‘I wish he’d come for his tea …’ she said, looking towards the door. ‘But it’s no use to fetch him.’
‘Why a man in his condition should want to go on paint, painting in that front room …’ Florrie turned up her eyes, a gesture that indicated a supreme lack of comprehension. ‘ Here, you haven’t ’arf drunk your tea. Let me give you some fresh.’
‘No, Flo.’
‘Come along, my girl, you must keep up.’
‘I don’t fancy it, really.’
‘But you always was a one for your tea,’ Florrie exclaimed, surprised. ‘Remember our elevenses in the old days?’
‘I’ve turned against it, like.’
Florrie held the teapot in mid-air, studying her sister-in-law curiously, then she set it back, under the cosy. After a moment she said:
‘Don’t you want no bread’n butter?’
Jenny shook her head.
‘You have gone off your feed. Why, at breakfast this morning you didn’t more’n touch your kipper. And come to think of it … these other mornings …’
She broke off. Jenny had coloured painfully, then slowly, under the other’s searching scrutiny, she turned pale and her eyes crept guiltily away. A brief ominous silence followed, during which Florrie’s expression registered a range of emotion that passed from sheer incredulity to shocked suspicion.
‘It ain’t that?’ she said at last, slowly.
Jenny, still with averted head, did not answer.
‘Oh, no,’ Florrie said, in a suppressed voice. ‘As if it wasn’t bad enough. How long ’ ave you missed?’
‘Six weeks.’ The reply came, barely audible.
‘My God, when I think on it … when I … oh, it makes me boil. After he’s lived off you all them years. Never doing a hand’s turn, the perfect gentleman, letting you work and slave for him, while he mooches around, pretending to slap paint on a piece of canvas. And now, when he’s just about done for, to leave you in this condition …’
‘Don’t, Flo,’ Jenny interrupted fiercely. ‘ Don’t blame him. I’m the one what’s responsible. It was … it was that night the doctor told him …’
She broke off, inarticulate, striving to keep back the tears. How could she explain that emotion, transcending any she had ever experienced, wildly passionate, yet intermingled with pity and despair, which had seemed to soften all her being, to surrender everything that was her. She had known, even at that moment, that she had conceived.
‘Well, I wish you joy, I’m sure.’ Florrie spoke in a stiff, inimical tone. ‘But how you’ll manage, my gel, is quite another question.’
‘Don’t be hard, Flo. I shall manage. You know I ’ave a good pair of ’ands.’
‘’Ands, yes,’ Florrie agreed gloomily. ‘But oh, my gel, where was your ’ead?’ She paused. ‘’Ave you told him?’
‘Not yet. And I shan’t till we get home. He’ll be more like himself then.’
With an effort that went against all her nature, Florrie cut off the exasperated reply that rose to her lips. Jenny’s stubborn refusal to admit what, in Flo’s own words, was ‘staring everyone else in the face,’ was to her the supreme exacerbation of a lamentable situation. At the time of his arrival Stephen had seemed, in Florrie’s phrase, ‘ no worse than usual’, but soon he had begun to deteriorate and now, in fact, his decline had become so rapid as to be precipitous. Her own doctor, whom she had called in a fortnight ago, had told her in no uncertain terms – pronouncing the fatal words ‘galloping consumption’ – that his condition was hopeless and that another haemorrhage, which might occur at any moment, must immediately prove fatal.
‘Have it your own way.’ She shook her head resignedly. ‘ But why you should go on sacrificing yourself fair beats me.’
‘There’s some’at about him that you, nor nobody else, won’t never understand.’
Florrie exhaled a long aggravated breath.
‘I won’t never understand what ’e’s ever done for you.’
‘He’s made me happy.’
A sound in the passage abruptly terminated the conversation.
Both women had adjusted their expression as Stephen came into the room.
‘Am I late for tea?’ he said, and smiled.
To see that gaunt smile on the tight-skinned, bony face drove a lance into Jenny’s breast. Now he would scarcely let her speak of his illness, it was something he preferred to ignore utterly. It was this inveterate detachment, his heroic failure to complain, that most of all cut her to the heart. Yet, knowing how he hated it, she forbade herself to express the least emotion. Instead, in a matter-of-fact voice, pouring him a cup of tea, she said:
‘We would have called you. But I thought you might be finishing up.’
‘As a matter of fact, I have finished. All but a few details. And it rather pleases me.’ He rubbed his hands together and accepting a slice of bread and butter from the plate she handed him, sat down at the window.
‘You mean the picture’s done?’ Florrie asked, stroking the cat.
‘Yes. It’s as good as I can make it. And it is rather good, I think.’
‘But will it do good for anyone?’ Florrie’s glance rested significantly on Jenny.
‘Who knows?’ he answered lightly.
Jenny, as she watched him, her face in shadow, could sense the contained excitement of his mood. His eyes, deep in their orbits, showed spots of light, his fingers trembled slightly as he held his cup. She said sympathetically:
‘You’ve been a long time over that one.’
‘Six months. It was difficult, technically, to convey the sense of elemental things … the background of the river … earth, air, and water … and still preserve a harmony with the central theme.’
He did not as a rule talk about his work, but now, suffused still by the thrill of creative achievement, he went on for a few minutes, giving expression to the thoughts that were in his mind.
‘And what’s to happen to it now?’ Florrie asked, tight-lipped, when he concluded.
‘Heaven alone knows,’ Stephen replied indifferently.
‘I hope it don’t start such a nasty mess-up as you ’ad with that there last one.’
‘I hope not, Florrie.’ He smiled, determined not to take offence. ‘This seems quite a respectable painting. And to reassure you completely, I promise it won’t be exhibited.’
Instead of pacifying, his answer provoked her further.
‘Well, I must say, you really ’ ave me beat. What use can it be, I ask you, what earthly use to stand in that parlour, and make a shambles of it too, paint, paint, painting the livelong day with nothing to show for it? Don’t it matter to you that you won’t make a single penny on this picture?’
‘No. All that matters is that I’ve done it.’ He got up. ‘I’m going out now for a bit of a stroll.’
‘You shouldn’t,’ Jenny said quickly, protectively. ‘It’s cold outside. And getting dark.’
‘I must have a walk.’ He looked at her kindly. ‘You know that fresh air is good for me.’
She did not argue, but came with him into the hall and helped him to wrap up in the thick coat she had bought him, gave him from the stand the stick he now used. Then, at the door, while he went down the stairs, she watched him with that ever-present anguish, yet still revolving in her mind with unquenchable devotion, though a little desperately now, projects for his recovery.
His progress along the street was slow. An incline, so slight as to be almost imperceptible to the eye, made him comprehend the extent of his own debility. Each foot seemed weighted as, avoiding the busier part of the town, he made his way towards the seafront. At the entrance to the esplanade there stood a circular rotunda, with mirrors in the windows, and as he passed he saw his reflection in the glass, the drawn face, incredibly emaciated, eyes dark and staring, the shoulders stooping as though with age. Instinctively he grimaced and withdrew his gaze. No one knew better than he how preposterous it was that he should be up and about in such a fashion, but he had firmly res
isted all attempts to keep him in bed and would continue to do so. He could not bear the thought of being confined.
Presently he reached his objective, a bench at a curve of the bay beyond the pier, usually unoccupied, which afforded an open prospect of the sea. Here he sat down, breathing quickly, but feeling the cool, clear air about him with a sensation of relief.
It was a superb pale sunset, a streak of salmon upon the western horizon, merging to primrose and faint green, the colours, and all their varying merging tints, clear and delicate against the dove-grey sea, and cold with the approach of winter. Not one of Turner’s sunsets, he reflected, watching it with sensuous appreciation, sunk down into himself, chin buried in his chest, and for a moment his thoughts turned to that painter of visions, supreme colourist, secret, cantankerous, eccentric, in his old age hiding himself in a filthy Thames-side house, known to the children of the neighbourhood as ‘old Admiral Booth’. We’re all mad, or half mad, he told himself, a band of lost souls, cut off from the rest of the world, perpetually in conflict with society, the predestined children of misfortune. At least, he added, with a mental reservation, all except the ones who compromise. He had never done that. Ever since his boyhood he had been obsessed by the desire to grasp a beauty which he felt imprisoned beneath the surface of things. In solitude, through his own struggle, he had pursued his destiny, yet who would ever understand the loneliness, the hours of hollow sadness – broken only by fits of momentary exultation – he had endured in its fulfilment? He had no regrets; indeed, there was a strange peace upon him. Only out of pain and distress and unhappiness, out of all the hostility of the world, could he have created beauty. It was worth the price that he had paid.
While the colours faded from the sky, the different phases of his work passed, in slow review, before him, culminating in the great canvas he had now completed. This final creative mood, or rather its consummation, product of the strange nexus between his sickness and his art, gave him an exalted sense of being above time and death, partaking of the eternal. The more ill he had become the more mysteriously his powers had been renewed. Yet he knew that he was doomed, the fount of physical energy within him had ceased to flow, an ultimate weariness lay upon him. He thought: I shall speak to Jenny tonight … it’s time we were home … we’ll leave for Cable Street at the end of the week.… And again: Raphael died at thirty-seven … why should I complain?
He shivered slightly and, as it was now almost dark, he got up and started back towards the Row. As he did so, he heard a brisk step behind, and a cheerful voice hailed him. He turned, saw, advancing the short, active figure of a young man. It was Ernie, looking quite professional in a dark suit and bowler, with a rolled umbrella in his hand.
‘Well! I fancied I might find you here.’ He slowed his pace, adjusting it tactfully to Stephen’s. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Oh, fine, Ernie. You on your way home from the office?’
‘No, I’ve been and had my tea. I’m off to my night class now. But Aunt Florrie asked me to look out for you and fetch you back.’
Good God, thought Stephen dully, am I so decrepit that they have to send someone to lead me in? Indeed, his companion at this moment, with the best will in the world, had taken his arm and was helping him down the promenade steps. But apparently his suspicion was ill-founded, for almost at once Ernie exclaimed:
‘It’s not often you have a visitor. And they didn’t want you to miss him.’
‘A visitor? Who is it?’
‘Search me. Regular toff by the look of him. Came in a swank car too.’
Stephen’s brows drew together with a nervous constriction. What next? he asked himself. Had his father or Hubert come to see him? No, that seemed most unlikely. Was it perhaps an emissary from Claire, bringing, misguidedly, some charitable offer of assistance? The possibility dismayed him.
‘Maybe it’s a posh doctor to examine you,’ Ernie speculated optimistically. ‘A specialist. ’Strewth, ’e ought to do you a real bit of all right. You do ’ave connections what could have arranged it. Good enough! Why, with a bit of luck we’ll be digging cockles on the beach next summer, just like old times.’
While Ernie rattled on, with purely fictitious enthusiasm, bent ingenuously on raising Stephen’s spirits, they passed through the town, quiet now, since most of the stores were closed. Then, as they turned the corner at the harbour, he saw the car, a large black landaulette, standing outside the shuttered entrance to the fish shop.
‘There you are!’ Ernie drew up, with an air of justification. ‘Now in you go. I’ll be late if I don’t rush.’
When Stephen had climbed the stairs, he paused to recover his breath, but at once the door opened and Florrie let him in.
‘There’s a man to see you. A foreigner.’ Her manner, startled, yet filled with an odd import, confirmed his premonition of the unusual. She added: ‘In the parlour.’
He did not speak, although evidently she expected a question and was prepared to answer. He took off his coat, a slow process, though for once she helped him. When he had hung it on a peg with his hat and scarf, he turned and went into the front room. This was a small apartment, seldom used except when ‘ company’ was entertained, and at present completely disarranged by Stephen’s easel and the large canvas upon it. A fire, hastily lit, sparked damply in the small black-leaded grate. Occupying the one easy-chair, with his legs crossed, engaging Jenny in conversation, was a short sallow-faced man who, as Stephen appeared, rose quickly to his feet.
‘Mr Desmonde, I am happy to meet you.’
His manner, polished yet serious, had a restraint that matched his impeccably severe suit, the dark pearl in his cravat, his shoes of a perfect gloss. In that small front parlour he conferred upon it, without effort, a distinction that almost shattered the cheap china dogs – won by Ernie at the Margate Fair – upon the mantelpiece. Stephen had recognised him at once and barely glanced at the crisp engraved visiting-card which the other presented to him as Jenny, with a murmured word, excused herself and left the room.
‘You know, my dear Monsieur Desmonde, it is so good to make your acquaintance at last.’
‘Haven’t we met before?’
‘But where, my good sir?’
Stephen considered the dealer calmly.
‘In Paris, fifteen years ago. I was broke, starving in fact, hadn’t a centime. I tried to sell you my paintings. You wouldn’t even look at them.’
Tessier’s eye flickered slightly, but his manner was proof against any embarrassment. He threw out his hands in charming apology.
‘Then I assure you the shoe is now on the other foot. For I have come all the way to London to seek you out. And I may say I had enormous difficulty to find you. First I wrote to Charles Maddox, and received no satisfaction. Then I called upon him. We went together to your house in Stepney but you were not there. Only by the greatest perseverance did I obtain your address here, from Monsieur Glyn. So you see how extremely anxious I have been to achieve this meeting.’
‘I wish you had not put yourself to so much trouble,’ Stephen said.
‘My dear sir, it is not a trouble, but a pleasure.’
Tessier resumed his chair and, balancing his hat on his knee, studied Stephen critically, yet at the same time managing to convey a veiled sense of admiration.
‘Even if I had not seen this magnificent canvas’ – he made a gesture of reverence towards the painting on the easel – ‘I should have known you anywhere as an artist. Those hands … your head. But let us not waste time.’ He took himself up abruptly. ‘ Monsieur Desmonde’ – it is my privilege to inform you that in recent months there has been in Paris a growing interest in your work. Some time ago one of your paintings, Convent Sisters Returning from Church, belonging to the colourman Campo, was shown in the window of Salomon et Cie – a relatively unimportant dealer. Here, however, it was seen by Georges Bernard, perhaps the most distinguished art critic in France. Bernard greatly liked your painting – forgive me, that phrase is i
nadequate – moreover, since something of the recent animadversion against your work, coupled with certain derogatory comments upon the French Impressionists, had been reported in the Paris papers, he recognised your name. The following Thursday in La Revue Gauloise, in a full-length column, he praised Sisters in the highest terms. The very next morning the picture was sold.
‘Now Campo, for an obscure little merchant over seventy years of age, is not altogether a fool. He had, of your works, no less than twenty canvases, mostly your early French period, some of your circus, compositions including a glorious study, Horses in a Thunderstorm, and several of the early Spanish period, which apparently you had pledged to him when you were working with Modigliani. He took all of these to Bernard, permitted him to select one as his own – he chose the frieze of horses – and asked him to sponsor an exhibition. This was held two months ago, again, unfortunately, at Salomon’s. I use the word advisedly, for as a result, every one of the pictures was immediately sold – at prices which in a few years will seem to you derisory. Moreover, with the appetite of connoisseurs stimulated to a high degree, there remained not a single Desmonde canvas in the whole of Paris. No,’ he corrected himself, ‘ I am wrong. Just after the initial frisson there came into Paris from, of all people, a country épicière in Normandy, a delicious pastel of two young girls, unsigned, but obviously from your hand.’ He looked inquiringly at Stephen. ‘ You recollect the work?’
‘Perfectly … they were the Cruchot children.’
‘Such was the name. And the pastel, it may interest you to know, sold for no less than fifteen thousand francs.’
‘Good,’ Stephen said in a flat voice. ‘That would please Madame Cruchot greatly.’
‘Now, Monsieur Desmonde, I don’t wish to bore you by stressing a situation which is so obvious. You have come into your own at last. The collectors are asking for your work, demanding it. And you … with practically every one of your paintings in your own hands, you have, in a phrase, cornered the market. So if you will honour me, and I think my position in the world of art is pre-eminent, by permitting me to act for you, I can guarantee that you will have no cause to regret it.’