* * *
Darnay had not written again, and Sue did not know whether he had gone abroad or not. She knew nothing about his movements and she found this hard to bear. If he had written occasionally and told her how he was and what he was doing, it would have been so much easier—or so she thought. She found it difficult to visualize Darnay now—the lean figure, the tanned face, the keen eyes—and sometimes she felt as if she must go back to Beilford so that she could see Darnay again. She knew that she would be able to see him very clearly at Tog’s Mill, for everything would conspire to bring him before her eyes.
Sue had not been able to speak to her grandparents about her feelings for Darnay, but strangely enough, she found that she was able to confide in Aunt Bella.
It was one evening—a warm May evening—when they were sitting together at the open window in Aunt Bella’s own private sitting room. Miss Bulloch had been busy all day, for the hotel was very full, but now she had done everything necessary and was taking her well-earned rest. She sat in an old basket chair, filling it comfortably, and put her feet on a footstool.
“That’s better,” she said. “My, it’s been a day! You’ve been real useful, Sue. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“I like helping you,” Sue told her.
“I wish you’d stay. I’d be glad to have you, and that’s the truth. It isn’t only that you’re useful, but it’s having somebody of your own that’s nice, somebody you can trust. I’d give you a reasonable salary if you’d consider it.”
“It’s good of you, Aunt Bella,” Sue declared. “I don’t know what to say. Grandfather wants me to go home soon and help him with the business, but…”
Aunt Bella waited. “But what?” she said at last. “What’s keeping you back from going home and helping Thomas?”
Sue told her. She told Aunt Bella all about Bob, and when she had finished that story, she found herself speaking quite naturally of Mr. Darnay and of her time at Tog’s Mill. Sue did not speak of the divorce, for she had promised her grandfather to tell nobody about that, but she told Aunt Bella everything else, and Aunt Bella listened enthralled. She nodded and sighed and asked the right questions in the right places, for she was a romantically minded woman for all her bustling, practical common sense.
“Well,” she said at last. “Well, it’s no use telling you to take Hickie. That would be the sensible thing. Maybe you’ll come to it in time.”
“No,” said Sue in a low voice.
“No?”
“No, Aunt Bella. I’ve known Mr. Darnay, you see, and nobody is any good after that. I love him,” continued Sue, lured into this extraordinary confession by her great-aunt’s sympathy and the twilight hour. “I’ll always love him. I know he doesn’t think of me anymore, but I’ll think of him till I die.”
“Another woman’s husband!” commented Aunt Bella, not shocked but shaking her head sadly.
“She doesn’t want him!” Sue cried, sitting up very straight in her chair. “She treated him badly. She went away and left him. Besides, I’m doing her no harm in thinking of him.”
“It’s yourself you’re harming,” Aunt Bella said, sighing. “For what good can come of it, Sue?”
“Nothing… I don’t want anything except to see him sometimes. I’d be satisfied with that.”
“That’s poor comfort. Are you going to give up your life to thinking about the man? It’s a man by your side you’re needing, a flesh and blood man to bear the burdens of life with you and share your sorrows and joys. Dreams…” said Aunt Bella in a low voice. “Dreams are useless, Sue. It’s living that matters, everyday living.”
“I’ve thought that too sometimes.”
“I’ve lived in dreams,” continued Bella Bulloch softly. “My man was killed in the war, and I never fancied another, so I just stayed single and worstled through alone, but it’s a lonely road, Sue, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It’s a long time ago. I was young then, and not bad-looking either,” declared Aunt Bella more cheerfully. “I could have had my pick of one or two—though you may not believe it—but it’s your life we’ve to think of now, and it seems a real pity that you couldn’t make up your mind and take Bob.”
There was silence for a few minutes, and then she added, “Och, well, it’s no use. I’m not telling you to marry one man with the other in your head. There would be no good in that.”
“What are you telling me then?” asked Sue in bewilderment.
“I’m telling you to put the man out of your head,” said Aunt Bella firmly, “and the way to do it is to fill your head with other things. I’ll take you to the theater tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sue liked London. She was seeing it at its best, for the sun shone and the trees were green, their new leaves as yet ungrimed with soot. The chestnut trees with their waxy flowers were beautiful—more beautiful than flowers that grow upon the ground, for their background was the soft blue sky. Sue wandered about London by herself. She liked looking at the shops and the people, and she watched the children in the park—beautiful children, beautifully dressed, who sat in their prams like kings and queens or ran about playing and calling to each other in tiny shrill voices. She remembered what Darnay had said about cities, but, unlike him, Sue did not mind being invisible; in fact, she found it rather amusing and she wondered why Darnay had hated it so. These people, all so busy with their own small affairs, did not look at her, but she looked at them and wondered about them and made up stories about their lives. It was not only the people who interested her; the city itself was fascinating. She went and looked at the river and saw the ships pass up and down. She visited the docks and wandered down side streets into little old-fashioned squares and terraces where the roar of London could be heard afar off—like breakers on a distant shore. Sue enjoyed this solitary wandering even more than the round of sightseeing Aunt Bella inaugurated for her entertainment.
One day when she was exploring in the vicinity of St. James’s Palace she came across a shop window full of pictures, and, because she was always interested in pictures, she stopped and looked at them. How strange they were! How vivid in color! How entirely unlike the objects that they were supposed to represent!
Sue looked at them all carefully, and then, just as she was turning away, she saw the name on the wrought iron grill below the window. Hedley. It was Mr. Darnay’s agent! She hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she should go in. It would be rather awful of her, of course, for she had no intention of buying a picture, but perhaps Mr. Darnay’s pictures would be inside, and if so, she would see them. Suddenly, she felt that she must see those pictures again—they were a part of him. She pushed open the door and went inside.
She had expected to find herself in a shop, but this place was not like a shop at all. It was a large room with a thick fawn-colored carpet and walls of the same hue. On the walls were a few pictures—not many—and they were all vividly colored and queer. There was nobody in the room except a young man in a business suit who sat at a table, writing. He was so busy that he took no notice of Sue.
She stood for a few moments looking around timidly, and then she walked across the thick carpet and stood in front of one of the pictures. It was a very odd picture, Sue thought. The painter had chosen for his subject a china frog and a lemon and an ugly blue glass vase with one tulip hanging out of it sideways. What a funny collection it was! She was still looking at it and wondering about it when she was startled by the young man’s voice at her elbow (he had approached so silently that she had no idea he was there). “Very interesting, isn’t it?” he said.
“Very,” agreed Sue politely. Perhaps it was interesting when you really thought about it—interesting that anybody should bother to paint an ugly vase and a frog and a lemon and should paint them in that queer way so that it looked as if
they were all tumbling forward out of the picture.
The young man was busy pointing out the especially “interesting” features of the picture in extremely technical terms and Sue listened and agreed with him. She agreed with everything he said, and the young man—who was by no means as foolish as he looked—realized quite soon that she was not a potential buyer.
“Are you interested in the work of Masserage?” he inquired hopefully, pointing to another picture at the far end of the room.
“Not awfully,” admitted Sue sadly.
“Is there anybody?” he asked, waving his hands as if he were offering her the World of Art. “Is there anybody at all?”
“Well, I’m interested in…in John Darnay’s work.”
“You are, are you!” he cried. “Now that’s very—er—interesting. We have one or two Darnays here—er—perhaps if you wouldn’t mind waiting for a few moments—er—I think—er—I think Mr. Hedley himself would like to see you.”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Sue. “I mean, I couldn’t think of bothering him,” she added hastily. She was rather frightened now at what she had done; it was dreadful to have entered the premises on false pretenses. The young man was not so bad, for it was easy to agree with all he said, but Mr. Hedley would see through her in a moment and would realize that she was an impostor, absolutely ignorant of everything to do with painting. She thought regretfully of the book that Darnay had burned, and so vivid was her recollection of it that she could actually see it burning—the blackened leaves curling up and withering in the flames. If only I had read it, Sue thought, I would know exactly what to say.
“Mr. Hedley will be delighted to speak to you,” the young man reassured her. “It will be no trouble at all. The fact is we are very—er—interested in Darnay just now.” And with that somewhat enigmatic statement he vanished through a door in the wall—a door that did not look like a door until it was open because it was covered with wallpaper the same as the rest of the room.
Sue was still gazing at it and wondering why a door should be thus disguised when it reopened very hastily and a small, fat man appeared. He had a round red face and a bald head, and his eyes were bright and sharp like the eyes of a robin.
“Good afternoon, Miss—er—”
“Pringle,” said Sue.
“Miss Pringle,” repeated Mr. Hedley, smiling at her with his head on one side. “Miss Pringle, yes. You are interested in Darnay’s work?”
“Yes,” said Sue, “but I don’t want to buy anything.”
“Dear me, no, of course not,” agreed the little man as if that were the last thing he expected or desired. “You don’t want to buy anything, but you’re interested; that’s what we like to hear. We have one or two Darnays in the gallery, but they’re all sold. Fetch them down, Edward.”
The young man departed on his errand with silent speed.
“They’re sold?” Sue inquired.
“That’s right,” said Mr. Hedley.
Sue was surprised to hear that they were sold, but she tried not to show it, for she was conscious that the little man was watching her intently. There was something here that she did not understand, and she must get to the bottom of it without giving herself away.
Edward returned laden with pictures. He lifted one onto an easel that stood against the wall and stepped back with the proud air of a conjurer who has produced a rabbit out of a hat. “Very, very interesting,” he murmured.
It was more than interesting to Sue, for it brought back Darnay and the life at Tog’s Mill in a wave of remembrance. She remembered the day he had painted it in the snow and how she had tracked him down by his footprints, and she could hear his voice, that lazy teasing voice, saying, “It is your brain tells you snow is white—not your eyes.” The last time she had seen the picture was in the studio at Tog’s Mill. She had helped to pack it (or rather she had packed it herself, for Darnay, like most men, was not much use at making parcels), and now here it was again—an old friend in alien surroundings.
“You like it?” Mr. Hedley inquired.
“Yes,” said Sue. “Yes, I think it is wonderful.” She hesitated for a moment and then added, “But I thought—I thought you said—”
“You thought what?” prompted Mr. Hedley, his eyes watching her face.
“Only that I thought you said it was sold?”
“It is sold,” Mr. Hedley declared. He made a sign to his assistant, and the young man whisked the picture away and produced another in its place. Sue stood before it in silence, drinking in the beauty of the pale sky with its flying clouds and the delicate tracery of the bare trees upon Biel Hill. Mr. Hedley was silent too, and even the tall Edward forbore to make his usual remark, for there was something in Miss Pringle’s face that tendered him dumb.
There were five pictures in all, and each was displayed in turn, and it seemed to Sue that Darnay was here in the room with them—for there was a strange, wild beauty in the pictures, a brave freedom, and a vitality that were typical of Darnay’s self. It amazed Sue to think that there had been a time when she saw no beauty in these canvases. I must have been blind, she thought.
“Well,” said Mr. Hedley at last, “that’s the five pictures Darnay brought me, and I’ve sold them all.” He looked at Sue piercingly as he spoke, and then, as she made no comment, he continued earnestly. “Miss Pringle, I can see you are surprised to hear that the pictures are sold. Does this mean that you know Darnay? Does it mean that you are in communication with him?”
“I know him,” said Sue faintly.
“Do you know where he is?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know what to do,” declared Mr. Hedley with a helpless gesture of his small, fat hands. “I really am at my wit’s end. It is quite against my principles to discuss the affairs of my clients, but I feel sure you know something about Darnay. Shall we be frank with each other, Miss Pringle?”
“We might be,” Sue said cautiously.
He smiled. “I think I can be frank with you,” he told her. “It is not every lady—but no matter. I only ask you most earnestly that you will regard what I say as being in strict confidence.”
They sat down on a small sofa in one corner of the room, and Edward returned to his writing. “Now, Miss Pringle,” said Mr. Hedley. “I’m going to tell you the whole story, and all I want in return is your help. Is that a bargain?”
“I’ll help you if I can,” she replied slowly.
Mr. Hedley smiled again. “You’re Scotch, aren’t you?” he said. “It’s another word for cautious—but no matter; it’s better that way. Now, listen to me. John Darnay was a popular painter. He had developed a certain technique, and a great many people were interested in his work. I was able to sell his pictures without the slightest difficulty. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, Darnay gave up the whole thing. He went off to Scotland and started painting in an entirely different style. It was bad enough, from a business point of view, that he should change his technique, for the people who had been interested in his work were interested no longer—they wanted the old type of ‘Darnay.’ But even worse was the fact that the new pictures were so strange, so stark and cold and unsympathetic, that nobody would look at them. People like bright colors, you see. I wrote to Darnay several times, begging him to return to the old technique, but it was no good.”
“I know,” Sue said. “But how could he go back to something he had outgrown?”
“He did go back to it, and most successfully,” declared Mr. Hedley.
“Yes, but he hated it,” she replied. “It was a dreadful thing for him to have to do; he only did it because he needed the money so badly.”
“Oh, well, if you know that!” Mr. Hedley exclaimed, considerably relieved to find that so far he had violated no confidences. “I got him the commission for the portrait because he wanted the money, and, as I said, it was a tremendo
us success. Personally, I thought he had flattered his sitter too much—a little flattery is permissible, of course, but Sir Archibald was charmed, positively charmed with the portrait. I was very much relieved, I can tell you, because I was a little doubtful what Darnay would do—he was in a strangely bitter mood.”
“You needn’t have worried,” Sue told him. “Mr. Darnay had gotten the money so he was bound to give them what they wanted.”
“Well, yes, I suppose if you look at it in that way.”
“It’s the way he would look at it,” declared Sue.
“Hmm,” said Mr. Hedley. “Anyhow, they were more than satisfied. Darnay was offered several other commissions—good ones—but he wouldn’t look at them. He simply vanished,” said Mr. Hedley, throwing out his hands. “Simply vanished, leaving me with the five pictures that he had brought from Scotland. I held out no hope of selling them (for I didn’t believe they would sell), but I told Darnay he could leave them here if he liked. Last week a gentleman called in to see me, a very rich American who is celebrated for his interest in modern art and has an amazing collection at his house on Long Island. He always calls on me when he comes over here to see what I’ve got. I told him about Darnay’s latest craze and had the pictures brought down to show him—just to see what he would say.”
The Baker’s Daughter Page 18