Sun in Splendour

by JH Fletcher

  Only in Marie’s mind did it remain, and even she could not have put into words the apprehension she felt. There were memories, and echoes from the time before memory. A beginning: what must have been an awareness of light, the identity of herself and, later, of others.

  Voices and movement; darkness, stinking, redolent of terror. Her own shrieks, deafening amid the darkness. A warm nothing that covered her face, binding the cries within her throat. Birth and terror, linked as one. Another image: the surge and tumult of waves, bursting greedily beneath their feet. Birth and cataclysm. The father whose presence or absence she never knew but who, she later heard, had existed but would never now come home. Birth and death.

  Sex, too. Herself in the studio, spying bate-breathed through the chink between door and frame, observing the rhythmic, moaning movements of the couple upon the couch. Aline and Atlas Pentecost. She had understood even then that this event would mark a hiatus between the relationship she had shared with her sister in the past and what it would now become. Jim Keith’s hot eyes, his mumbling voice spit-wet in the dark woods. The making of children linked also to terror, to cataclysm.

  Birth and creativity, cataclysm and death. All one.

  And now the birth of the baby Gregory, accompanied by an earthquake striking echoes in her heart.

  Marie understood the nature of her memories. When I paint, I do not simply create. I am the messenger of cataclysm and death.

  7

  T‘hank God for money.’

  Aline dumped the children with the nurse and went with Marie to the Society of Artists Summer Exhibition. What pleasure to be free, if only for a few hours! But she knew, too well, that the children and her ever-attentive husband would be waiting when she returned.

  ‘All the more reason to make the most of the time I’ve got,’ she said brightly, without troubling to explain what she meant. Did not need to, perhaps.

  Martha came up by train from Woonga. They had arranged to meet her at the Redfern terminus. Charles had permitted Aline and Marie to borrow the carriage to take them to the station, but would need it himself after that. Aline had been willing to sulk — for a year, now, she had been agitating for a carriage of her own — but saw it would do no good and, grudgingly, held her tongue. Instead, after Martha’s train had arrived, clanking and puffing black smoke, they took a hansom, the horse’s hooves drumming on the newly-laid wood block roadway as they approached their destination.

  Martha rarely visited the city these days and exclaimed at how Sydney was developing. Aline wore a put-upon expression, thinking the hansom a sorry comedown from the carriage she should have had, while Marie, heart threatening to burst, did not care how she got to the Exhibition as long as she did.

  Martha turned to her in the jiggling cab. ‘Did you tell your mother about the Exhibition?’

  ‘For all the good it’ll do.’

  Martha did not pursue the subject, which was clearly edged with swords. In truth, it was unlikely Eugénie would be there. She had always been pragmatic and now, unhappily, had more pressing considerations than her daughter’s paintings.

  The economic failures of recent years had ruined thousands. Henry Pearman’s business interests had collapsed with the banks that had held his paper; the liquidators were pressing. Horace, speaking gravely, as of the dead, had told his wife that there was no way Henry could meet his obligations. Henry and Eugénie still occupied the house on the North Shore but, by their own standards, the standards of their friends, they were ruined.

  It was not something to talk about; instead, Martha exclaimed, brightly, about this and that aspect of the Sydney streets that unfolded beyond the window as the cab bore them along.

  None of them had known what to expect but, bad times or not, the Exhibition Hall was crowded. Heels clacked on marble floors. Voices echoed. They went quickly around the room, scanning the exhibits. Marie, sweat clammy beneath her dress, could not see her paintings anywhere and was willing to feel panic, until Aline said, ‘There …’

  They stared up at them. They were placed high on the wall, dwarfed by the size and light of the Streeton hanging regrettably close to them, but there. Marie stood, feeling silence enfold her. She had gone out into the bush. She had chosen the scene, set up her easel. She had spent hours, plagued by flies and heat, trying to read the truth of what was in front of her. Trying to convey that truth to the canvas. She had framed the canvases, delivered them to the judges. Had waited for their verdict, for this moment. All these things she had done, yet only now could she accept that the paintings existed at all. That she herself existed. She stared and stared at this reality of herself, displayed for the world to see upon the wall. She felt joy, fulfilment, terror.

  I do not exist, she thought. I am there, in the two paintings. So who is this standing here, watching them? Watching me? Who am I? She answered her own question: I am nothing, no-one. The idea filled her with dread. She could have wept, although not from joy.

  Ashton was there, with Lukas. They congratulated her and her spirits revived. It was a wonderful feeling to be treated as an equal by artists whose work she admired. And in front of Martha and her sister who, she noticed, still wore her put-upon look.

  She is jealous, Marie thought, and told herself she did not care. She would not let Aline spoil this day for her. By contrast, Martha’s joy was full, and unfeigned.

  ‘I am so happy for you. For all of us.’

  ‘What a pity Horace couldn’t be here,’ said Aline spitefully. ‘It’s his investment, after all.’

  Whether her words were intended to stab Horace, or Marie, or even herself, was unclear.

  ‘You must invite him to your house,’ Marie said. ‘Show him the picture I did of you.’

  Aline’s nostrils flared. ‘Such a pity they’re so close to the Streeton. It takes so much away from them.’

  Marie smiled and smiled, not a care in the world. ‘At least they are there.’

  Storm clouds at the Exhibition.

  Tom Roberts was also there. Marie smiled, poised to introduce Martha and Aline, but he looked at her and through her, as at a stranger. Unlike Lukas, he had no word of congratulation for her; as President of the Society, it was not his function to offer congratulations to lesser artists. However, Marie noticed that, surrounded by admirers, he was not averse to receiving them. She closed her face and watched as he was swept away on a tide of adulation, from others and himself.

  Another woman approached. Still annoyed, Marie glanced at her. And looked.

  The woman smiled apologetically. ‘I could not let the day go by …’

  Marie blinked, feeling tears prick her eyes. Eugénie had come, after all.

  No-one would have known by looking at her that she had financial problems: a hat to knock your eyes out, a lavish silk dress, brand new and, no doubt, the height of fashion. Being herself, she took charge at once. ‘Show me …’

  Marie was happy to oblige.

  ‘They are too high up,’ Eugénie said. ‘One can see that at once. The light is wrong. No-one can look at them properly up there.’ She transferred her gaze to the Streeton. ‘And what is this?’

  ‘That is an Arthur Streeton.’

  ‘I have never heard of him.’ As though disdain alone could clear the way for the daughter that it seemed she wished to re-adopt. ‘His work is nowhere near as good as yours. What little they permit us to see of it.’

  Marie had to laugh. ‘But Mother,’ speaking French to her for the first time, ‘he is one of Australia’s leading Impressionists.’

  ‘An Impressionist?’ Her sniff was loud enough to turn heads. She answered in English, deliberately inviting attention, Marie thought. ‘In Australia, perhaps. I suppose that is possible. But I lived surrounded by Impressionists. I knew Renoir, Monet. Knew them well. Not to mention your father. They were real Impressionists. Whereas this …’

  She waved her hand disdainfully, consigning Streeton and perhaps all Australian artists to the rubbish heap.

 
‘I am Australian, too,’ Marie protested, still laughing.

  ‘You are French!’ Eugénie was willing to be ferocious about it. ‘Do not distress yourself. My friends also had trouble with the Academy. When their work was accepted, it was always hung badly. But they became famous, in spite of everything. It will be the same for you. I can tell.’

  She turned away, satisfied with her prognosis of Marie’s future and her demolition of Arthur Streeton, who was not present. Just as well, Marie thought.

  Only now did Eugénie turn to the others. She looked at Aline, whose presence she had not previously acknowledged. She smiled, but made no attempt to embrace her. It was as though a wall of glass, invisible but impervious, had come down between them.

  ‘I hear you have another child?’

  ‘Yes. A boy.’

  ‘Your husband will be pleased.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I shall come and see him. Next week, perhaps.’

  Not a request, but a statement. Aline could accept it or not, as she chose.

  ‘You are always welcome.’ But she spoke formally, as though to a stranger — which perhaps she was, to Aline at least.

  Eugénie transferred her attention to Martha. ‘You are well?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘Also well. He has his problems, of course, as we all do in such difficult times …’

  ‘That is good.’ Not by a flicker of an eyelash did Eugénie acknowledge Martha’s unspoken question. If that was what it was. ‘Please be kind enough to convey to him our best wishes.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  There remained the question of what to do with each other, now they had found themselves.

  ‘Perhaps some tea?’ suggested Martha.

  Marie found it hard to tear herself away. She cast a lingering eye at her paintings, as though trying to imprint them forever on her memory.

  ‘You can always come back,’ Aline said spitefully. ‘They’ll still be there in the morning.’

  And — who knew — might even be sold. Although that, for the moment, seemed too much to hope.

  8

  After tea, they went their separate ways.

  ‘How are you getting home?’ Marie asked her mother.

  Eugénie dismissed her solicitude, airily. ‘I shall manage.’

  And was gone. Another hansom dropped Martha at the station in time for her train. Marie had decided to stay a second night in the city. The two sisters drove home in sharp-edged silence.

  Yet, in bed that night, Marie lay in darkness, in glory.

  It is true. It is true.

  The next morning she returned to the Exhibition. Daringly, she went alone and, if eyebrows were raised at this woman walking unescorted around the hall, she did not care. She went at once to stand before her paintings. Each of them now bore a red sticker. Marie stared, while her heart thundered and her breath hung motionless. It could not be true, but was. Both, both, had been sold.

  She found the office. A pin-sharp woman appraised her. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was wondering … Paintings 103 and 104?’

  The woman consulted a list. ‘They are sold.’

  ‘I wondered if you would tell me who bought them?’

  ‘That is confidential.’ She returned the list to a drawer that might have contained state secrets, so emphatically did she close it.

  ‘They are mine. I mean, I painted them.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The woman was indifferent to artists; in her time she had no doubt been blandished by many. ‘The information remains confidential.’

  Eugénie, Marie thought as she walked down the street from the Exhibition Hall. That’s who it was. How she found the money I don’t know. But it was her, I am sure of it.

  The day was bright because of it.

  It was a time of wonder. She had sold both paintings and, however often she went back to the Exhibition Hall to prove to herself, yet again, that she had not imagined it, they remained sold. Never again did she try to find out who had bought them. Now it seemed to her better that she should not know, and she was glad that the woman had refused to tell her. It doesn’t matter who bought them, she told herself. The only thing that matters is that, for whatever reason, someone did.

  That night Marie walked round and round her room, stepping carefully as though afraid to disturb the sense of wonder by which she was surrounded. She stopped to study her reflection in the mirror.

  I am an artist. As long as I live, I shall never be anything else. Mother warned me that it would involve sacrifice; so be it. I can be only what I am, would not change even if I could.

  The lust for success was upon her. She would permit nothing to stand in her way. She made what she knew would be a lifetime commitment. I have the talent. I have the determination. I shall succeed.

  And still the wonderment remained. The commitment she had made, or perhaps the sale of the paintings, added fluency to her brush. She watched herself improve in technique and vision. She had the courage to try and outperform herself, and succeeded.

  Far out in the bush, she experimented with pigment, light, structure. More and more it seemed that something outside herself was guiding the brush, looking out of her eyes at the aura of whatever she was painting.

  In the bush, the quality of light differed utterly from the light in the city or the mountains. She studied it, trying to break it down into its components, to discover the secret of what it was. She experimented with silver and white, using them to lighten her palette even further. Considered the result. No. Added cadmium, but the brilliant yellow jarred against the rest. In the bush nothing jarred. Everything differed, yet was one. Instead of blending colours, she laid them side by side, seeing whether the juxtaposition of one with the other might produce the effect she wanted. No. She tried a hundred different things. No and no and no.

  She remained untroubled. Somewhere there was an answer, and she would find it. I shall succeed.

  One day, alone in the bush, she saw a shadow scythe through the air above her head and settle on a rocky outcrop, a hundred feet or so in height, that emerged from the plain half a mile away. She stared but could see nothing, until the shadow lifted into the air again and she realised that it was a great bird, perhaps an eagle. She walked towards the outcrop until she was close enough to see, on a ledge just below the summit, an untidy mass of twigs and branches several feet in height. As she watched, the eagle returned, some small creature dangling from its talons. Again it settled on the nest; again, after a few minutes, it lifted into the air and flew away. Its wedge-shaped tail stood out sharply against the cerulean vastness of the sky.

  Impulse drew Marie closer. The cliff beneath the ledge was almost sheer. There was no sense in trying to climb, to put herself pointlessly into danger, yet she did not hesitate. Seemingly without trying, she found handholds and drew herself steadily upwards. She thought, I have no idea how I get down again. Yet she continued, all the same.

  There was silence beyond the furtive sounds of her steady movement, of the breath sighing through her open mouth. Perhaps that is it, she thought. Perhaps it is the quality of the silence and not the light that is different. But how can silence affect light? Or how do you paint it, if it does?

  Sweat ran in rivulets. She paused for breath. Beneath her feet was air, the vertical swoop of rock. Far below, a scattering of sparse bushes showed, yellow and olive and brown.

  The bird scythed close to her head. She froze, hands clamped to the warm cliff face, and craned her neck upwards. She was close to the ledge, now. The eagle was perched on the rim of the nest, from which came the squawks of the fledglings she could not see. Marie had heard that eagles sometimes attacked people who invaded their space. She stared up into the blank yellow glare of the raptor, not more than ten feet above her.

  Serves me right if it goes for me.

  She was utterly defenceless, yet unafraid. She was certain the bird would not hurt her. She felt only wonder at seein
g the eagle so close, in its arrogance and majesty. Nothing else existed. There was neither pity nor fear in its gaze, no emotion of any kind. Just the yellow eyes watching her, and silence.

  She knew that this would be one of the supreme moments of her life. Instinct had brought her here, to the realisation that she and the bird were one, that both of them were part of the whole, that they were the rock and air and shining sun, all that ever was or ever would be. Emotion stole her breath. Here, far from succour or other humans, she had come home.

  She did not need to get any closer. Instead she waited, while the eagle continued to watch. Eventually, satisfied that she posed no danger, it flew away. The magic moment was over.

  Somehow she climbed down again, although afterwards could not remember doing so. From the ground she looked up again at the rock face, the nest just below the summit. She could have died but, instead, had found life. The knowledge would never leave her. Love, she thought — that was what it had been, of a type and intensity that she had never imagined, devoid of consideration or even awareness of self.

  She discovered she was laughing, ecstatic. This is the pinnacle, she told herself. I have life and awareness and talent and will. Now love, too. Love of all things. I am the Queen. The Queen Empress. Before whom all, all, will bow down. Before she could stop herself, she had shouted aloud, her voice echoing exultantly across the emptiness. ‘The Queen! I am the Queen …!’

  She could not have said whether she meant it or whether, as later she told herself repeatedly, with terror and grief in her heart, it had been only a joke. Perhaps it had been no more than that but later, as always, was too late.

  All her life, Grace had been obsessed by her Aunt Marie. From the time when feeding, sleeping and crying made up the totality of her existence, she had been charmed into gurgles of delight by Marie’s presence. When Marie had painted her in her cradle with Aline looking down at her, she had been as well behaved as a baby could be. Aline had commented on it fondly, yet with a certain edge to her voice. No mother likes her child to be more affectionate with a stranger than herself.