The Judgment Books

The first evening, after the daylight had fallen and he could no longer paint, he threw himself down on the sofa. The work of the last few days stood opposite him, and the red glow of the sunset, not yet quite faded from the sky, still made it clearly visible, though the value of the colors was lost. Frank felt like a man who, after a long, sleepless night of pain, feels that if only he could forget everything for a moment he might doze off into a slumber that would take an hour or two out of life. But the pain, as it were, stood before him, mastering him.

It may only have been that his nerves, abnormally excited after the strain of working, played him false; but it seemed to him that, in spite of the fading light, the portrait was as clear as ever; and as he was sitting wondering at this, half encouraging himself to believe it, he was suddenly aware that the figure he had painted cast a shadow on to the background which he had never put there. As he had painted it, the shadow fell on the left side of the face, but now it seemed that the shadow was on the right side of the face, exactly as it would naturally be cast by the light coming from the window. At that moment he knew what fear was – cold fear that clutches at the heart – and he sat there a moment unable to move, almost expecting to hear it speak to him. Then, with an effort of will so strong that it seemed like a straining of the body, he walked up to it, turned it round to the wall, and left the room.

That night he had an odd dream, the result again of the excitement of the day, but so strangely natural that he hardly knew next morning whether it had happened or not. He dreamed he went back to the studio, finding everything exactly as he had left it – the portrait turned with its face to the wall, and his brushes and palette where he had laid them down when it had become too dark to paint. The servants had brought in lights, and had laid the day's paper on the table. He was conscious of utter weariness of mind and body, and he longed for Margery, but knew that she was away. The yellow programme of the Café Chantant lay on a shelf of the bookcase, where he had put it in the leaves of Jekyll and Hyde, and he took the two down together, as he had done a few days before, and mechanically his mind again retraced the life it had before suggested to him. Suddenly an utter loathing of it all, more complete than he had ever felt, came over him, and he tried to tear the programme up. But it seemed to be made of a thin sheet of some hard substance, and it would not tear. Then he tried to crush it under his foot, but it would not even bend. The bitter, unimaginable agony of not being able to destroy it awoke him, and he found morning had come.

All that day he worked, and once again as evening fell he sat on the sofa, staring blankly at what he had done. Once again the shadow shifted on the painted face, and fell where the light from the window would naturally cast it, and once again cold fear clutched at his heart. At that moment he heard steps along the passage, steps which he knew, and Margery entered.

"Frank," she said, opening the door, "are you there?"

A long figure sprang off the sofa and ran across the room to her, half smothering her in caresses.

"Oh, Margery, I'm so glad you've come," he said – "so glad. You don't know what it has been without you. Margery, promise you won't go away again till it is finished. You won't go away again, will you?"

Margery shuddered and drew back a moment, she hardly knew why.

"Why, Frank, what's the matter?" she asked. "Have you seen a ghost – or what?"

"The place is full of ghosts," said he. "But they won't trouble me any more now you've come back. Let's go out, away from here."

"But I want to see the portrait first," said she.

"Ah, the portrait!"

Frank took two quick steps to where it was standing, and wheeled it round with its face to the wall.

"Not to-night," he said. "Please don't look at it to-night. You can't see it by this light."

"I know I can't," said she, "but I only wanted to peep at it to see if it had got on."

"It has got on," said Frank, "it has got on wonderfully. But don't look at it to-night. It is terrible after sunset."

Margery raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, don't be so silly," she said. "However, I don't mind waiting till to-morrow. Is it good?"

"Come out of this place, and I'll tell you about it."

Outside the west was still luminous with the sunken sun, and as they stepped out on to the terrace Margery turned to look at Frank. His face seemed terribly tired and anxious, and there were deep shades beneath his eyes. But again, as a few moments before in the shadow, she involuntarily shrank from him. There was something in his face more than what mere weariness and anxiety would produce – something she had seen in the face he had sketched two days ago, and the something she knew she had shrunk from before, though she had not seen it. But in a moment she pulled herself together; if she were going to go in for fantastic fears too, the allowance of sanity between them would not be enough for daily consumption. Frank, however, noticed it at once.

"Ah, you too," he said, bitterly – "even you desert me."

Margery took hold of his arm.

"Don't talk sheer, silly nonsense," she said. "I don't know what you mean. I know what's the matter with you. You've been working all day and not going out."

"Yes, I know I have. I couldn't help it. But never mind that now. I have got you back. Margery, you don't give me up really, do you?"

"Frank, what do you mean?" she asked.

"I – I mean – I mean nothing. I don't know what I am saying. I've been working too hard, and I have got dazed and stupid."

He turned to look at the blaze on the waters to the west.

"Ah, how beautiful it is!" he exclaimed. "I wish I were a landscape-painter. But you are more beautiful, Margery. But it is safer to be a landscape-painter, so much safer!"

Margery stopped and faced him.

"Now, Frank, tell me the truth. Have you been out since I left you yesterday morning?"

"No."

"How long have you been working each day?"

"I don't know. I didn't look at my watch. All day, I suppose; and the days are long – terribly long – and the nights too. The nights are even longer, but one can't work then."

Margery was frightened, and, being frightened, she got angry with herself and him.

"Oh, you really are too annoying," she said, with a stamp of her foot. "You get yourself into bad health by overworking and not taking any exercise – you've got the family liver, you know – and then you tell me the house is full of ghosts, and conjure up all sorts of absurd fancies about losing your personality, frightening yourself and me. Frank, it's too bad!"

Frank looked up suddenly at her.

"You too? Are you frightened too? God help me if you are frightened too!"

"No, I'm not frightened," said Margery, "but I'm angry and ashamed of you. You're no better than a silly child."

"Margery," said he, in his lowest audible tone, "I'll never touch the picture again if you wish. Tell me to destroy it and I will, and we'll go for a holiday together. I – I want a holiday; I've been working too hard. Or it would be better if you went in very quietly and cut it up. I don't want to go near it. It doesn't like me. Tell me to destroy it."

"No, no!" cried Margery, "that's the very thing I will not do. And fancy saying you want a holiday! You've just had two months' holiday. But that's no reason why you should work like a lunatic. Of course any one can go mad if they like – it's only a question of whether you think you are going to."

"Margery, tell me truthfully," said Frank, "do you think I am going mad?"

"Of course I don't. I only think you are very, very silly. But I've known that ever since I knew you at all. It's a great pity."

They strolled up and down for a few moments in silence. The magic of Margery's presence was beginning to work on Frank, and after a little space of silence he laughed to himself almost naturally.

"Margery, you are doing me good," he said. "I've been terribly lonely without you."

"And terribly silly, it appears."

"Perhaps I have. Anyhow, I like to hear you tell me so. I should like to think I had been silly, but I don't know."

"I'm afraid if you've been silly the portrait will be silly too," said she. "Is it silly, Frank?"

"It's wonderful," said he, suddenly stopping short. "It is not only like me, but it's me – at least, if you will stop with me while I work it will be all me. I shall feel safer if you are there."

"Then I won't be there," said Margery. "You are not a child any longer, and you must work alone. You always say you can't work if any one else is there."

"Well, I don't suppose it matters," said Frank, with returning confidence. "The fact that I know you are in the house will be enough. But the portrait – it's wonderful! I can't think why I loathe it so."

"You loathe it because you have been working at it in a ridiculous manner," said Margery. "To-morrow I regulate your day for you. I shall leave you your morning to yourself, and after lunch you shall come out with me for two hours at least. We will go up some of those little creeks where we went two years ago. Come in now. It's nearly dinner-time."

When they were alone and a portrait was in progress they often sat in the studio after dinner; but to-night, when Margery proposed it, Frank started up from where he was sitting.

"No, Margery," he said, "please let us sit here. I don't want to go to the studio at all."

"It's the scene of your crime," said Margery.

Frank turned pale.

"What crime?" he asked. "What do you know of my crimes?"

Margery put down the paper she was reading and burst out laughing.

"You really are too ridiculous," she said. "Are you and I going to play the second act of a melodrama? Your crime of working all day and taking no exercise."

"Oh, I see," said Frank. "Well, don't let us visit the scene of my crimes to-night."

Margery had determined that, whatever Frank did, she would behave quite naturally, and not allow herself to indulge even in disturbing thoughts. So she laughed again, and wiped off Frank's remark from her mind.

Otherwise his behavior that evening was quite reassuring. Often when he was painting he had an aversion to being left alone in the intervals, and though this perhaps was more marked than usual, Margery did not allow it to disquiet her. The painting of a portrait was always rather a trying time, though Frank's explanation of this did not seem to her in the least satisfactory.

"When one paints," he had said to her once, "one is much more exposed to other influences. One's soul, so to speak, is on the surface, and I want some one near me who will keep an eye on it, and I feel safe if I have your eye on me, Margery. You know, when religious people have been to church or to a revivalist meeting, they are much more susceptible to what they see, whether it is sin or sanctity; that is just because their souls have come to the surface. It is very unwise to go to see a lot of strange people when you are in that state. No one knows what influence they may have on you. But I know what influence you have on me."

"I wish my influence would make you a little less silly," she had replied.

Margery went to bed quite happy in her mind, except on one point. She had been gifted by nature with a superb serenity which it took much blustering wind to ruffle, and in the main Frank's behavior was different, not in kind, but only in degree, from what she had seen before when he was painting. He always got nervous and excited over a picture which he really gave himself up to; he always talked ridiculous nonsense about personalities and influences, and though his childlike desire to be with her when he was not working was more accentuated than usual, she drew the very natural conclusion that he was more absorbed than usual in his work.

But there was one point which troubled her: she had quite unaccountably shrunk from him when he ran to meet her across the studio, and she had shrunk from him again when she saw his face. She told herself that this was her own silliness, not his, and that it was ridiculous of her to try to cure Frank of his absurdities while she was so absurd herself. She had shrunk back involuntarily, as if from an evil thing.

"How absurd and ridiculous of me," she said to herself, as she settled herself in bed. "Frank is Frank, and it is his idea that he is ceasing or will cease to be Frank which I have thought all along is so supremely silly, and which I think supremely silly still. Yet I shrank from him as I would from a man who had committed a crime."

Then suddenly another thought came to join this one in her brain: "What crimes? What do you know of my crimes?"

The contact and the electric spark had been instantaneous, for she wrenched the two thoughts apart. But they had come together, and between them they had generated a spark of light.

And so, without knowing it, she knew for a moment what was Frank's secret which he dared not tell her.

CHAPTER VII

Frank got up, as his custom was, very early next morning, and went straight to the studio; and Margery, keeping to the resolve of the night before, left him alone all morning. She had sent his breakfast in to him, but ate hers alone in her morning-room.

The knowledge that she was with him had had a quieting effect on Frank, and he had slept deep and dreamlessly. As he walked along the passage to his studio he felt that he hardly feared what he would find there. How could the ghost of what was dead in him have any chance, so to speak, against the near, living reality of Margery and Margery's love? Was not good more powerful than evil? But when he entered the studio and had wheeled the portrait back into its place, the supremacy of one side of his nature over the other was reversed instantaneously – almost without consciousness of transition. The power which the thing his hands had been working out for the last few days had acquired was becoming overwhelming. When Margery was with him, actually with him, she still held up his better part; but when he was alone with this, all that was good sank like lead in an unplumbed sea. He was like some heathen who makes with his own hands an idol of stone or wood, and then bows down before that which he himself made, believing that it is lord over him.

All morning Margery successfully fought against her inclination to go to Frank, for she was clear in her own mind that he had to work out his salvation alone. He was afraid of being alone, and the only way to teach him not to be afraid was to let him learn in solitude that there was nothing to be afraid of. So she yawned an hour away over a two-volume novel by a popular author, wrote a letter to her mother, ordered dinner, and tried to think she was very busy. But it was with a certain sense of relief that she heard the clock strike one, and, shutting up her book, she went to the studio.

Frank was standing with his back to the door, and did not look up from his work when she entered. She came up behind him and saw what he had wished her not to see the night before, and understood why. He always worked rapidly though never hurriedly, and she knew at once what the finished picture would be like. The "idea" was recorded.

She gave a sudden start and a little cry as sharp and involuntary as the cry of physical pain, for the meaning of the first rough sketch which had puzzled her was now worked out, and she saw before her the face of a guilty man. She shrank and shuddered as she had shrunk when her husband ran to meet her across the studio the night before, and as she had shrunk from him when she saw his face, for the face that looked out from that canvas was the same as her husband's face which had so startled and repelled her. It was the face of a man who has wilfully stifled certain nobler impulses for the sake of something wicked, and who was stifling them still. It was the face of a man who has fallen, and when she turned to look at Frank she saw that he had in the portrait seized on something that stared from every line of his features.

"Ah, Frank," she cried, "but what has happened? It is horrible, and you – you are horrible, too!"

Frank did not seem to hear, for he went on painting; but she heard him murmur below his breath:

"Yes, horrible, horrible!"

For the moment Margery lost her nerve completely. She was incontrollably frightened.

"Frank, Frank!" she cried, hysterically.

Then she cursed her own folly. That was not the way to teach him. She laid one hand on his arm, and with her voice again in control, "Leave off painting," she said – "leave off painting at once and look at me!"

This time he heard. His right hand, holding a brush filled with paint, dropped nervelessly to his side, and the brush slid from his fingers on to the floor.

In that moment his face changed. The vicious, guilty lines softened and faded, and his expression became that of a frightened child.

"Ah, Margery," he cried, "what has happened? Why were you not here? What have I been doing?"

Margery had got between him and the picture, and before he had finished speaking she had wheeled it round with its face to the wall.

"You've been working long enough," she said, "and you are coming out for a bit."

"Yes, that will be nice," said Frank, picking up the brush he had dropped and examining it. "Why, it is quite full of paint," he added, as if this remarkable discovery was quite worth comment.

"You dear, how extraordinary!" said Margery. "You usually paint with dry brushes, don't you?"

"Oh, I've been painting all morning, so I have!" said Frank, in the same listless, tired voice, and his eye wandered to the easel which Margery had turned round.

"No, you've got to let it alone," said she, guessing his intention. "You are not going to work any more till this afternoon."

Frank passed his hands over his eyes.

"I'm rather tired," he said. "I think I won't go for a walk. I'll sit down here if you will stop with me."

"Very good, for ten minutes; and then you must come out. It's a lovely morning, and we'll only stroll."

Frank looked out of the window.

"My God! it is a lovely morning," he said – "it is insolently lovely. I've been dreaming, I think. Those trees look as if they were dreaming, too. I wonder if they have such horrible dreams as I? I think I must have been asleep. I feel queer and only half awake, and I've had bad dreams – horrid dreams."

"Did he have nasty dreams?" said she, sympathetically. "He said he was going to work so hard, and he's dreamed instead."

Frank seemed hardly to hear her.

"It began by my wondering whether I ought to go on with that portrait or not," he said. "I kept thinking – "

"You shall go on with it, Frank," broke in Margery, suddenly, afraid of letting herself consent – "I tell you that you must go on with it."

Frank roused himself at the sound of her eager voice.

"You don't understand," he said. "I know that I am running a certain risk if I do. I told you about one of those risks I was running, didn't I? It was that, partly, I was drawing about all morning. I thought I was in danger all the time. I was running the risk of losing myself, or becoming something quite different to what I am. I ran the risk of losing you, myself – all I care for, except my Art."

"And with a big 'A,' dear?" asked Margery.

"With the very biggest 'A,' and all scarlet."

"The Scarlet Letter," said Margery, triumphantly, "which you were reading last week? That accounts for that symptom. Go on and be more explicit!"

"I know you think it is all absurd," said Frank, "but I am a better judge than you. I know myself better than you know me – better, please God, than you will ever know me. However, you won't understand that. But with regard to what I told you: when I paint a picture, you think the net result is I and a picture, instead of I alone. But you are wrong. There is only I just as before; and inasmuch as there is a picture, there is less of myself here in my clothes."

"A picture is oil-paint," said Margery, "and you buy that at shops."

"Yes, and brushes too," said Frank; "but a picture is not only oil-paint and brushes."

"Go on," said Margery.

"Well, have I got any right to do it? In other pictures it has not mattered because one recuperates by degrees, and one does not put all one's self into them. But painting this I feel differently. I am going into it, slowly but inevitably. I shall put all I am into it – at least, all I know of while I am painting; and what will happen to this thing here" (he pointed to himself) "I can't say. All the time I was painting, that thought with others was with me, as if it had been written in fire on my brain. Have I got any business to run risks which I can't estimate? I know I have a certain duty to perform to you and others, and is it right for me to risk all that for a painted thing?"

He stood up.

"Margery," he said, "that is not all. Shall I tell you the rest? There is another risk I run much more important, and much more terrible. May I tell you?"

"No, you may not," said Margery, decidedly. "It simply makes these fantastic fears more real to you to speak of them. You shall not tell me. And now we are going out. But I have one thing to tell you. Listen to me, Frank," she said, standing up and facing him. "As you said just now, you know nothing of the risk you run. All you do know is that it is in your power, as you believe, and as I believe, to do something really good if you go on with that picture. I don't say that I shall like it, but it may be a splendid piece of work without that. Are you an artist, or a silly child, frightened of ghosts? I want you to finish it because I think it may teach you that you have a large number of silly ideas in your head, and when you see that none of them are fulfilled it may help you to get rid of them – in fact, I believe I want you to finish it for the same reason for which you are afraid to finish it. You say you will lose your personality, or some of your personality. I say you will get rid of a great many silly ideas. If you lose that part of your personality I shall be delighted – in fact, it is the best thing that could happen to you. As for your other fears, I don't know what they are, and I don't want to know. To speak of them encourages you to believe in them. There! Now you've worked enough for the present, and we'll go for a stroll till lunch; and after lunch we'll go out again, and you can work for another hour or two before it gets dark."

It required all Margery's resolution and self-control to get through this speech. It was not a pretty thing that had looked out at her from the easel, and the look she had seen twice on Frank's face, and felt once, was not pretty either. That his work had a very definite and startling effect on him she knew from personal experience, but that anything could happen to him she entirely declined to believe. He was cross, irritable, odious, as she often told him, when he was interested in his work, but when it was over he became calm, unruffled, and delightful again. She was fully determined he should do this portrait, and to himself she allowed that it would be a relief when it was finished.

Frank got up at once with unusual docility. As a rule, he scowled and snarled when she fetched him away from his work, and made himself generally disagreeable. This uncommon state of things gave Margery great surprise.

"Well, why don't you say you'll be blessed if you come?" she asked, moving towards the door.

"Ah, I'm quite willing to come," he said. "Why shouldn't I come? I always would come anywhere with you."

He followed her towards the door, and in passing suddenly caught sight of the easel. He looked round like a child afraid of being detected in doing something it ought not, and before Margery could stop him he had taken two quick steps towards it and turned it round. In a moment his mood changed.

"Do you see that?" he said in a whisper, as if the thing would overhear him. "That's what I was all the morning when you were not here, and I knew I oughtn't to be painting. Wait a minute, Margy; I want to finish a bit I was working at!"

His face grew suddenly pale, and the look of guilt descended on it like a mist, blotting out the features.

"That's what you are making of me," he said. "Give me my palette. Quick! I sha'n't be a minute."