He made an effort and turned his eyes away. Jonathan was moving towards him; he said as he came, “What a mother!”
“But didn’t you guess anything of this?” Richard asked, almost with curiosity.
“Oh I don’t know,” Jonathan answered irritably. “I thought perhaps while I was doing it that there was something odd about it, and then I thought there wasn’t and that I was imagining things. One gets confused and can’t judge. And I certainly thought she wouldn’t notice it, or want to notice it. Nor would she, but she doesn’t mean me to marry Betty.”
Richard said, “But supposing to destroy it was the only way? Suppose Miss Wallingford asked you to?”
“Well, she hasn’t,” said Jonathan. “It’ll be time enough, when she does. I don’t know—probably I should. It’d be tiresome, but if it eased things … She doesn’t care for this Simon herself; she only goes because her mother makes her.”
“I’d like to see him for myself,” Richard said. “Where is he? What was that remark about Holborn?”
“You go,” said Jonathan. “It’s a place just between Holborn and Red Lion Square—you’ll easily find it. Go and hear him speak. He doesn’t do it often, but you’ll find out when he’s going to. Go and see, and tell me the result.”
“Well, I think I will,” said Richard. “Tomorrow. I’m very sorry about all this. What do you think you’ll do?”
“Just think first,” Jonathan answered. “Shall I stick out or shall I try and come to terms? I don’t believe Sir Bartholomew’ll be much good, even when he does get back from Moscow, but at least I could see him, and it’s going to be damned difficult to keep in touch with Betty. She might be a novice or a nun, the way her mother keeps her. I believe she even reads her letters and I’m sure she watches her telephone calls. Come round tomorrow, will you, if it’s not a bother? I shall want to talk to you.”
Richard promised and left. He came out into the London streets about the time when everyone else was also going home, and after a glance at the crowded transport he determined to walk. There was about the general hubbub something that eased and pleased him. He relaxed his spirit a little as he moved among them. He thought of Jonathan and Betty, and he thought also, “I wish Lester were here; she’d know what to do and she knows Betty.” It would be very convenient now if Lester could call on Betty; he wished for Jonathan’s sake that she could. A little of Lester’s energy and Lester’s style and even Lester’s temper might be of a good deal of use to Betty now.
It occurred to him, with a light surprise, that he was thinking quite naturally of Lester. He was sincerely sorry, for Jonathan’s sake, that her strong femininity was lost—for Jonathan’s sake, not at that moment for his own. It was what she was that was needed. What she was—not what she was to him. It occurred to him then that he had on the whole been in the habit of thinking of Lester only in relation to himself. He saw suddenly in her the power that waited for use, and he saw also that he had not taken any trouble about that power; that he had, in fact, been vaguely content to suppose it was adequately used in attending to him. He said, almost aloud, “Darling, did I neglect you?” It was no ordinary neglect that he meant; of that certainly he had not been guilty—and of this other perhaps she had been as guilty as he. No—not as guilty; she knew more of him in himself than he had ever troubled to know of her in herself. It was why her comments on him, in gaiety or rage, always had such a tang of truth; whereas his were generally more like either cultured jesting or mere abuse. The infinite accuracy of a wife’s intelligence stared out at him. He acknowledged what, in all his sincere passion, he had been unwilling to acknowledge, that she was often simply right, and the admission bound him to her the closer, dead though she might be. He thought how many chances he had missed of delighting in her entire veracity instead of excusing, protesting, denying. The glowing splendor of her beauty rose, and it was a beauty charged with knowledge. It was that, among much else, that he had neglected. And now they all needed her and she was not there.
She was. It was along Holborn that he was walking, for he had half thought of going that night to look for Simon’s hall or house or whatever it was. And there, on the very pavement, the other side of a crossing, she stood. He thought for the first second that there was someone with her. He was held by the appearance as motionless as in their early days he had thought he must be—though in fact in those early days he had never actually stopped. Now he did. It was as if that shock of her had at last compelled him to acknowledge it outwardly—at last, but as he had always almost believed he did, perhaps more in those days at the beginning when the strangeness was greater and the dear familiarity less. But the strangeness, for all the familiarity, had never quite gone, nor was it absent now; it was indeed, he felt, the greater, as well it might be. They stood on either side that Holborn by-way, and gazed.
He felt, as he gazed, more like a wraith than a man; against her vigor of existence he hung like a ghost and was fixed by it. He did not then remember the past hour in Jonathan’s room, nor the tomb-like image of Lady Wallingford. Had he done so, he would have felt Lester’s to be as much stronger than that woman’s as hers had seemed stronger than his own. Lester was not smiling any recognition; the recognition was in her stillness. The passionate mouth was serious and the eyes deep with wonder and knowledge: of him? certainly of him. He thought almost he saw her suspire with a relief beyond joy. Never, never again would he neglect. The broken oaths renewed themselves in him. One hand of hers was raised and still almost as if it rested on some other arm, but the other had flown to her breast where it lay as if in some way it held him there. They made, for those few seconds, no movement, but their stillness was natural and not strange; it was not because she was a ghost but because she was she that he could not stir. This was their thousandth meeting, but yet more their first, a new first and yet the only first. More stable than rock, more transient in herself than rivers, more distant-bright than stars, more comfortable than happy sleep, more pleasant than wind, more dangerous than fire—all known things similies of her; and beyond all known things the unknown power of her. He could perhaps in a little have spoken; but before he could, she had passed. She left him precisely the sensation of seeing her go on; past him? no; up the by-way? no; but it was not disappearance or vanishing, for she had gone, as a hundred times she had, on her proper occasions, gone, kissing, laughing, waving. Now she neither kissed nor laughed nor waved, but that which was in all three lingered with him as he saw she was no longer there.
Lights were coming out in the houses; the confused sound of the City was in his ears. He was giddy with too much apprehension; he waited to recover; then he crossed the by-way and he too went on.
Chapter Three
CLERK SIMON
Jonathan spent the rest of the day in the abandoned studio. After the first hour he made three efforts to ring up Betty. He gave his own name the first time, but was told that Miss Wallingford was not in. The second time he gave Richard’s name and for the third he invented a flight lieutenant. But neither was more successful. It was, of course, possible at first that the ladies had not returned from Holborn, but by half-past ten it seemed more likely that Lady Wallingford had simply secluded her daughter. He knew that if she had given orders that Miss Betty was not to be disturbed, it was very unlikely that anybody would disturb her. Between his two later calls he put in another. He knew that Sir Bartholomew had some small property in Hampshire, just as Lady Wallingford owned a house somewhere in Yorkshire, and he claimed to be speaking on behalf of the Hampshire County Council on some business of reconstruction. He asked if Sir Bartholomew had returned from Moscow or if not, when he was likely to return. The answer was that nothing could be said of Sir Bartholomew’s movements. He suggested that Lady Wallingford might be asked. The answer was that that would be useless; instructions had been issued that no other answer could be given. Jonathan at last gave up the telephone and sat down to write letters.
He wrote to Betty; he wrote to Lady Walli
ngford. He offered, after a slight struggle with his admiration of himself, to suppress the picture; the admiration just managed to substitute “suppress” for “destroy.” It was still worth while trying to save Betty and the picture too. But he knew that if he were driven far enough, he would consent to its destruction; though he could not quite avoid envisaging another picture in which something much more drastic should be deliberately done about Father Simon. He succeeded, however, in keeping this on the outskirts of his mind and even in mentioning to himself the word “dishonesty.” His virtue, with some difficulty, maintained itself in the uncertain center of his mind. He told Betty he would be in his flat all the next day, in case she could ring up or indeed come. He proposed an aunt’s house in Tunbridge Wells as a shelter for her. He told her that he would write to Sir Bartholomew through the War Office. He was perfectly well aware that Lady Wallingford would read the letter, but it told her nothing she could not have guessed, and it would at least make clear that he had other channels of communication with the Air Marshal.
He put off going to the post with these letters until almost midnight, in case by any wild chance Betty should ring up. But at last he gave up hope, took the letters, went to the door, and as he opened it switched out the light. At that moment the front door bell rang. He caught his breath and almost ran to it. He opened it; it was not she. In the dim light of the landing he saw a tall figure, apparently wrapped in some kind of cloak, and in his fierce disappointment he almost banged the door shut. But as his hand tightened on it, a voice said, “Mr. Drayton?”
“Yes?” Jonathan said morosely. The voice was urbane, a little husky, and had the very slightest foreign accent which Jonathan did not at once recognize. He peered forward a little to see the face, but it was not easy, even though the caller wore no hat. The voice continued. “Lady Wallingford has been with me tonight to tell me of a painting. I am Simon the Clerk.”
“Oh!” said Jonathan, “yes. I see.… Look, won’t you come in?” He had been quite unprepared for this, and as he ushered his visitor into the studio, his only feeling was one of extreme gratitude that in a moment of peevishness he had flung the covering again over the canvas. It would have been awkward to show Simon straight in at it. He could not quite think why he had come. It must, of course, be about the painting, but unless to see if he agreed with Lady Wallingford … and it would be odd to be as urgent as all that, especially as he disliked being painted. Still, it would come out. He was very much on his guard, but as he closed the door he said, as friendlily as he could, “Do sit down. Have a drink?”
“No, thank you,” Simon answered. He remained standing with his eyes on the covered canvas. He was a tall man, with a smooth mass of gray—almost white—hair; his head was large; his face thin, almost emaciated. The face had about it a hint of the Jew—no more; so little indeed that Jonathan wondered if it were only Richard’s account that caused him to think he saw it. But, considering more carefully, he saw it was there. The skin was dark and Jonathan saw with a thrill of satisfaction that he had got in his painting almost the exact kind of dead hue which it in fact possessed. The eyes were more deeply set than he had thought; otherwise he had been pretty accurate in detail. The only thing in which he had been wrong was in producing any appearance of bewilderment or imbecility. There was nothing at all of either in the Clerk’s gaze. It was not exactly a noble face, nor a prophetic; priestly, rather. A remote sacerdotalism lived in it; the Clerk might have been some lonely hierarch out of a waste desert. He stood perfectly still, and Jonathan observed that he was indeed as near perfectly still as a man could be. There was no slightest visible motion, no faintest sound of breath. He was so quiet that quietness seemed to emanate from him. Jonathan felt his own disturbance quelled. It was in a softer voice than his usual one that he said, making what was almost an effort to move and speak at all, “Are you sure you won’t have a drink?… Well, I think I will, if you’ll excuse me.” The other had very slightly shaken his head. Outside the room, the bells of the City began to chime midnight. Jonathan said to himself, as he had made a habit of doing since he had first met Betty whenever he was awake at midnight, as he often was, “Benedicta sit, et benedicti omnes parvuli Tui.” He turned away and poured out his drink. With the glass in his hand, he came back. The hour was striking, near and far, wherever bells were still capable of sound, all over the wide reaches of London. Jonathan heard it through the new quiet. He said, “And now, Father Simon, Lady Wallingford?”
“Lady Wallingford was distressed about this painting,” Simon answered.
“Distressed?” Jonathan said nastily. “Exhilarated was more the word, I should have thought.” Then the sense of the quiet and of the other’s presence made him ashamed of his petulance. He went on. “I beg your pardon. But I can’t think she was altogether unhappy. She was very angry.”
“Show it to me,” the Clerk said. It was not perhaps quite a command, but very nearly; it almost sounded like a Marshal of the Air speaking to an official artist who ranked as a regular officer. Obedience was enforceable, though unenforced. Jonathan hesitated. If Simon took Lady Wallingford’s view, he would be in a worse state than he was now. Was it possible that Simon would not take Lady Wallingford’s view? In that case he might be very useful indeed; possibly he might persuade Lady Wallingford to alter her own. It was a great risk. The other saw the hesitation. The husky urbane voice said, “Come; you must not think I see things as she does.”
“No,” said Jonathan doubtfully. “Only … I mean she has talked to you. I don’t know what she’s told you, but she’s so damned convinced and convincing that she’d even persuade me that a smudge of umber was a vermilion blot. Mind you, I think she’s made up her mind to find something wrong with it, in order to interfere with Betty and me, so she wasn’t disinterested.”
“It doesn’t matter what she told me,” the other said. “I never see things with other people’s eyes. If she’s wrong—I might be of use.”
“Yes,” said Jonathan, moving to the easel. “If you could convince her, of course.”
“She will think what I say,” the Clerk said, and there was such a sudden contempt in his voice that Jonathan looked round.
“I say, you are sure of her!” he said.
“I’m quite sure of her,” the Clerk answered, and waited. All this time he had not moved. The room itself, and it was large and by no means over-furnished, seemed almost full and busy beside him. Jonathan, as he threw back the cover, began to feel a warm attraction towards this unmoving figure which had the entire power to direct Lady Wallingford what to think. He determined, if by any chance Simon should pass this painting as harmless, to do him another about which there should be no doubt whatever. He stepped aside and for the third time that day the picture was exposed to study.
As Jonathan looked at it, he became extremely uneasy. The beetles, the blank gaze, the receding corridor, had not grown less striking since he had seen them last. If this was the Father, he could not think the Father would like himself. He wished again with all his heart that he had never begun to paint it. He knew exactly how he could have avoided it; he could have said he wasn’t worthy. It would have been a lie, for being worthy was not a thing that came in with painting; painting had nothing to do with your personal merit. You could do it or you couldn’t. But it would have been a convenient—and to that woman an easily credible—lie, and he wished he had told it, however difficult it would have been to say it convincingly. Betty, after all … He rather wondered if he could say now that he realized he wasn’t worthy. But the Father did not look the sort of person who was taken in like that—anyhow, at the present stage, when he obviously had thought himself worthy. No, if things went wrong, he must argue again. By now he loathed and hated the entire painting; he would have cut it up or given it to the nation, if the nation had wanted it. He looked round.
Simon was still standing at gaze. The chimes rang a quarter-past twelve; otherwise the City was silent. Outside the large window beyond Simon the
moon was high and cold. Her October chill interpenetrated the room. Jonathan shivered; something was colder—the atmosphere or his heart. Betty was far away, gone as lovers and wives do go, as Richard’s wife had gone, gone to her deathbed. Betty’s own bed was cold, even like her chastity. I would I were where Betty lies; no wedding garment except this fear, in the quiet, in the quiet, in the quiet, where a figure of another world stood. All things rose fluttering round it; beetles? too light for beetles: moths, bright light moths round a flame—formed dark; the cloak of the dark and the hunger in the dark. The high moon a moth, and he; only not Betty, Betty dead like Richard’s wife, dead women in the streets of the City under the moon.
A distant husky voice with a strange accent broke the silence. It said, “That is I.” Jonathan came to himself to see the Clerk staring. His head was a little forward; his eyes were fixed. He was so gratified that his voice let fall the words and ceased. The shock of them and of relief was so great that Jonathan felt a little lightheaded. He took a step or two back to get his vision into focus. He began to say something, but Simon was so clearly not listening that he gave it up and wandered away towards the window. But even as he did so he listened for what else that other should say which might give him hope, hope of Betty, hope of his work. He looked out into the moonlight, he saw in it, below him, on the other side of the road, two girls walking—they the only living in the night; and as his eyes took them in he heard again the voice behind him saying, but now in more than gratification, in low triumph: “That is I.”