The Light That Failed
- -
- 100%
- +
‘No! Leave me alone. How often must I remind you that I’m blind?’
‘Nothing I could go for to fetch for to carry for to bring?’
‘No. Take those infernal creaking boots of yours away.’
‘Poor chap!’ said Torpenhow to himself. ‘I must have been sitting on his nerves lately. He wants a lighter step.’ Then, aloud, ‘Very well. Since you’re so independent, I’m going off for four or five days. Say good-bye at least. The housekeeper will look after you, and Keneu has my rooms.’
Dick’s face fell. ‘You won’t be longer than a week at the outside? I know I’m touched in the temper, but I can’t get on without you.’
‘Can’t you? You’ll have to do without me in a little time, and you’ll be glad I’m gone.’
Dick felt his way back to the big chair, and wondered what these things might mean. He did not wish to be tended by the housekeeper, and yet Torpenhow’s constant tenderness jarred on him. He did not exactly know what he wanted. The darkness would not lift, and Maisie’s unopened letters felt worn and old from much handling. He could never read them for himself as long as life endured; but Maisie might have sent him some fresh ones to play with. The Nilghai entered with a gift, – a piece of red modelling-wax. He fancied that Dick might find interest in using his hands. Dick poked and patted the stuff for a few minutes, and, ‘Is it like anything in the world?’ he said drearily. ‘Take it away. I may get the touch of the blind in fifty years. Do you know where Torpenhow has gone?’
The Nilghai knew nothing. ‘We’re staying in his rooms till he comes back. Can we do anything for you?’
‘I’d like to be left alone, please. Don’t think I’m ungrateful; but I’m best alone.’
The Nilghai chuckled, and Dick resumed his drowsy brooding and sullen rebellion against fate. He had long since ceased to think about the work he had done in the old days, and the desire to do more work had departed from him. He was exceedingly sorry for himself, and the completeness of his tender grief soothed him. But his soul and his body cried for Maisie – Maisie who would understand. His mind pointed out that Maisie, having her own work to do, would not care. His experience had taught him that when money was exhausted women went away, and that when a man was knocked out of the race the others trampled on him. ‘Then at the least,’ said Dick, in reply, ‘she could use me as I used Binat, – for some sort of a study. I wouldn’t ask more than to be near her again, even though I knew that another man was making love to her. Ugh! what a dog I am!’
A voice on the staircase began to sing joyfully —
‘When we go – go – go away from here, Our creditors will weep and they will wail, Our absence much regretting when they find that they’ve been getting Out of England by next Tuesday’s Indian mail.’
Following the trampling of feet, slamming of Torpenhow’s door, and the sound of voices in strenuous debate, some one squeaked, ‘And see, you good fellows, I have found a new water-bottle – firs’-class patent – eh, how you say? Open himself inside out.’
Dick sprang to his feet. He knew the voice well. ‘That’s Cassavetti, come back from the Continent. Now I know why Torp went away. There’s a row somewhere, and – I’m out of it!’
The Nilghai commanded silence in vain. ‘That’s for my sake,’ Dick said bitterly. ‘The birds are getting ready to fly, and they wouldn’t tell me. I can hear Morten-Sutherland and Mackaye. Half the War Correspondents in London are there; – and I’m out of it.’
He stumbled across the landing and plunged into Torpenhow’s room. He could feel that it was full of men. ‘Where’s the trouble?’ said he. ‘In the Balkans at last? Why didn’t some one tell me?’
‘We thought you wouldn’t be interested,’ said the Nilghai, shamefacedly.
‘It’s in the Soudan, as usual.’
‘You lucky dogs! Let me sit here while you talk. I shan’t be a skeleton at the feast. – Cassavetti, where are you? Your English is as bad as ever.’
Dick was led into a chair. He heard the rustle of the maps, and the talk swept forward, carrying him with it. Everybody spoke at once, discussing press censorships, railway-routes, transport, water-supply, the capacities of generals, – these in language that would have horrified a trusting public, – ranging, asserting, denouncing, and laughing at the top of their voices. There was the glorious certainty of war in the Soudan at any moment. The Nilghai said so, and it was well to be in readiness. The Keneu had telegraphed to Cairo for horses; Cassavetti had stolen a perfectly inaccurate list of troops that would be ordered forward, and was reading it out amid profane interruptions, and the Keneu introduced to Dick some man unknown who would be employed as war artist by the Central Southern Syndicate. ‘It’s his first outing,’ said the Keneu. ‘Give him some tips – about riding camels.’
‘Oh, those camels!’ groaned Cassavetti. ‘I shall learn to ride him again, and now I am so much all soft! Listen, you good fellows. I know your military arrangement very well. There will go the Royal Argalshire Sutherlanders. So it was read to me upon best authority.’
A roar of laughter interrupted him.
‘Sit down,’ said the Nilghai. ‘The lists aren’t even made out in the War Office.’
‘Will there be any force at Suakin?’ said a voice.
Then the outcries redoubled, and grew mixed, thus: ‘How many Egyptian troops will they use? – God help the Fellaheen! – There’s a railway in Plumstead marshes doing duty as a fives-court. – We shall have the Suakin-Berber line built at last. – Canadian voyageurs are too careful. Give me a half-drunk Krooman in a whale-boat. – Who commands the Desert column? – No, they never blew up the big rock in the Ghineh bend. We shall have to be hauled up, as usual. – Somebody tell me if there’s an Indian contingent, or I’ll break everybody’s head. – Don’t tear the map in two. – It’s a war of occupation, I tell you, to connect with the African companies in the South. – There’s Guinea-worm in most of the wells on that route.’ Then the Nilghai, despairing of peace, bellowed like a fog-horn and beat upon the table with both hands.
‘But what becomes of Torpenhow?’ said Dick, in the silence that followed.
‘Torp’s in abeyance just now. He’s off love-making somewhere, I suppose,’ said the Nilghai.
‘He said he was going to stay at home,’ said the Keneu.
‘Is he?’ said Dick, with an oath. ‘He won’t. I’m not much good now, but if you and the Nilghai hold him down I’ll engage to trample on him till he sees reason. He’ll stay behind, indeed! He’s the best of you all. There’ll be some tough work by Omdurman. We shall come there to stay, this time.
But I forgot. I wish I were going with you.’
‘So do we all, Dickie,’ said the Keneu.
‘And I most of all,’ said the new artist of the Central Southern Syndicate.
‘Could you tell me – ’
‘I’ll give you one piece of advice,’ Dick answered, moving towards the door. ‘If you happen to be cut over the head in a scrimmage, don’t guard.
Tell the man to go on cutting. You’ll find it cheapest in the end. Thanks for letting me look in.’
‘There’s grit in Dick,’ said the Nilghai, an hour later, when the room was emptied of all save the Keneu.
‘It was the sacred call of the war-trumpet. Did you notice how he answered to it? Poor fellow! Let’s look at him,’ said the Keneu.
The excitement of the talk had died away. Dick was sitting by the studio table, with his head on his arms, when the men came in. He did not change his position.
‘It hurts,’ he moaned. ‘God forgive me, but it hurts cruelly; and yet, y’know, the world has a knack of spinning round all by itself. Shall I see Torp before he goes?’
‘Oh, yes. You’ll see him,’ said the Nilghai.
CHAPTER XIII
The sun went down an hour ago, I wonder if I face towards home; If I lost my way in the light of day How shall I find it now night is come?– Old Song.‘MAISIE, come to bed.’
‘It’s so hot I can’t sleep. Don’t worry.’
Maisie put her elbows on the window-sill and looked at the moonlight on the straight, poplar-flanked road. Summer had come upon Vitry-sur-Marne and parched it to the bone. The grass was dry-burnt in the meadows, the clay by the bank of the river was caked to brick, the roadside flowers were long since dead, and the roses in the garden hung withered on their stalks. The heat in the little low bedroom under the eaves was almost intolerable. The very moonlight on the wall of Kami’s studio across the road seemed to make the night hotter, and the shadow of the big bell-handle by the closed gate cast a bar of inky black that caught Maisie’s eye and annoyed her.
‘Horrid thing! It should be all white,’ she murmured. ‘And the gate isn’t in the middle of the wall, either. I never noticed that before.’
Maisie was hard to please at that hour. First, the heat of the past few weeks had worn her down; secondly, her work, and particularly the study of a female head intended to represent the Melancolia and not finished in time for the Salon, was unsatisfactory; thirdly, Kami had said as much two days before; fourthly, – but so completely fourthly that it was hardly worth thinking about, – Dick, her property, had not written to her for more than six weeks. She was angry with the heat, with Kami, and with her work, but she was exceedingly angry with Dick.
She had written to him three times, – each time proposing a fresh treatment of her Melancolia. Dick had taken no notice of these communications. She had resolved to write no more. When she returned to England in the autumn – for her pride’s sake she could not return earlier – she would speak to him. She missed the Sunday afternoon conferences more than she cared to admit. All that Kami said was, ‘Continuez, mademoiselle, continuez toujours,’ and he had been repeating the wearisome counsel through the hot summer, exactly like a cicada, – an old gray cicada in a black alpaca coat, white trousers, and a huge felt hat.
But Dick had tramped masterfully up and down her little studio north of the cool green London park, and had said things ten times worse than continuez, before he snatched the brush out of her hand and showed her where the error lay. His last letter, Maisie remembered, contained some trivial advice about not sketching in the sun or drinking water at wayside farmhouses; and he had said that not once, but three times, – as if he did not know that Maisie could take care of herself.
But what was he doing, that he could not trouble to write? A murmur of voices in the road made her lean from the window. A cavalryman of the little garrison in the town was talking to Kami’s cook. The moonlight glittered on the scabbard of his sabre, which he was holding in his hand lest it should clank inopportunely. The cook’s cap cast deep shadows on her face, which was close to the conscript’s. He slid his arm round her waist, and there followed the sound of a kiss.
‘Faugh!’ said Maisie, stepping back.
‘What’s that?’ said the red-haired girl, who was tossing uneasily outside her bed.
‘Only a conscript kissing the cook,’ said Maisie.
‘They’ve gone away now.’ She leaned out of the window again, and put a shawl over her nightgown to guard against chills. There was a very small night-breeze abroad, and a sun-baked rose below nodded its head as one who knew unutterable secrets. Was it possible that Dick should turn his thoughts from her work and his own and descend to the degradation of Suzanne and the conscript? He could not! The rose nodded its head and one leaf therewith. It looked like a naughty little devil scratching its ear.
Dick could not, ‘because,’ thought Maisie, ‘he is mine, – mine, – mine. He said he was. I’m sure I don’t care what he does. It will only spoil his work if he does; and it will spoil mine too.’
The rose continued to nod it the futile way peculiar to flowers. There was no earthly reason why Dick should not disport himself as he chose, except that he was called by Providence, which was Maisie, to assist Maisie in her work. And her work was the preparation of pictures that went sometimes to English provincial exhibitions, as the notices in the scrap-book proved, and that were invariably rejected by the Salon when Kami was plagued into allowing her to send them up. Her work in the future, it seemed, would be the preparation of pictures on exactly similar lines which would be rejected in exactly the same way – The red-haired girl threshed distressfully across the sheets. ‘It’s too hot to sleep,’ she moaned; and the interruption jarred.
Exactly the same way. Then she would divide her years between the little studio in England and Kami’s big studio at Vitry-sur-Marne. No, she would go to another master, who should force her into the success that was her right, if patient toil and desperate endeavour gave one a right to anything. Dick had told her that he had worked ten years to understand his craft. She had worked ten years, and ten years were nothing. Dick had said that ten years were nothing, – but that was in regard to herself only. He had said – this very man who could not find time to write – that he would wait ten years for her, and that she was bound to come back to him sooner or later. He had said this in the absurd letter about sunstroke and diphtheria; and then he had stopped writing. He was wandering up and down moonlit streets, kissing cooks. She would like to lecture him now, – not in her nightgown, of course, but properly dressed, severely and from a height. Yet if he was kissing other girls he certainly would not care whether she lecture him or not. He would laugh at her. Very good.
She would go back to her studio and prepare pictures that went, etc., etc.
The mill-wheel of thought swung round slowly, that no section of it might be slurred over, and the red-haired girl tossed and turned behind her.
Maisie put her chin in her hands and decided that there could be no doubt whatever of the villainy of Dick. To justify herself, she began, unwomanly, to weigh the evidence. There was a boy, and he had said he loved her. And he kissed her, – kissed her on the cheek, – by a yellow sea-poppy that nodded its head exactly like the maddening dry rose in the garden. Then there was an interval, and men had told her that they loved her – just when she was busiest with her work. Then the boy came back, and at their very second meeting had told her that he loved her. Then he had – But there was no end to the things he had done. He had given her his time and his powers. He had spoken to her of Art, housekeeping, technique, teacups, the abuse of pickles as a stimulant, – that was rude, – sable hair-brushes, – he had given her the best in her stock, – she used them daily; he had given her advice that she profited by, and now and again – a look. Such a look! The look of a beaten hound waiting for the word to crawl to his mistress’s feet. In return she had given him nothing whatever, except – here she brushed her mouth against the open-work sleeve of her nightgown – the privilege of kissing her once. And on the mouth, too. Disgraceful! Was that not enough, and more than enough? and if it was not, had he not cancelled the debt by not writing and – probably kissing other girls? ‘Maisie, you’ll catch a chill. Do go and lie down,’ said the wearied voice of her companion. ‘I can’t sleep a wink with you at the window.’
Maisie shrugged her shoulders and did not answer. She was reflecting on the meannesses of Dick, and on other meannesses with which he had nothing to do. The moonlight would not let her sleep. It lay on the skylight of the studio across the road in cold silver; she stared at it intently and her thoughts began to slide one into the other. The shadow of the big bell-handle in the wall grew short, lengthened again, and faded out as the moon went down behind the pasture and a hare came limping home across the road. Then the dawn-wind washed through the upland grasses, and brought coolness with it, and the cattle lowed by the drought-shrunk river. Maisie’s head fell forward on the window-sill, and the tangle of black hair covered her arms.
‘Maisie, wake up. You’ll catch a chill.’
‘Yes, dear; yes, dear.’ She staggered to her bed like a wearied child, and as she buried her face in the pillows she muttered, ‘I think – I think…
But he ought to have written.’
Day brought the routine of the studio, the smell of paint and turpentine, and the monotone wisdom of Kami, who was a leaden artist, but a golden teacher if the pupil were only in sympathy with him. Maisie was not in sympathy that day, and she waited impatiently for the end of the work.
She knew when it was coming; for Kami would gather his black alpaca coat into a bunch behind him, and, with faded flue eyes that saw neither pupils nor canvas, look back into the past to recall the history of one Binat. ‘You have all done not so badly,’ he would say. ‘But you shall remember that it is not enough to have the method, and the art, and the power, nor even that which is touch, but you shall have also the conviction that nails the work to the wall. Of the so many I taught,’ – here the students would begin to unfix drawing-pins or get their tubes together, – ‘the very so many that I have taught, the best was Binat. All that comes of the study and the work and the knowledge was to him even when he came. After he left me he should have done all that could be done with the colour, the form, and the knowledge. Only, he had not the conviction. So to-day I hear no more of Binat, – the best of my pupils, – and that is long ago. So to-day, too, you will be glad to hear no more of me. Continuez, mesdemoiselles, and, above all, with conviction.’
He went into the garden to smoke and mourn over the lost Binat as the pupils dispersed to their several cottages or loitered in the studio to make plans for the cool of the afternoon.
Maisie looked at her very unhappy Melancolia, restrained a desire to grimace before it, and was hurrying across the road to write a letter to Dick, when she was aware of a large man on a white troop-horse. How Torpenhow had managed in the course of twenty hours to find his way to the hearts of the cavalry officers in quarters at Vitry-sur-Marne, to discuss with them the certainty of a glorious revenge for France, to reduce the colonel to tears of pure affability, and to borrow the best horse in the squadron for the journey to Kami’s studio, is a mystery that only special correspondents can unravel.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said he. ‘It seems an absurd question to ask, but the fact is that I don’t know her by any other name: Is there any young lady here that is called Maisie?’
‘I am Maisie,’ was the answer from the depths of a great sun-hat.
‘I ought to introduce myself,’ he said, as the horse capered in the blinding white dust. ‘My name is Torpenhow. Dick Heldar is my best friend, and – and – the fact is that he has gone blind.’
‘Blind!’ said Maisie, stupidly. ‘He can’t be blind.’
‘He has been stone-blind for nearly two months.’
Maisie lifted up her face, and it was pearly white. ‘No! No! Not blind! I won’t have him blind!’
‘Would you care to see for yourself?’ said Torpenhow.
‘Now, – at once?’
‘Oh, no! The Paris train doesn’t go through this place till to-night. There will be ample time.’
‘Did Mr. Heldar send you to me?’
‘Certainly not. Dick wouldn’t do that sort of thing. He’s sitting in his studio, turning over some letters that he can’t read because he’s blind.’
There was a sound of choking from the sun-hat. Maisie bowed her head and went into the cottage, where the red-haired girl was on a sofa, complaining of a headache.
‘Dick’s blind!’ said Maisie, taking her breath quickly as she steadied herself against a chair-back. ‘My Dick’s blind!’
‘What?’ The girl was on the sofa no longer.
‘A man has come from England to tell me. He hasn’t written to me for six weeks.’
‘Are you going to him?’
‘I must think.’
‘Think! I should go back to London and see him and I should kiss his eyes and kiss them and kiss them until they got well again! If you don’t go I shall. Oh, what am I talking about? You wicked little idiot! Go to him at once. Go!’
Torpenhow’s neck was blistering, but he preserved a smile of infinite patience as Maisie’s appeared bareheaded in the sunshine.
‘I am coming,’ said she, her eyes on the ground.
‘You will be at Vitry Station, then, at seven this evening.’ This was an order delivered by one who was used to being obeyed. Maisie said nothing, but she felt grateful that there was no chance of disputing with this big man who took everything for granted and managed a squealing horse with one hand. She returned to the red-haired girl, who was weeping bitterly, and between tears, kisses, – very few of those, – menthol, packing, and an interview with Kami, the sultry afternoon wore away.
Thought might come afterwards. Her present duty was to go to Dick, – Dick who owned the wondrous friend and sat in the dark playing with her unopened letters.
‘But what will you do,’ she said to her companion.
‘I? Oh, I shall stay here and – finish your Melancolia,’ she said, smiling pitifully. ‘Write to me afterwards.’
That night there ran a legend through Vitry-sur-Marne of a mad Englishman, doubtless suffering from sunstroke, who had drunk all the officers of the garrison under the table, had borrowed a horse from the lines, and had then and there eloped, after the English custom, with one of those more mad English girls who drew pictures down there under the care of that good Monsieur Kami.
‘They are very droll,’ said Suzanne to the conscript in the moonlight by the studio wall. ‘She walked always with those big eyes that saw nothing, and yet she kisses me on both cheeks as though she were my sister, and gives me – see – ten francs!’
The conscript levied a contribution on both gifts; for he prided himself on being a good soldier.
Torpenhow spoke very little to Maisie during the journey to Calais; but he was careful to attend to all her wants, to get her a compartment entirely to herself, and to leave her alone. He was amazed of the ease with which the matter had been accomplished.
‘The safest thing would be to let her think things out. By Dick’s showing, – when he was off his head, – she must have ordered him about very thoroughly. Wonder how she likes being under orders.’
Maisie never told. She sat in the empty compartment often with her eyes shut, that she might realise the sensation of blindness. It was an order that she should return to London swiftly, and she found herself at last almost beginning to enjoy the situation. This was better than looking after luggage and a red-haired friend who never took any interest in her surroundings. But there appeared to be a feeling in the air that she, Maisie, – of all people, – was in disgrace. Therefore she justified her conduct to herself with great success, till Torpenhow came up to her on the steamer and without preface began to tell the story of Dick’s blindness, suppressing a few details, but dwelling at length on the miseries of delirium. He stopped before he reached the end, as though he had lost interest in the subject, and went forward to smoke. Maisie was furious with him and with herself.
She was hurried on from Dover to London almost before she could ask for breakfast, and – she was past any feeling of indignation now – was bidden curtly to wait in a hall at the foot of some lead-covered stairs while Torpenhow went up to make inquiries. Again the knowledge that she was being treated like a naughty little girl made her pale cheeks flame. It was all Dick’s fault for being so stupid as to go blind.
Torpenhow led her up to a shut door, which he opened very softly. Dick was sitting by the window, with his chin on his chest. There were three envelopes in his hand, and he turned them over and over. The big man who gave orders was no longer by her side, and the studio door snapped behind her.
Dick thrust the letters into his pocket as he heard the sound. ‘Hullo, Topr! Is that you? I’ve been so lonely.’
His voice had taken the peculiar flatness of the blind. Maisie pressed herself up into a corner of the room. Her heart was beating furiously, and she put one hand on her breast to keep it quiet. Dick was staring directly at her, and she realised for the first time that he was blind.
Shutting her eyes in a rail-way carriage to open them when she pleased was child’s play. This man was blind though his eyes were wide open.
‘Torp, is that you? They said you were coming.’ Dick looked puzzled and a little irritated at the silence.