Edith Wharton - Novel 14 (48 page)

 
          
What
did such people as Julia do with grief, he wondered, how did they make room for
it in their lives, get up and lie down every day with its taste on their lips?
Its elemental quality, that awful sense it communicated of a whirling earth, a
crumbling Time, and all the cold stellar spaces yawning to receive us—these
feelings which he was beginning to discern and to come to terms with in his own
way (and with the sense that it would have been George’s way too), these
feelings could never give their stern appeasement to Julia…
Her
religion?
Yes, such as it was no doubt it would help, talking with the
Rector would help; giving more time to her church-charities, her wounded
soldiers, imagining that she was paying some kind of tax on her affliction. But
the vacant evenings, at home, face to face with Brant! Campton had long since
seen that the one thing which had held the two together was their shared love
of George; and if Julia discovered, as she could hardly fail to do, how much
more deeply Brant had loved her son than she had, and how much more
inconsolably he mourned him, that would only increase her sense of isolation.
And so, in sheer self-defence, she would gradually, stealthily, fill up the
void with the old occupations, with bridge and visits and secret consultations
at the dressmaker’s about the width of crape on her dresses; and all the while
the object of life would be gone for her. Yes; he pitied Julia most of all.

 
          
But
Mr. Brant too—perhaps in a different way it was he who suffered most.
For the stellar spaces were not exactly Mr. Brant’s native climate,
and yet voices would call to him from them, and he would not know…

 
          
There
were moments when Campton looked about him with astonishment at the richness of
his own denuded life; when George was in the sunset, in the voices of young
people, or in any trivial joke that father and son would have shared; and other
moments when he was nowhere, utterly lost, extinct and irrecoverable; and
others again when the one thing which could have vitalized the dead business of
living would have been to see him shove open the studio door, stalk in, pour
out some coffee for himself in his father’s cup, and diffuse through the air
the warm sense of his bodily presence, the fresh smell of his clothes and his
flesh and his hair. But through all these moods, Campton began to see, there
ran the life-giving power of a reality embraced and accepted. George had been;
George was; as long as his father’s consciousness lasted, George would be as
much a part of it as the closest, most actual of his immediate sensations. He
had missed nothing of George, and here was his harvest, his golden harvest.

 
          
Such
states of mind were not constant with Campton; but more and more often, when
they came, they swept him on eagle wings over the next desert to the next
oasis; and so, gradually, the meaningless days became linked to each other in
some kind of intelligible sequence.

 
          
Boylston,
after the talk which had so agitated Campton, did not turn up again at the
studio for some time; but when he next appeared the painter, hardly pausing to
greet him, began at once, as if they had just parted: “That monument you spoke
about the other day … you know…”

 
          
Boylston
glanced at him in surprise.

 
          
“If
they want me to do it, I’ll do it,” Campton went on, jerking the words out
abruptly and walking away toward the window. He had not known, till he began,
that he had meant to utter them, or how difficult they would be to say; and he
stood there a moment struggling with the unreasoning rebellious irritability
which so often lay in wait for his better impulses. At length he turned back,
his hands in his pockets,
clinking
his change as he
had done the first time that Boylston had come to him for help. “But as I plan
the thing,” he began again, in a queer growling tone, “it’s going to cost a
lot—everything of the sort does nowadays, especially in marble. It’s hard
enough to get any one to that kind of work at all. And prices have about
tripled, you know.”

 
          
Boylston’s
eyes
filled,
and he nodded, still without speaking.

 
          
“That’s
just what Brant’ll like though, isn’t it?” Campton said, with an irrepressible
sneer in his voice. He saw Boylston redden and look away, and he too flushed to
the forehead and broke off ashamed. Suddenly he had the vision of Mr. Brant
effacing himself at the foot of the hospital-stairs when they had arrived at
Doullens; Mr. Brant drawing forth the copy of the orderly’s letter in the dark
fog-swept cloister; Mr. Brant always yielding, always holding back, yet always
remembering to do or to say the one thing the father’s lacerated soul could
bear.

 
          
“And
he’s had nothing—nothing—nothing!” Campton thought.

 
          
He
turned again to Boylston, his face still flushed, his lips twitching. “Tell
them—tell Brant—that i’ll design the thing; i’ll design it, aad he shall pay
for it. He’ll want to—I understand that. Only, for God’s sake, don’t let him
come here and thank me—at least not for a long time!”

 
          
Boylston
again nodded silently, and turned to go.

 
          
After
he had gone the painter moved back to his long table. He had always had a fancy
for modelling—had always had lumps of clay lying about within reach. He pulled
out all the sketches of his son from the old portfolio, spread them before him
on the table, and began.

 
          
paris
, 1918—Saint Brice-sous-Foret, 1922

 
          
The End