Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “You need only see them as much as you feel inclined,” said Joyce.

  “On the contrary,” said Philip with some excitement, “when one is ill, and there are visitors in the house, one is always meeting them when one does not want to. As you know, I do not take my hot bath till the middle of the morning: I am sure to meet one or other of them in the passage. And my mother invariably uses up all the hot water in the boiler.... It would all be very inconvenient. Besides, as I say, it was all hearsay about young Lathom being not quite steady; it is equally hearsay that he is. He may be as steady as a rock or as unsteady as — as that steamer from Marseilles to Port Said for all I care.”

  “But you acted on the report of his unsteadiness,” said Joyce, “in not letting him come down to see his copy of your Reynolds.”

  Philip put a fretful hand to his face and closed his eyes.

  “You are very persistent and argumentative, Joyce,” he said, “and you know I am not up to these discussions. And this morning only I was planning that as soon as I could move, we would go and spend a fortnight at Torquay: I see they have been having a great deal of sunlight there. Pray let us not continue. I think you said there was a letter from Craddock, to whom you never did justice. You disappointed me very much, and him too of course. Please take his letter and see what he has to say.”

  Joyce tore open the envelope and took out the contents.

  “There seems to be a cheque enclosed,” she said.

  Philip raised himself in bed, and put out his hand. An unexpected cheque by post is a pleasant excitement to all but the most apathetic Croesus.

  “Give it me,” he said. “I wonder what that can be for.” He glanced at it.

  “Good God, how slow you are, Joyce,” he exclaimed, “read his letter. I don’t know what it means.”

  Joyce read.

  “I enclose my cheque for five thousand pounds, which is the balance of what I actually received from Mr. Ward, for your Reynolds. With regard to your subsequent proceedings I throw myself unreservedly on your mercy. I have also to tell you that the statements I made to you about the character of Charles Lathom are entirely unfounded. I unreservedly withdraw them.”

  Philip made a quicker movement than he had done since 9.30 A.M. three mornings before, the same being the moment when the lumbago stabbed him.

  “Five thousand pounds!” he exclaimed. “Why, the man’s a thief! Joyce, five thousand pounds. A liar too! He acknowledges he told lies about that young Lathom. I’ve never had such a shock in my life. And the interest on all this money. Doesn’t he owe me that as well? Is it that he means by throwing himself on my mercy? I am not sure that I am inclined to be merciful about that....”

  Then he made an enormous concession.

  “Joyce, we must certainly show young Lathom that — why, I am sitting quite upright in bed, and felt nothing when I moved — as I say young Lathom must certainly be told that he may come down to see his copy. It would not do to be less generous than Craddock about that. But I am very much shocked:

  I hardly know what to say. Anyhow I will have my bath at once. And you might look up the trains to Torquay, my dear. Your grandmother and young Lathom must come down after we get back. Really, even when I move, I feel no pain at all, only a little stiffness. They say a great shock sometimes produces miraculous results....

  Joyce never quite determined the nature of this shock: sometimes it seemed only reasonable to sup pose it was the shock of joy at this unexpected and considerable sum of money, sometimes she construed it into a shock of horror at this self-revelation of their travelling companion. But certainly the lumbago ceased from troubling, and two days afterwards they started for Torquay.

  CHAPTER X

  IT was the day of the private view of the Academy; all morning and afternoon a continuous stream of public persons had been flowing in and out of the gates into Piccadilly and the mysterious folk who tell the press who was there, and how they were dressed, and to whom they were seen talking, must have had a busy day of it, for everybody was very nicely dressed, and was talking rather more excitedly than usual to everybody else. In fact there was hubbub of a quite exceptional kind, connected, for once in a way, with the objects which, nominally, brought these crowds together. The crowd in fact was not so much excited with itself (a habit universal in crowds) as with something else. Indeed the sight of Akroyd, who had just been knighted, talking to Tranby (who just hadn’t) roused far less attention than usual, and all sorts of people whom he was accustomed to converse with on the day of the private view hurried by him as he stood in an advantageous position in front of an extremely royal canvas at the end of the third room, catalogue in hand, scrutinizing not him, but the numbers affixed to the pictures. For a little while he was inclined to consider that a tinge of jealousy, perhaps, or of natural diffidence, more probably, prompted these inexplicable slights, but before long he became aware that there was something in the air besides himself. Opportunely enough, Craddock made his appearance at the moment, and Sir James annexed him.

  “Something up: something up, is there, Craddock?” he asked. “Yes: many thanks, my lady is very much pleased about it. But surely, there is an unusual animation — how de do? — an unusual animation about us all this morning. Is it a picture, or a potentate, or a ballerina? Ah, there is young Armstrong. Armstrong, I hope you will come to the hundredth night this evening. I shall say something about you at the call. No doubt your friends in front will demand you also.”

  Frank looked Craddock full in the face for a moment, and decided to recognize him.

  “Hullo, Craddock,” he said. “What’ll you give me for my portrait, or don’t you do business in these sacred halls? No, I’m afraid no amount of demand will produce me this evening, Akroyd. Goodbye: I’m going to stand by my portrait again: it’s the biggest lark out. Charles is up on top, isn’t he, Craddock?”

  Charles certainly was up on top, for it was he, and he alone, who was causing all this crowd to forget itself, in its excitement about him and his work. He had risen, this new amazing star, on the artistic horizon, and all eyes were turned towards it. In vain, for the moment anyhow, had Mr. Hoskyns conceived and executed his last masterpiece “Angelic Songs are Welling,” in which a glory of evening sunlight fell through a stained glass window onto the profiled head of a girl with her mouth open, sitting at an organ, while four stupefied persons gazed heavily at her, in a room consisting of marble and polished woodwork and mother of pearl. In vain were acres of heather and Highland cattle interspersed with birch trees and coffee-brown burns; in vain did the whole gamut of other portraits, from staid railway directors in frock coats, and maps spread on the table by them, down to frisky blue and white youngest daughters of Somebody Esquire, frown or smile or frolic on the walls. There were just three focusses of interest, one in the second room, one here among the masterpieces of the masters, a third in the room just beyond. Here was the portrait of “The Artist’s Mother,” in the room beyond Mrs. Fortescue gallantly maintained her place by the presentment of herself, and received congratulations; in the second room, Frank scowled and wrestled with his play. It was a Boom, in fact, everybody wanted to see Charles’ pictures without delay, and having done so, told everybody else to go and do likewise.

  Craddock had made what is known as a good recovery after the painful operation recorded in the last chapter. He had suffered, it is true, one relapse, when, on giving Lady Crowborough a choice of three nights on which to come to dine with him, he had received a third-person note regretting (without cause assigned) her inability to do so, but it soon became apparent to him that nobody, not even she, had any intention of making the facts of his operation known to the world. And with his recovery there had come to him a certain shame at what he had done. True, that shame was inextricably mixed with another and less worthy kinsman, shame at his detection, but it was there, in its own right, though no doubt detection had been necessary to bring it forth. It had come, anyhow, cowering and crying into the world.


  This morning, more especially, his shame grew and throve (even as his recovery grew) when he looked on those three superb canvases before which the whole world was agape. There was little under the sun that he reverenced, but his reverence was always ready to bow the knee before genius, and it seemed to him that of all the “low tricks” that his greed or his selfishness had ever prevailed upon him to accomplish, the lowest of all was when he let fall those little efficacious words about Charles. He had mocked and cheated the owner of the gift that compelled obeisance, the gift to which he, in all his tortuous spinnings, had never failed in homage. Surrounded as these three stars were now, with the smooth dark night, so to speak, of mere talent and more or less misplaced industry, it was easier to judge of their luminous shining, but he did not seek to excuse himself by any assurance of previous hesitation or doubt in his verdict of their quality. He had known from the first, when one summer morning close on a year ago he had stood by Thorley Weir that a star was rising.... He felt as if he had been picking Velasquez’ pocket.

  And yet the temptation at the time had been very acute. Just as there was no mistaking Charles’ genius for any second rate quality, so there had been no mistake in his telling himself that he had been in love with Joyce, when he had succeeded, so easily and meanly, for the time, in removing from his path what undoubtedly stood materially in his way. He had cleared the path for himself, so he had hoped, but the path, when cleared, led, so far as he was concerned, nowhere at all, and he might just as well have left it cumbered to his passage and himself encumbered of his monstrous meanness. Joyce still stood impenetrably barred from him, no longer only by the barrier he so rightly had conjectured to be there, but by the fact of his own detection in its attempted removal. But he had accepted the second rejection of himself as final, and since his return from Egypt had forbade himself to dally with the subject of domestic happiness. Consolation of all sorts could be brought to play, like a hose, on a burning place; given time the most awkward wielder of it could not fail to quench the trouble, and — the house of life had many windows into which the sun shone, without risk of provoking internal conflagrations. Only, sometimes, his subtly-decorated and sumptuous flat seemed to him now a little lonely. There was no longer any thought of a girl’s presence abiding there, turning it into that strange abode called home, and there came there no longer that eager and divinely-gifted boy, whose growth during this last year had been a thing to love and wonder at. He might have kept him: that at any rate had been in his power. Instead, he had grasped at a little more money, which he did not, except from habit, want, he had lied a little in the hope of entrapping that wild bird, love, and he had gained nothing whatever by it all. A certain morality, born perhaps of nothing higher than experience, had, in consequence, begun to make itself felt in him.

  The crowd surged and thickened about him, and he found himself the bureau of a myriad of inquirers. All this last winter and spring London had vaguely heard of this amazing young genius who was going to burst on the world, and Craddock in this room, and Mrs. Fortescue, looking nearly as brilliant as her portrait, in the next, were seized on as fountains of original information. Elsewhere Lady Crowborough, in a large shady hat trimmed with rosebuds and daisies, could give news of her own portrait now approaching completion, and Mr. Ward, who had marked down half a dozen pictures as suitable for his New York Luxembourg, followed, faint but pursuing, wherever he could get news of Craddock having passed that way, to tempt him with fresh offers for the mother portrait. Round that the crowd was thickest, and there, those who could see it were silent. There were no epithets that seemed to be of any use in the presence of that noble simplicity and tenderness. Once in a shrill voice Mr. Ward exclaimed, “Well, he’s honoured his mother anyhow!” but even that, though on the right lines, savoured of inadequacy, a fault to which she was mostly a stranger. Or, now and then, a critic would point out the wonderful modelling of the hand, or the high light on the typewriter, or even shrug a fastidious shoulder, and wonder whether the quality of the brush-work was such — But for the greater part, there was not much talking just in front of it. Somehow it lived: to criticise or appreciate was like making personal remarks to its face. It took hold of you: you did not want to talk.

  Charles had not intended to appear on this day of private view, but considering how deep and true was the knowledge that his portrait shewed of his mother, it was strange that it had not occurred to him that it was absolutely certain that she would insist on going herself and would not dream of considering any escort but his. She called for him in fact, at his studio about twelve, dressed and eager with anticipation, and Charles had the sense not to waste time in expostulation over so pre-ordained a fact, as he now perceived his visit to be, but accepted the inevitable and put on his best clothes, while his mother brushed his hat. It was thus about a quarter to one, when the galleries were most crowded and the ferment over the three portraits was at its highest, that they entered.

  Probably until that moment there were scarce fifty people out of all the multitude who knew Charles by sight, scarce five who knew his mother. But even as they went their way up the steps and met the opposing crowd of out-goers, she was aware of eager unusual glances directed at her, she heard little whispered conversations beginning “Why surely” — she knew that people stopped and looked after them as she passed, and all the exultant pride uprose triumphant, and laughing in the sheer joy of its happiness, even as when first she knew she had borne a child. Vague and wild were the conjectures at first, but every chattering group that passed them, recognising suddenly, confirmed it, and from conjecture she passed to knowledge. Why did they all stare at her with her quiet unremarkable face, who always passed about so private and unobserved, unless something had happened to make her thus suddenly recognised and stared at? She cared not at all for the little accesses of shyness and timidity that kept breaking over her, making her sweet pale face flush like a girl’s, for all her conscious self was drowned and forgotten in her son, in him who in an hour had caused her face to be famous and familiar. And how she longed that no inkling of this might reach Charles, so that her triumph might be prolonged and magnified, how she encouraged him to consult his catalogue, and tell her who this picture and that was by, fixing his attention by all means in her power on anything rather than the crowds that more and more openly stared and whispered about her. Well she knew that if once he guessed the cause of the whispers and glances, a horror-stricken face and flying coat-tails would be the last she would see of him. For the recognition of her she saw, just led to the recognition of him, and with ears pricked and eager, she could catch the sequels—” That must be he... What a handsome boy... But surely he’s so young....” It was sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

  They had passed in through the sculpture-gallery into the third room where, as she knew, her own portrait hung, and with infinite craft, prolonging the time, she had immediately caught sight of something on the opposite wall, that claimed her instant attention. From one picture she passed to another, and furtively saw how dense a crowd was congregated on the other side of the room, and knew what it was that so absorbed them. And Charles was getting interested now in shewing her what he had seen on that his first historic varnishing day, and was eager with speech and pointed finger.

  “Look at that Sargent,” he said, “it makes you hate to look at that sunshine. How on earth does he do it? Isn’t it magic? Just blue and yellow, same as we’ve all got in our paint-boxes. But he sees so splendidly! That’s half the battle, seeing —— —”

  This was capital: at this rate her triumph would last all up the long wall, round the top of the room, and nearly half way down the other. Alas, it was already nearly over.

  Charles looked up and saw the mass of people round the place where undoubtedly his picture was.

  “Let’s go and look at you, mother,” he said, “as you said you wanted to see it hanging. I say, what a lot of people there are. There’s a gorgeous thing of Lavery’s hanging
next it: it was rather bad luck, that, on me, though it’s a miracle getting on to that wall at all. Come across: we’ll get that over, and then can enjoy the rest.”

  They crossed the room and wedged themselves into the inter-shouldered crowd. Very slowly indeed those in front of them cleared away, and at length they stood opposite it. Then as they looked, those round them recognizing her, and making the infallible guess at Charles’ identity, stood a little back for them, and still a little more back. Charles, still child-likely unconscious, was intent on his picture’s neighbours: his mother knew exactly what was happening, and despite herself felt a gathering dimness in her eyes. In all her tale of unselfish years she had never felt so big with personal pride, into which not one atom of self entered.

  “Well, if you’ve finished looking at yourself, mother dear,” said he in rather a high voice.

  He turned and horror glazed his eyes. It was quite impossible to mistake what that half-circle of pleasant well-dressed folk were staring at, not the picture’s neighbours, not his picture itself this moment.

  “For heaven’s sake, let’s get out of this,” he said, blushing furiously. And the knot of people round his picture turned, smiling and pleased at the boy’s modesty, and the mother’s superb pride.

  Charles in his retreat, with his mother in his wake, ran straight into Craddock. This was no great embarrassment, for Craddock had been to the studio not long before: also his mother knew nothing, except that Charles a month ago had been greatly upset in connection with Craddock. She might have guessed more, but Charles had told her no word. And at the moment in his confusion, any known face was a harbour of refuge.