained all the important elements of
the story, and wound up by saying that Mr. Charles Augustus Cheyne was
now the guest of his Grace the new Duke of Shropshire. In the early
part of the paragraph it spoke of Mr. Cheyne as being the author of
the late and very successful novel, "The Duke of Fenwick," so that no
doubt could exist in Graham's mind as to the individuality of the
hero.
"In the fact that Cheyne's name is the same as that of the man
mysteriously married here thirty-five years ago, and that the name is
the same as that of the Duke of Shropshire, and that Cheyne is at
Silverview now, there is more than mere coincidence, and I cannot do
better than send off my manuscript to Cheyne to-night."
So he put the sheets into an envelope, with a note, and posted them at
the railway-station on his way up to town.