Clay or plasticine? He had chosen the clay. ‘The clay is the birth’, and he had prepared it earlier in the day. He hitched up his plaster-splashed working blouse and groped in the pocket underneath for cigarettes. He lighted one, and glanced towards a low couch half hidden behind a curtain as if he would have lain him down. But no. It would be a better rest to keep his mind, not off, but just a little aslant of his work. Instead he began to walk about the studio, pausing here and there, but always before work of his own. The work of no artist alive or dead approached in its importance to John Brydon the work that lay ahead of him, and he himself was the man he would have to drive, to scourge, and if necessary to break rather than that work should not be done.
It was the chance of his lifetime, and he had waited half his lifetime for it. And he had not waited patiently nor with submission, content to wait his turn, but arrogantly and in bitterness, waking up to it each morning as a man wakes to the morning of his revenge. He had removed the eyeshade, showing the jutting nose and the mouth that pitied neither others nor himself. But ultimate victory was there too. He had all he had ever asked for – his chance. If he failed he only would be to blame. Others – for of necessity he would need the help of others – would fail him at their peril. Many said of him that he had no belief, only the stubborn, intractable strength of a working-hate. But now he knew that somewhere within him an angel had been watching all the time, an angel not to be thanked for opportunities, but to be praised in the seizing of them. And he would praise after his own fashion though it took blasphemy to bring it about.
To whom had he owed it that he was the only man in England who had had the honour of being invited? He did not know. The official letter, in French, had come like a bolt from the blue, with the arms of an Embassy at the top and the signature of some assistant-secretary at the foot, and with it had come the conditions, the specifications, the photographs of the site, the architects’ elevations, the tracings, the blue-prints, the rest of the data. So either some hitherto indifferent person had come tardily to his senses or there was a better man in the world somewhere than John Brydon had been aware of. But ultimately he owed it to nobody but himself, and it was his succession of past selves that he was considering now as he moved round the studio from piece to piece, the eyeshade still dangling in his hand, the brow beneath his grizzled hair deeply corrugated. Not that self, for example – he was standing before the startling head of a Faun that some fool of a critic had said was only startling because he had stolen it from the archaic Greek. He had not, and the fellow would have been told so had any critic been worth John Brydon’s breath. Critics! If a man was feeble enough they could pick him up when he fell, but not all the critics in the world could stop a man who knew his way and went it. And as with the Faun, so with the Ixion and others, in plaster, bronze, plaster waxed over, some still in clay under their wet swaddlings. All inclined to violence, something torn from the side rather than born in natural labour, pour épater, useless now. They had served their purpose in training him for this the opportunity of his life. He did not thirst for fame. As for decorations, they might have them who cared for such things. Money? Perhaps that was coming rather nearer. That was power as even the veriest fool understood it, and even when he had paid for the granite and bronze, the fees of his assistants and subordinates, the casting, the transport, the foundations, the setting up, the margin would be an ample one. But no less important than the money was the time. At the best two months was little enough for all he had to do. Over by the couch behind the curtain was a packed bag. He crossed to it and began to unpack it. A small stock of shirts and collars; a couple of suits of pyjamas; a large supply of handkerchiefs and a spare suit – he would need little more, since except for meals it would be at least a week before he set foot out of the studio again. And even for simple meals he could telephone.
And now for a little letter-writing, for there was plenty of that. He must think in advance of the three-ply set-up of his forty-foot statue’s surroundings, the parterres and approaches and the great domed Senate behind, of his perspective-drawings hardly less important than the maquette itself; of climate, of weathering, of the dozen other things that must be seen to when nations are in jealous competition, and each wants the feather in its own cap and sets its agents to work beneath the surface, so that the soul of the artist sickens but the State boasts itself in its son. John Brydon knew nothing about the State and cared less. What he cared about was his gamble with his life, for he knew that that thing that existed in his mind would either ride away in triumph the moment it was uncovered or fail completely. And he was not going to fail.
‘The clay is the birth, the wax is the death, but the bronze is the resurrection.’ He began to put the clay on his armature that very night.
2
When a man has a dream of that sort in his head the earlier stages of his work are likely to be incomprehensible to the casual visitor. He may even seem to be wasting his time, and certainly he is best left alone. John Brydon wanted nothing but to be left alone. Least of all did he wish to be approached by his wife, for he knew only too well what would happen. She would come with sympathy, encouragement, and that hit-or-miss understanding of hers. It was this last that made him never sure of her. Even when she praised the right thing he had to lock up that mouth of his far more tightly than if she could always have been depended on to praise the wrong one. In that sense there was seldom rest for his mind in her company, and the gap between them was bridged only by his great tenderness for his ten-years-old daughter, Mara.
Winifred Brydon appeared at the studio when the clay on the armature was some four days old. She had brought him flowers and a bundle of American magazines, for as a writer for such publications she pulled her weight in the family boat too. By this time the group on the turntable had taken some semblance of shape, but was still little more than an abstract mass, capable of a score of final constructions. It was before this that she stood, fair-haired, cool, wifely, solicitous, smelling of her Surrey garden, for Brydon would not have his child brought up in a town.
‘What a splendid beginning, darling!’ she said. ‘I had to come up to bring Mara to the Bannisters’ party, and thought I’d call. I shall fetch her again at six o’clock – at six o’clock mind, Mara,’ she added to the child.
John Brydon did not reply. He was looking at his plaster base again from which he had just dismounted the group it was to sustain. Out of that base was to spring the vitality of his whole design, and he was not satisfied with it. If that was wrong everything was wrong. His wife went on.
‘Those nice Crawshaw children are to be there. You remember you said what nice children they were. What is that?’ and she pointed to the irregular quadrilateral block he was knitting his brows over.
‘The base,’ he replied. ‘I’ve just dismounted it.’
‘Because the lines aren’t straight up? I can see from here they aren’t straight up. But that won’t be very difficult, will it?’
‘They aren’t meant to be straight,’ John replied. ‘It’s what’s called a batter. Every plane is battered except one. That’s the one, isn’t it,’ and he pointed it out to her, frowning at the thing again.
‘I see,’ she said, her fair head on one side. ‘Now I’ll take myself off and let you get on with your work for a bit. It’s only just round in South Kensington. I’ll pop in again in about half an hour.’
His answer was to pick up his daughter and to hold her against his breast. ‘Have a good time at the party, sweetheart,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll try to get down home for a weekend presently. That – when a thing’s out of the vertical – is called a batter. I know it’s not right yet, but it will be,’ and setting her down he once more fixed his eyes on his work. Waving her hand from the door his wife sought the family car.
With the group mounted on it again that base looked like giving trouble. It was the trunk up which the livi
ng sap of his idea coursed, and if it was right as it was then everything else was wrong. And suddenly he drew in his breath with a hiss again. It required courage, but he reached for a straightedge and a black crayon. He glared for a moment at the base, and then ruled a slashing line that would mean whole inches off the plaster and a new casting. The new line threw the whole group still further out, and what he had to do must be done now or not at all. Stiffening himself, and with hands as strong and steady as those of a surgeon, he grasped the whole superstructure, forced it bodily over as a bonesetter forces a bone into its proper place, and hissed again as he stepped back. Had he ruined it? No, the armature was unstrained and the gravity-centre still came over the base of support. But phew! He was glad that was over! A man doesn’t want to do a thing like that oftener than he needs! He dropped into a chair to rest.
He was not aware that in order to save him the trouble of going down again his wife had left both upper and lower doors open. Suddenly she was standing before him.
‘Darling, you’re tired,’ she said.
‘No,’ he answered. ‘I’ve just taken a bit of a risk, that’s all. Did you get Mara safely there?’
‘Yes. But I can see you’re tired. Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’
‘I should like one.’
‘It won’t take five minutes. I hope you’re eating properly. I know you haven’t too much time to do it in, but a breakdown won’t help you,’ and she went into the studio’s small kitchen.
He heard the little plop as she lighted the gas ring and the clink of cups and saucers. Except that a woman came in in the mornings he did these things for himself, and often they went undone. His absence from home put a good deal on Winifred, and it was good of her to come up and fuss about him like this. But he rather wished she hadn’t come to stay for the whole three hours of Mara’s party. Surely she had friends she could have called on? He knew that at present he was not fit company for anybody.
She entered with the tray. She had taken off a small bergère hat and was looking for somewhere to put the tray down. She did so on a small table she drew up to the couch half hidden behind the curtain. Then she poured out the tea.
‘Come and have it while it’s hot,’ she said. ‘Leave that thing just for a few minutes; surely you’ve time for a cup of tea! What do you say you call it when it isn’t straight up?’
‘Battered.’
‘And what have you made those thick black lines on it for?’
‘It will be to cut down and a new base made.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said, patting the fair hair, ‘it seems almost as bad as having a baby!’
And that, coming as it did near the truth, was precisely the kind of remark she was least successful at. She had made him sit down on the couch by her side. Having a baby? The clay the birth? Perhaps it was like that, and she knew what having the other sort of baby meant. But she knew nothing about this gestation of his. Any normal woman could have done what she had done, but for this birth of his John Brydon had been singled out from all the artists of the land. Again she was right in her hit-or-miss way, and John Brydon was silent. And suddenly he drank his tea at a gulp. It was time he got back to his turntable.
But she filled his cup again. She had leaned a little towards him, and there was a softer note in her voice as she sighed, ‘Oh dear, I do wish life wasn’t all work! I’ve had a trying time, too. Didn’t you say something about coming home for the weekend?’
‘Let me get a firm hold on this thing first.’
‘But surely you have. It’s a wonderful start. And Mara does so miss you.’
‘Remember it’s got to be finished in less than two months.’
‘Will you get it done any quicker by never leaving it for an hour?’ Her voice was softer still, and her hand was on the sleeve of his working-blouse. ‘It is so dull with only me and Mara, John –’
‘Don’t, Winifred,’ he muttered, and she pouted. ‘I can see you don’t mean to come, and it will be at least a week before I can get up to town again –’
‘Dear,’ he said gently, ‘let me tell you what I’m doing. As it is I’m breaking every rule of the competition. I’m doing far more than they ask for. To begin with I’m making it bigger, and strictly speaking they could turn me down on that alone. Then plaster would have done, and I’m giving them bronze. If it doesn’t cost too much I shall give them a granite base too. You see, I’m stealing every little advantage I can for the sake of the first impression. I may even have to ask them for a little more time. But even then it will mean working all day and half the night.’
‘I almost wish you’d never – no, of course I don’t mean that, but – John – ’ and her lids dropped and her hand crept closer to his breast.
And he had known what was coming ever since he had opened the door to her. More than that, it was her right and due. She even had means of enforcing it, for he knew what happened when husbands disregarded these natural occasions. The woman brought other weapons to bear. Negligence and preoccupation are not safe when the answer is to make jealous. Her arms were close about him and she lay on his breast quite still. She was still desirable enough for any husband, she smelt of her garden. He was glancing at his work on the turntable, but her touch on his cheek caused him to turn his eyes away, and she drew his face down. It was five o’clock, and she was going back to the Bannisters’ for Mara at six. After that it would be a week before he saw her again. Very well. Be it so. He bent his head and kissed her.
3
When little things began to go wrong with that scale-model of John Brydon’s the mishaps at first were to the accessories rather than to the clay itself, and they did not originate with John, but in the errors of his assistants. They were minor errors, but none the less a check. For example, the workman to whom he entrusted the re-making of the base somehow got wrong in a measurement, and as the work had to be done yet a third time it might as well be the finished article while they were about it. He had decided against granite. Special lacquers were cheaper and would have to serve. He put it in hand, hoping that no further hitch of the kind would occur.
But he was also beginning to worry about that extension of time it became plain enough he would have to ask for. Knowing how long these things take he wrote to the Embassy without losing any time. But as the days went on nothing happened, and since it would have been rash at this juncture to have approached the Government concerned direct he must give the Embassy officials yet a little longer. And say that these things were trifles and all in the day’s work. There followed something that was not a trifle. Those all-important perspectives, that were to ‘force’ an angle on a committee probably incapable of choosing one for itself as a conjurer ‘forces’ a card, gave him no confidence whatever as they progressed. An inferior design, perspectived as it should be, would certainly be chosen before his own.
Another difficulty too became the more serious the nearer it approached. His group included a horse, and a man may be as well grounded in human anatomy as John Brydon was and still have everything to learn about the comparative branches of the science. He made ready to go to school again. Books on the subject began to litter his couch, photographs and charts of equine types. He sent for semi-skeletonised plaster casts. Reins and bits and a headstall were slung across an angle of his walls. Further details of equipment and uniform (for which he had written) still did not arrive, but he remembered a man who possessed the skirted coat he wanted, a girl who had been a riding-mistress and had boots that for the moment would serve. These he made to sit for him, on an improvised steed of two padded chair-backs with a length of cord for the leathers, and by the time John Brydon had finished with his male sitter he had to be lifted like a cripple to the ground again. The girl was less fortunate. Not being a professional model she was on her mettle, he was too absorbed in his work to notice what was happening, and she had not even
to be lifted off. She fell off of herself, and did not come to the studio again. But John Brydon had got what he wanted.
Then something far more than all these things put together began to weigh on him. Iron-framed as he was, he was setting everything on one cast, and he began to be aware of a creeping staleness in himself, due to lack of proper exercise and work for too many hours at a stretch. That, unless it was seen to, would mean the end of everything, and his method of dealing with it was this –
He bought an alarm-clock and began to arrange his work in watches, the day and the night through, much as sailors do. In order that he should not be inopportunely awakened he telephoned to his wife in Surrey. She was not to ring him up unless the occasion was an urgent one, and on no account was she to come up to the studio without due announcement. He went into his reasons at some length, but she made no comment on them. Her short reply was ‘Very well.’ He felt himself a brute, but she assured him again that she ‘quite understood’, and he returned to his turntable.
But with all these increasing worries he had his bits of luck too. He was not exactly a sociable man, but for all that he had a few influential friends, who usually had a way of being no less grim than himself, and among these was a distinguished horse-surgeon, head of a great establishment. This friend was called into collaboration, for it was not likely that fault would be found with John Brydon’s horse after the approval of such an authority as he. In the establishment’s riding school grooms began to parade horses of the required type, while the sculptor took photographs and made notes, and one day John Brydon chanced to mention to his friend his apprehension about the Embassy’s ignoring of his letters, and the always possible other machinations that might be going on without his knowledge. It was well that he did so. Sir George told him that there happened to be in London at that moment a personage who might be of the greatest service to him, and as a result he spent an evening away from his studio for the first time since he had set up his armature. In order to do this he had to telephone for his evening clothes to be sent to him. They arrived, and he ordered a taxi to the door, for from prolonged standing his feet were beginning to give him trouble. But he returned late that evening satisfied that his interests were thenceforward in good hands, and, lying down for a minute, fell asleep in his evening clothes.
The Dead of Night Page 65