The Judgment Books

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."

But Margery caught up, as she had often done before, his palette and brushes from the table where he had left them, and fled with them to the door.

"Give them to me at once!" shouted Frank, holding out his hand for them, but still looking at the picture.

Margery gave one long-drawn breath of pain and horror when she looked at Frank's face, and then, a blessed sense of humor coming to her aid, she broke out into a light laugh – half hysterical and half amused.

"Oh, Frank," she cried, "you look exactly like Irving in 'Macbeth' when he says, 'This is a sorry sight! I never saw a sorrier.'"

At the sound of her voice, more particularly at the sound of her laugh, he turned and looked at her, and the horror faded from his face.

"What have I been saying?" he asked.

"You said, 'Give me the daggers!' – oh no, Lady Macbeth says that. Well, here they are. Come to me, Frank, and I'll give you them."

Frank walked obediently up to her, as she stood in the entrance to the passage, and as soon as he was outside the studio she banged the door and stood in front of it triumphantly.

"Here are the daggers," she said, "but you are not going to use them now. You shall finish that picture, but not like a madman. And if you look like Macbeth any more I shall simply die of it; or I shall behave like Lady Macbeth, and then there will be a pair of us. I shall walk in my sleep down to the sea, and wash my hands all day till it gets quite red. Now you're coming out. March!"

CHAPTER VIII

After lunch Frank and Margery went down to the river and cruised about in a little boat, exploring, as they had explored a hundred times before, the unexpected but well-known little creeks which ran up between the hummocks of the broad-backed hills, shut in and shadowed by delicate-leaved beech-trees. When the tide was high it was possible to get some way up into these wooded retreats, and by remaining very still, or going quickly and silently round a corner, you might sometimes catch sight of a kingfisher flashing up from the shallows and darting along the lane of flecked sunlight like a jewel flung through the air. There had been a frost, the first of the year, the night before, and the broad-leaved docks and hemlocks lining the banks had still drops of moisture on their leaves like pearls or moon-stones semées on to green velvet. The woods had taken a deeper autumnal tint in the last two days, and already the five-ribbed chestnut leaves, the first of all to fall, were lying scattered on the ground. Every now and then a rabbit scuttled away to seek the protection of thicker undergrowth, or a young cock pheasant, as yet unmolested, stood and looked at the intruders.

Margery was surprised to find how great the relief of getting Frank away from his picture was. The horrible guilty look on the portrait's face, and, more than that, the knowledge that it was a terribly true realization of her husband's expression, disturbed her more than she liked to admit even to herself.

But nothing, she determined – not if all the ghosts out of the Decameron sat in her husband's eyes – should make her abandon her resolution of compelling Frank to finish it. She did not believe in occult phenomena of this description; no painting of any portrait could alter the painter's nature. To get tired and anxious was not the same as losing your personality; the first, if one was working well and hard, was inevitable; the second was impossible, it was nonsense. Decidedly she did not believe in the possibility of his losing his personality. But with all her resolutions to the contrary, she could not help wondering what the other fear, which she had forbidden him to tell her, was. Vaguely in her own mind she connected it with that strange shudder she had felt when she saw him the night before; and quite irrelevantly, as it seemed to her, the image came into her mind of something hidden rising to the surface – of the sea giving up its dead…

It was on this point alone she distrusted herself and all the resolutions she had made. She did not yet know clearly what she feared, but she realized dimly that there was a possibility of its becoming clearer to her, and that when it became clearer she would have to decide afresh. At present her one desire was that he should finish the portrait, and finish it as quickly as possible. But at any rate she had Frank with her now, as she had known him and loved him all their life together. That love she would not risk, but at present she did not see where the risk could come in. With her, and away from the portrait, he was again completely himself. He looked tired and was rather silent, and often when she turned from her place in the bow (where she was looking for concealed snags or roots in the water) to him, as he punted the boat quietly along with an oar, for the stream was narrow to row in, she saw him standing still, oar in hand, looking at her, and when their eyes met he smiled.

"It is like that first afternoon we were here, Margy, isn't it?" he said on one of these occasions. "Do you remember? We got here on a September morning, after travelling all night from London, and after lunch we came up this very creek."

"Yes, Frank, and I feel just as I did then."

"What did you feel?"

"Why – why, that I had got you all to myself at last, and that I did not care about anything else."

"Ah, my God!" cried Frank, suddenly.

"What is it?" asked she.

Frank ran the boat into a little hollow made in the side of the creek by a small stream, now nearly summer dry, and came and sat down on the bank just above her.

"Margy dear," he said, "I want to ask you something quite soberly. I am not excited nor overwrought in any way, am I? I am quite calm and sensible. It is not as if that horrible thing were with us. It is about that I want to talk to you – about the picture. All this morning, as I told you, I knew I ought not to go on with it, but I went on because it had a terrible evil fascination for me. And now, too, I know I ought not to go on with it. It is wicked. This morning I thought of that afternoon we spent here before, and I knew I was sacrificing that. Then I did not care, but now you are all the world to me, as you always have been except when I am with that thing. It was that first day we came here to this very spot that was fixed in my mind. And now we are here in the same place, and on just such another day, let us talk about it."

"Oh, Frank, don't be a coward," said Margery, appealingly. "You know exactly what I think about it. Of course all my inclination goes with you, but, but – "

She raised herself from the boat and put her hand on his knee.

"Frank, you don't doubt me, do you? There is nothing in the world I could weigh against you and your love, but we must be reasonable. If you had a very strong presentiment that you would be drowned as we sailed home I should very likely be dreadfully uncomfortable, but I wouldn't have you walk back instead for anything. There are many things of which we know nothing – presentiments, fears, all the horrors, in fact – and it would be like children to take them into our reckoning or let them direct us. It is for your sake, not mine, that I want you to go on with that portrait. If I followed my inclination I should say, 'Tear it up and let us sit here together for ever and ever.'"

Frank leaned forward and spoke entreatingly.

"Margy, tell me to tear it up – ah, do, dear, and you may do with me whatever you wish – only tell me to destroy it!"

Margery shook her head hopelessly.

"Don't disappoint me, Frank," she said. "I care for nothing in the world compared to you; but what reason could I give for doing this? I think you often get excited and upset over your work, but that is worth while, because you do good work and you are not permanently upset. You wouldn't give up being an artist for that. And if I saw any reason for telling you to stop this, I would do it. It is because I care for you and all your possibilities that I tell you to go on with it."

Margery thought for a moment of the portrait and the terrible likeness it bore to her husband, and she hesitated. But no; the whole thing was too fantastic, too vague. She did not even know what she was afraid of.

"It isn't the pleasant or the easy course I am taking," she continued. "That wasn't a pleasant look on your face when you shouted at me to give you your palette this morning?"

Frank looked puzzled.

"What did I do?" he asked. "When did I shout at you?"

"This morning, just before we came out. You shouted awfully loud, and you looked like Macbeth. It is just because I don't want you to look like Macbeth permanently that I insist on your going on with it. I want you to get Macbeth out of your system. That fantastic idea of yours, that you would run a risk, was the original cause of all this nonsense, and when you have finished the picture and seen that you have run no risk, you will know that I am right."

Frank stood up.

"To-morrow may be too late," he said. "Do you really tell me to go on with it?"

"Frank, dear, don't be melodramatic. You were just as nice as you could be all the way up here. Yes, I tell you to go on with it."

Frank's arms dropped by his side, and for a moment he stood quite still. The leaves whispered in the trees, and the rippling stream tapped against the boat. Then for a moment the breeze dropped, and the boat swung round with the current. The water made no sound against it as it moved slowly round, and there was silence – tense, absolute silence.

Then Margery lay back in the boat and laughed. Her laugh sounded strange in her own ears.

"I am sure this is one of the occasions on which we ought to hear only the beating of our own hearts; but, as a matter of fact, I don't. Come, Frank, don't stand there like a hop-pole."

Frank slowly let his eyes rest on her, but he did not answer her smile.

Margery paused a moment.

"Come," she said again, "let us go a little higher. There is plenty of water."

Frank pushed the boat out from the bank and jumped in.

"Then it is all over," he said. "I must go home at once. I must get on with the portrait immediately. I cannot last if I am not quick. There's no time to lose, Margy. Please let me get back at once."

He paused a moment.

"Margy, give me one kiss, will you?" he said. "Perhaps, perhaps – Ah, my darling, cannot you do what I ask?"

He had raised himself and clung round her neck, kissing her again and again. But she, afraid of yielding, afraid of sacrificing her reason even to that she loved best in the world, unwound his arms.

"No, Frank, I have said I cannot. Oh, my dear, don't you understand? Frank, Frank!"

But he shook his head and took up the oar.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" she asked, after a moment, seeing he did not look at her again. "What time is it?"

"I don't know," said Frank, quickly. "I only know that if I am to finish it I must finish it at once. It will take us nearly an hour to get home, and it is too dark to work after five."

The wind, since that sudden lull, had blown only fitfully by gusts, and by the time they had emerged into the estuary it had died out altogether.

"The wind has dropped," said he. "The winds and the stars fight against me. We sha'n't be able to sail."

He took up the sculls, and rowed as if he were rowing a race.

"What's the matter?" asked Margery. "Why are you in such a hurry? It is not late."

"You don't understand," he said. "There is a hurry. I must get back. Oh, why can't you understand? I must have you or it, and you – you have given me up."

"Frank, what do you mean?" asked Margery, bewilderedly.

"You have given me up for it – it, that painted horror you saw, that – that – Margery, do listen to me just once more. You don't understand, dear, but I don't mind that. Only trust me; only tell me to stop painting it – to destroy it!"

He leaned on his oars a moment, waiting for her answer.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why do you speak to me like that? What nonsense it all is! I can't advise you to give it up because I think it much better for you that you should go on with it."

He waited for her answer, and then bent to the oars again. The green water hissed by them as the light boat cut through the calm surface. Margery was sitting in the stern managing the rudder, and it required all her nerve to guide the boat among the rocks that stood out from the shallower water. Frank's terrible earnestness troubled her, but it did not shake her resolution. Look at it what way she might, her deliberate conclusion was that it was better he should go on with it. There was no reason – there really was no reason why he should not, and there was every reason why he should. She wondered if he had better see a doctor. That he was in good health two days ago she knew for certain, but the mind can react upon the body, and his mind was certainly out of sorts. However, she had decided that the best ultimate cure for his mind was to finish the picture, and she determined to let things be.

"When will it be done?" she asked, after a pause.

"To-morrow," said Frank, without stopping rowing, "and the part that is important will be done to-night. Don't come into the studio, please, till it is too dark to paint. I can't paint with you there."

Margery felt a little hurt in her mind. She had meant to sit with him, as he had asked her to that morning. However, it was best to let him have his way, and she said no more.

It was scarcely half an hour after they had left the creek that they came opposite the little iron staircase leading down to the rocks. The tide was out, and Frank beached the boat on the shingle at the bottom of the rocks, jumped out, and drew it in. His pale face was flushed and dripping with sweat.

"You'd better change before you begin work," said Margery, as he helped her out, "or you'll catch cold."

Frank burst out with a grating, unnatural laugh.

"Change! I should think I am going to change! I wonder if you'll like the change!"

He walked on in front of her, and when he reached the terrace broke into a run. Margery heard the door of the studio bang behind him.

CHAPTER IX

Margery followed Frank more slowly up to the house. She had won her point; she had refused in the face of all her own inclinations and his feelings to tell him to leave the picture unfinished or to destroy it, and having succeeded in that for which she had been so intensely anxious, the reaction followed. Left to herself, she wondered if she had been right; whether she were wise to trust to reason rather than instinct; whether she had not perhaps in some dim, uncomprehended way put Frank in a position of terrible danger. But where or what, in the name of all that is rational, could the danger be? Yet there rose up before her, as if in answer to her question, the remembrance of Frank's face while he was painting. Could she account for that rationally? She was bound to confess she could not.

It was a great relief to know that it would soon be over. The important part Frank had told her would be done to-day, in an hour or two. In the whole range of human possibilities she could think of nothing which could happen in an hour or two which would justify Frank's fears. He was not well, she thought; but she regarded the finishing of this portrait as a sort of slight surgical operation which would remove the cause of his mental disease from which his bodily indisposition sprang.

For the present she had to get through an hour or two alone, and she busied herself with small, unnecessary duties, and read more of the small, unnecessary book, by a popular author, which we have referred to before. A little before five the post came in, and among other letters for her was a note from Jack Armitage.

"And how goes the portrait?" he concluded, "and am I to be summoned to see a descent into Bedlam or an ascent into Heaven? Oddly enough, there is an artist here of transcendental tendencies who holds exactly the same views as Frank. He believes in the danger of losing one's personality, but he also believes in the danger of raising ghosts from one's past life if one paints a portrait of one's self. Luckily, Frank feels only the danger of losing his personality, and does not think about the ghost-raising. I am glad for his peace of mind – and, perhaps, for you too – that this is so. To fight two sets of ghosts simultaneously might well be too much for one woman, even for you!"

Margery laid down the letter, and the voice of reason within her became gradually less insistent, and then died away. Frank had spoken of another danger more terrible than the one he had told her about, and she would not hear him. There had been a look on his face that frightened and horrified her, and she would not think of it. Once on the beach at New Quay he had wished to tell her something, and she would not hear him.

But the thing was impossible. True; but she was afraid. She felt suddenly unable to cope with his fears, now that she had begun to share them. Then Armitage's last words came back to her – "Beach Hotel, New Quay. I will come at once."

Margery felt ashamed of yielding, but she justified her yielding to herself. The presence of another person in the house would be a good thing. She knew the absolute necessity of keeping her nerves in perfect order, and there is nothing so infectious as disorders of the nerves.

She got her hat and walked straight off to the village in order to send the telegram. She felt as if she did not even wish her own servants to know she was doing it, and preferred to send it herself than giving it to one of them. The sun was already sinking to its setting, but there would be plenty of time to walk down and get back before it was dark. Frank had said that the portrait was terrible after sunset, and though she tried to laugh at the thought, the laugh would not come. Decidedly, Armitage's presence would be a good thing.

It took her a minute or two to send the telegram satisfactorily, but eventually she wrote: "Nothing is wrong, but please come. Frank is rather trying."

She left the office and walked back quickly up the village, only to run into Mrs. Greenock, at the corner by the vicarage. Though she was anxious to get back, it was impossible not to exchange a few words.

"And how does the portrait get on?" asked that estimable woman. "I had such a deeply interesting conversation with Mr. Trevor about it when we dined at your house. Is it wonderful? Is it a revelation? Does it show us what he is, not only what he looks like?"

"Frank's very much excited about it," said Margery, "which is always a good sign. I think he is satisfied."

"And when will it be finished?" asked Mrs. Greenock. "Your husband was so good as to tell me I might see it when it was done. I am looking forward to an intellectual as well as an artistic treat."

"It ought to be done to-morrow," said Margery. "He has been working very hard."

"A giant," murmured Mrs. Greenock – "a gigantic personality. Are you walking home? May I not accompany you a little way? I too have been hard at work to-day, and I have come out to get a breath of fresh air, and perhaps an idea or two."

Mrs. Greenock walked with Margery up to the lodge-gates, beguiling the tedium of the way with instructive discourse, and kept her several moments longer there, bidding her observe the exquisite glow in the western sky where the sun had already gone down.

Margery saw with annoyance that Mrs. Greenock had been quite right – the sun had already set, and the twilight was falling in darker and darker layers over the earth when she reached the house. She went quickly up the passage leading to the studio and opened the door.

Frank was standing on the other side of the room, with his face turned towards her, a piece of crumpled paper in his hands. The shadow cast from the window fell on the right side of his face, but in the dim light she could see that there was that expression of guilt and horror on it which she had seen there twice before.

"Why, Frank," she said, "you can't paint by this light!"

Something stirring at her elbow made her turn round quickly. Frank was sitting in a deep chair in the shadow, staring blankly before him.

She had mistaken the portrait for her husband.

For a moment neither of them spoke or moved. Then Frank got out of the chair where he was sitting and crossed the room to where the horrible fac-simile of himself stood against the wall, and putting himself unconsciously, Margery felt, into the same attitude, turned to her.

"I have worked quickly to-night," he said. "I have almost finished."

Margery looked suddenly back at the portrait, and noticed with a cold, growing horror that she had been the victim of some illusion. The light from the window cast no shadow at all on to it, and the shadow on the face was painted on the left side, not the right.

Frank paused, and Margery knew that her telegram would be useless. The matter was between herself and Frank. If help could reach him it must come from her. In a moment she understood all. The vague fear, the disconnected hints, the thing he had wished to tell her once at New Quay, and once again that morning, the guilty face, her own shrinking, formed links of a connected chain. She had shrunk from what was evil, as Frank had shrunk from it and loathed it when she was there; but the fascination of which, interpreted by his artistic passion, he had been unable to resist. His own skill had raised the thing that he had thought was dead into new life, and now it asserted its old supremacy.

In a few moments he spoke again.

"Do you see how like we are?" he said, speaking slowly, as if he had some difficulty in finding words. "No wonder you mistook it for me. You cannot see it properly in this light; in the daylight the likeness is even more extraordinary. Is it not clever of me to have painted such a picture? There is no picture like it in the world. It must go to the Academy next year, Margery, as a posthumous work. It is a creation. I have made a man!"

Frank paused, but Margery said nothing.

"There were some things about me you did not know before – things which were part of me, and had been vital to me," he went on. "Once or twice I wished to tell you of them, but you would not hear. Now you see them. I think you cannot help seeing them. You can see them in the portrait's face and in mine – clearest in mine; but to-morrow they will be quite as clear in the other. They say that hearing firing brings corpses to the surface. I dare say it is true – at any rate, I have brought corpses to the surface. They are not pretty; corpses seldom are."