Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (16 page)

In his own room Dick was settling a question with himself — and the question was whether all the world, and all that was therein, and a burning desire to exploit both, was worth one threepenny piece thrown into the Thames.

‘It came of seeing the sea, and I’m a cur to think about it,’ he decided.

‘After all, the honeymoon will be that tour — with reservations; only... only I didn’t realise that the sea was so strong. I didn’t feel it so much when I was with Maisie. These damnable songs did it. He’s beginning again.’

But it was only Herrick’s Nightpiece to Julia that the Nilghai sang, and before it was ended Dick reappeared on the threshold, not altogether clothed indeed, but in his right mind, thirsty and at peace.

The mood had come and gone with the rising and the falling of the tide by Fort Keeling.

CHAPTER IX

‘If I have taken the common clay

And wrought it cunningly

In the shape of a god that was digged a clod,

The greater honour to me.’

‘If thou hast taken the common clay,

And thy hands be not free

From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil

The greater shame to thee.’ — The Two Potters.

HE DID no work of any kind for the rest of the week. Then came another Sunday. He dreaded and longed for the day always, but since the red-haired girl had sketched him there was rather more dread than desire in his mind.

He found that Maisie had entirely neglected his suggestions about line-work. She had gone off at score filed with some absurd notion for a ‘fancy head.’ It cost Dick something to command his temper.

‘What’s the good of suggesting anything?’ he said pointedly.

‘Ah, but this will be a picture, — a real picture; and I know that Kami will let me send it to the Salon. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘I suppose not. But you won’t have time for the Salon.’

Maisie hesitated a little. She even felt uncomfortable.

‘We’re going over to France a month sooner because of it. I shall get the idea sketched out here and work it up at Kami’s.

Dick’s heart stood still, and he came very near to being disgusted with his queen who could do no wrong. ‘Just when I thought I had made some headway, she goes off chasing butterflies. It’s too maddening!’

There was no possibility of arguing, for the red-haired girl was in the studio. Dick could only look unutterable reproach.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘and I think you make a mistake. But what’s the idea of your new picture?’

‘I took it from a book.’

‘That’s bad, to begin with. Books aren’t the places for pictures. And —  — ’

‘It’s this,’ said the red-haired girl behind him. ‘I was reading it to Maisie the other day from The City of Dreadful Night. D’you know the book?’

‘A little. I am sorry I spoke. There are pictures in it. What has taken her fancy?’

‘The description of the Melancolia —

‘Her folded wings as of a mighty eagle,

But all too impotent to lift the regal

Robustness of her earth-born strength and pride.

And here again. (Maisie, get the tea, dear.)

‘The forehead charged with baleful thoughts and dreams,

The household bunch of keys, the housewife’s gown,

Voluminous indented, and yet rigid

As though a shell of burnished metal frigid,

Her feet thick-shod to tread all weakness down.’

There was no attempt to conceal the scorn of the lazy voice. Dick winced.

‘But that has been done already by an obscure artist by the name of Durer,’ said he. ‘How does the poem run? —

‘Three centuries and threescore years ago, With phantasies of his peculiar thought.

You might as well try to rewrite Hamlet. It will be a waste of time.

‘No, it won’t,’ said Maisie, putting down the teacups with a clatter to reassure herself. ‘And I mean to do it. Can’t you see what a beautiful thing it would make?’

‘How in perdition can one do work when one hasn’t had the proper training? Any fool can get a notion. It needs training to drive the thing through, — training and conviction; not rushing after the first fancy.’ Dick spoke between his teeth.

‘You don’t understand,’ said Maisie. ‘I think I can do it.’

Again the voice of the girl behind him —

‘Baffled and beaten back, she works on still; Weary and sick of soul, she works the more.

Sustained by her indomitable will,

The hands shall fashion, and the brain shall pore,

And all her sorrow shall be turned to labour —  —

I fancy Maisie means to embody herself in the picture.’

‘Sitting on a throne of rejected pictures? No, I shan’t, dear. The notion in itself has fascinated me. — Of course you don’t care for fancy heads, Dick.

I don’t think you could do them. You like blood and bones.’

‘That’s a direct challenge. If you can do a Melancolia that isn’t merely a sorrowful female head, I can do a better one; and I will, too. What d’you know about Melacolias?’ Dick firmly believed that he was even then tasting three-quarters of all the sorrow in the world.

‘She was a woman,’ said Maisie, ‘and she suffered a great deal, — till she could suffer no more. Then she began to laugh at it all, and then I painted her and sent her to the Salon.’

The red-haired girl rose up and left the room, laughing.

Dick looked at Maisie humbly and hopelessly.

‘Never mind about the picture,’ he said. ‘Are you really going back to Kami’s for a month before your time?’

‘I must, if I want to get the picture done.’

‘And that’s all you want?’

‘Of course. Don’t be stupid, Dick.’

‘You haven’t the power. You have only the ideas — the ideas and the little cheap impulses. How you could have kept at your work for ten years steadily is a mystery to me. So you are really going, — a month before you need?’

‘I must do my work.’

‘Your work — bah!... No, I didn’t mean that. It’s all right, dear. Of course you must do your work, and — I think I’ll say good-bye for this week.’

‘Won’t you even stay for tea? ‘No, thank you. Have I your leave to go, dear? There’s nothing more you particularly want me to do, and the line-work doesn’t matter.’

‘I wish you could stay, and then we could talk over my picture. If only one single picture’s a success, it draws attention to all the others. I know some of my work is good, if only people could see. And you needn’t have been so rude about it.’

‘I’m sorry. We’ll talk the Melancolia over some one of the other Sundays.

There are four more — yes, one, two, three, four — before you go. Good-bye, Maisie.’

Maisie stood by the studio window, thinking, till the red-haired girl returned, a little white at the corners of her lips.

‘Dick’s gone off,’ said Maisie. ‘Just when I wanted to talk about the picture. Isn’t it selfish of him?’

Her companion opened her lips as if to speak, shut them again, and went on reading The City of Dreadful Night.

Dick was in the Park, walking round and round a tree that he had chosen as his confidante for many Sundays past. He was swearing audibly, and when he found that the infirmities of the English tongue hemmed in his rage, he sought consolation in Arabic, which is expressly designed for the use of the afflicted. He was not pleased with the reward of his patient service; nor was he pleased with himself; and it was long before he arrived at the proposition that the queen could do no wrong.

‘It’s a losing game,’ he said. ‘I’m worth nothing when a whim of hers is in question. But in a losing game at Port Said we used to double the stakes and go on. She do a Melancolia! She hasn’t the power, or the insight, or the training. Only the desire. She’s cursed with the curse of Reuben. She won’t do line-work, because it means real work; and yet she’s stronger than I am. I’ll make her understand that I can beat her on her own Melancolia. Even then she wouldn’t care. She says I can only do blood and bones. I don’t believe she has blood in her veins. All the same I lover her; and I must go on loving her; and if I can humble her inordinate vanity I will. I’ll do a Melancolia that shall be something like a Melancolia — ”the Melancolia that transcends all wit.” I’ll do it at once, con — bless her.’

He discovered that the notion would not come to order, and that he could not free his mind for an hour from the thought of Maisie’s departure. He took very small interest in her rough studies for the Melancolia when she showed them next week. The Sundays were racing past, and the time was at hand when all the church bells in London could not ring Maisie back to him. Once or twice he said something to Binkie about ‘hermaphroditic futilities,’ but the little dog received so many confidences both from Torpenhow and Dick that he did not trouble his tulip-ears to listen.

Dick was permitted to see the girls off. They were going by the Dover night-boat; and they hoped to return in August. It was then February, and Dick felt that he was being hardly used. Maisie was so busy stripping the small house across the Park, and packing her canvases, that she had not time for thought. Dick went down to Dover and wasted a day there fretting over a wonderful possibility. Would Maisie at the very last allow him one small kiss? He reflected that he might capture her by the strong arm, as he had seem women captured in the Southern Soudan, and lead her away; but Maisie would never be led. She would turn her gray eyes upon him and say, ‘Dick, how selfish you are!’ Then his courage would fail him. It would be better, after all, to beg for that kiss.

Maisie looked more than usually kissable as she stepped from the night-mail on to the windy pier, in a gray waterproof and a little gray cloth travelling-cap. The red-haired girl was not so lovely. Her green eyes were hollow and her lips were dry. Dick saw the trunks aboard, and went to Maisie’s side in the darkness under the bridge. The mail-bags were thundering into the forehold, and the red-haired girl was watching them.

‘You’ll have a rough passage to-night,’ said Dick. ‘It’s blowing outside. I suppose I may come over and see you if I’m good?’

‘You mustn’t. I shall be busy. At least, if I want you I’ll send for you. But I shall write from Vitry-sur-Marne. I shall have heaps of things to consult you about. Oh, Dick, you have been so good to me! — so good to me!’

‘Thank you for that, dear. It hasn’t made any difference, has it?’

‘I can’t tell a fib. It hasn’t — in that way. But don’t think I’m not grateful.’

‘Damn the gratitude!’ said Dick, huskily, to the paddle-box.

‘What’s the use of worrying? You know I should ruin your life, and you’d ruin mine, as things are now. You remember what you said when you were so angry that day in the Park? One of us has to be broken.

Can’t you wait till that day comes?’

‘No, love. I want you unbroken — all to myself.’

Maisie shook her head. ‘My poor Dick, what can I say!’

‘Don’t say anything. Give me a kiss. Only one kiss, Maisie. I’ll swear I won’t take any more. You might as well, and then I can be sure you’re grateful.’

Maisie put her cheek forward, and Dick took his reward in the darkness.

It was only one kiss, but, since there was no time-limit specified, it was a long one. Maisie wrenched herself free angrily, and Dick stood abashed and tingling from head to toe.

‘Good-bye, darling. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry. Only — keep well and do good work, — specially the Melancolia. I’m going to do one, too. Remember me to Kami, and be careful what you drink. Country drinking-water is bad everywhere, but it’s worse in France. Write to me if you want anything, and good-bye. Say good-bye to the whatever-you-call-um girl, and — can’t I have another kiss? No. You’re quite right. Good-bye.’

A should told him that it was not seemly to charge of the mail-bag incline. He reached the pier as the steamer began to move off, and he followed her with his heart.

‘And there’s nothing — nothing in the wide world — to keep us apart except her obstinacy. These Calais night-boats are much too small. I’ll get Torp to write to the papers about it. She’s beginning to pitch already.’

Maisie stood where Dick had left her till she heard a little gasping cough at her elbow. The red-haired girl’s eyes were alight with cold flame.

‘He kissed you!’ she said. ‘How could you let him, when he wasn’t anything to you? How dared you to take a kiss from him? Oh, Maisie, let’s go to the ladies’ cabin. I’m sick, — deadly sick.’

‘We aren’t into open water yet. Go down, dear, and I’ll stay here. I don’t like the smell of the engines.... Poor Dick! He deserved one, — only one.

But I didn’t think he’d frighten me so.’

Dick returned to town next day just in time for lunch, for which he had telegraphed. To his disgust, there were only empty plates in the studio.

He lifted up his voice like the bears in the fairy-tale, and Torpenhow entered, looking guilty.

‘H’sh!’ said he. ‘Don’t make such a noise. I took it. Come into my rooms, and I’ll show you why.’

Dick paused amazed at the threshold, for on Torpenhow’s sofa lay a girl asleep and breathing heavily. The little cheap sailor-hat, the blue-and-white dress, fitter for June than for February, dabbled with mud at the skirts, the jacket trimmed with imitation Astrakhan and ripped at the shoulder-seams, the one-and-elevenpenny umbrella, and, above all, the disgraceful condition of the kid-topped boots, declared all things.

‘Oh, I say, old man, this is too bad! You mustn’t bring this sort up here.

They steal things from the rooms.’

‘It looks bad, I admit, but I was coming in after lunch, and she staggered into the hall. I thought she was drunk at first, but it was collapse. I couldn’t leave her as she was, so I brought her up here and gave her your lunch. She was fainting from want of food. She went fast asleep the minute she had finished.’

‘I know something of that complaint. She’s been living on sausages, I suppose. Torp, you should have handed her over to a policeman for presuming to faint in a respectable house. Poor little wretch! Look at the face! There isn’t an ounce of immorality in it. Only folly, — slack, fatuous, feeble, futile folly. It’s a typical head. D’you notice how the skull begins to show through the flesh padding on the face and cheek-bone?’