The Sandcastle (5 page)

They crossed the playground towards Main School. Mor thought he would show Miss
Carter the hall next. They found it empty, its rows of windows open wide to
show a slope of pine trees and a distant view of the playing fields. It was
melancholy with summer. High in the rafters a few butterflies flitted to and
fro. The velvet curtains on the stage swayed in the light breeze from the windows.
Their feet echoed on the boards.
‘This is the hall,’ said Mor. He looked at it gloomily. It was deplorably
familiar.
You must tell me all about Mr Demoyte,‘ said Miss Carter suddenly.
‘What do you want to know?’ said Mor. He felt that he had half expected this.
They walked back slowly into the open air.
‘Well, everything,’ said Miss Carter, ‘as much as you know. As you will
realize, painting a portrait is not just a matter of sitting down and painting
what you see. Where the human face is concerned, we interpret what we see more
immediately and more profoundly than with any other object. A person looks
different when we know him - he may even look different as soon as we know one
particular thing about him. And in any case there are simpler problems. A
choice must be made about the clothes which the person is to wear in the
picture, the posture which he is to hold, the expression on his face, the
background, the accessories. A consideration of all these things will then
affect one’s methods and one’s technique. It is impossible to be in a hurry.’
Mor smiled inwardly at this speech, which had been delivered in a slightly
pompous and didactic tone. They were now walking across the playground in the
direction of the Gym. He wondered if this was Miss Carter’s own voice or the
voice of her father. Partly to try her, he said, ‘Why should you want to learn
more about Demoyte? Who knows what view of him is the right one? Perhaps you,
meeting him for the first time, and knowing no more than what you see, will see
him more truly than we who have known him for so long.’
‘I am a professional portrait painter,’ said Miss Carter rather primly, ‘and I
am employed to paint
your
Mr Demoyte, not
my
Mr Demoyte.’
Mor whistled to himself. He now saw what Demoyte had meant when he said that
she had a sense of vocation like a steam hammer. They entered the Gymnasium. It
was full of juniors, who were dangling on ropes, curling over bars, springing
over the horse, or otherwise bouncing about on the floor after the rather frog-like
manner of small boys. Mr Hensman, the gym instructor, smiled and waved to Mor.
Mor liked him. He was one of Donald’s well-wishers.
Miss Carter looked a while at the pullulating scene. Then she said, as they
turned away, ‘Of course, what I said just now was pretentious nonsense. What Mr
Demoyte would call cant. At least I know him well enough to know one of his
favourite words. I want to paint a really good likeness. We all think that
there is something which is what a person is really like, and that this takes
some time to learn. I think you know what Mr Demoyte is really like, and I want
to find out’
They walked across the playground again, and entered School House. Mor felt a
new respect for Miss Carter, and it occurred to him for the first time that he
liked her. He wondered where she had been educated. He supposed in a French
lycée.
He would have liked to ask her, only it would have been too forward.
‘Well, I shall do what I can for you,’ he said. ‘Here is one of the main
scholars’ dormitories.’ He opened the door and showed the long double line of
iron beds, all with their blue coverlets. Beside each bed stood a white chest
of drawers, on top of which each boy was allowed to place no more than three
objects. Between the beds were white curtains which were pulled back in the day
time.
This spectacle seemed to interest Miss Carter more than the Gym and the hall.
‘It looks Dutch,’ she said. ‘I wonder why? So much white material, and the
light - Does your son sleep here?’
The question disturbed Mor. ‘My son isn’t a scholar,’ he said. ‘Anyway, only
the younger boys sleep in dormitories. The older ones sleep in their studies.’
‘There’s something very touching about a dormitory,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I have
seen graveyards which are touching in the same way.’
They began to descend the stairs.
‘I have the impression, for instance,’ said Miss Carter, ‘that Mr Demoyte is
deliberately trying to deceive me about certain things. Since I arrived I am
quite sure that he has been wearing clothes that he does not usually wear. I
think this not only because of the smell of mothballs but because of the way
the clothes look on him.’
Mor laughed. He felt no obligation to keep Demoyte’s absurd secret. ‘You’re
right!’ he said. ‘Demoyte hardly ever puts on a suit. He usually wears
corduroys and a sports coat during the day, and black trousers and a velvet
smoking-jacket in the evening. And a bow tie, of course.’
‘I suspected the bow tie,’ said Miss Carter, ‘because of a certain gesture he
makes as if to adjust one. Yes. Why should he want to deceive me?’
‘He doesn’t want to be summed up by a slip of a girl,’ said Mor. He glanced
sideways at her..
Miss Carter smiled faintly. ‘But I
will
sum him up,’ she said. ‘I
will!’
Not her father’s voice, thought Mor. Herself. They began to walk down the hill,
across the ragged slope of grass which separated the Library building from the
first trees of the wood. ‘Would you like to see the Chapel?’ he said.
‘No, thank you,’ said Miss Carter firmly. ‘Not dressed like this. I might offend
someone. Tell me, has Mr Demoyte ever published a volume of poems called
Falling
Flowers?’
Mor stopped and went into a peal of laughter. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Did he try to
tell you those were his?’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Carter. ‘When I asked to see all his published works he
offered me the poems, and said he’d get the others in a day or two.’
‘He’s probably inventing something even more fantastic,’ said Mor. ‘It’s almost
a shame to spoil his fun.
Falling Flowers
is an early effort of Mr
Everard!’
Miss Carter laughed. ‘Mr Demoyte is enjoying himself,’ she said. ‘I’d better
rely on you instead. Could you please get me all his books? Can I trust you, I
wonder?’ She spoke with a cool peremptory air which Mor might have resented.
‘Yes!’ said Mor fervently. He did not resent it. ‘I’ll get you what he has
written. There isn’t much. The book on Oriental rugs, some articles on rare
editions, and a volume of sermons preached at School Services. That was
published very long ago. Demoyte would be furious if he knew I’d given it to
you.’
‘It shall be a secret between us,’ said Miss Carter.
Mor felt at once a little uneasy at the thought that he was going to deceive
the old man; but he wanted to please Miss Carter, and he thought her wishes
were reasonable.
‘What would you like to see now?’ he said. ‘What about the studio? There’s an
exhibition of the boys’ art that was put on for Speech Day. I think it’s still
there.’
‘Oh yes, please,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I love children’s art.’
It seemed to Mor a little quaint that she should refer to the boys as children.
It occurred to him that he was regarding Miss Carter as being in some way more
youthful than his own pupils. They walked out of the sun on to one of the
shadowy paths of the wood, the ground underfoot crackling with twigs and leaves
and scattered with patches of golden light.
‘But won’t we meet Mr Bledyard?’ said Miss Carter.
‘Would you mind?’ said Mor. ‘In fact, he’s hardly ever there on these sunny
afternoons. He takes the boys out sketching.’
I haven’t met him yet,‘ said Miss Carter, ’and I feel a bit nervous.‘
‘He’s quite harmless, our Bledyard,’ said Mor, ‘only a little odd. He’s a sort
of primitive Christian, you know. His views on portrait painting are connected
with that. He thinks we ought to get back to Byzantine styles or else not paint
at all.’
They approached the studio. It was a long rambling building which incorporated
an old barn that had been standing there before. The music rooms were in a
jumble of Nissen huts which were just visible farther on through the trees.
Scattered sounds of a piano and of wind instruments were borne on the summer
air. Miss Carter shivered and stopped in her tracks.
‘What is it?’ said Mor. He was surprised at her emotion. ‘Don’t be afraid. I
can see from here that there’s no one in the studio.’
They came down the grassy path, stepping on the withered leaves of ferns, and
crossed a cobbled yard towards the door. Mor stepped inside first. A strong
smell of paint greeted him, the clean self-assertive smell of art, after the woodland
perfumes of nature which had drifted with them down the hill. There was no one
within.
‘Come on, the coast’s clear!’ he called to Miss Carter, who was still standing
on the cobblestones and looking as if she was ready to run. She entered slowly,
leaning warily round the side of the door.
Once she was well inside her attention was caught by the paintings which were
pinned on to tall boards which leaned against the walls all round the room. She
began to look at them. Through the high windows the golden light of the
afternoon came benevolently down, and gave to the studio something of the air
of a modern church. For the first time that day Mor felt himself at leisure to
observe his companion. He sat down on one of the stools and watched her as she
moved from picture to picture. She looked like a child’s picture herself,
extremely gay and simple. Her dark hair, which was jaggedly cut, arched at the
crown and crowded on her brow. Mor observed the youthful fullness of her face,
pouting with concentration — and as he watched her he reflected to himself how
rarely it was now that he met a woman.
‘How wonderfully children observe!’ said Miss Carter in an excited tone. ‘Look
at this scene — it’s so dramatic. A grown-up artist would not dare to be so
dramatic. Indeed he could hardly do it without being sentimental.’
Mor looked at the picture. It represented a young girl stepping on to a train,
while a young man offered her a rose with a gesture of despair. Before Mor
could think of a comment, Miss Carter had moved on to another picture, and
another, making enthusiastic exclamations. At the end of the row lay a pile of
white paper and some poster paint ready mixed. When she reached the last
picture Miss Carter twirled on her heel, seized one of the brushes, and drew in
paint an almost perfect circle on one of the sheets. She did this so quickly
that Mor had to laugh.
‘You know the story about Giotto,’ she said, ‘that when some grand people came
to commission a picture, and wanted a specimen of his work, he just drew a
perfect circle for them with his brush? He got the job. That impressed me
somehow as a child. I used to practise it, as if it were a guarantee of
success.’
‘Is it hard?’ said Mor.
‘Try’, said Miss Carter, handing him the brush, still full of paint.
Mor balanced the unfamiliar object in his hand, and drew a very shaky oval
shape upon the paper. ‘Hopeless!’ he said, laughing. The two figures
intersected. ‘I think we ought to go, said Mor. He had promised to deliver Miss
Carter back for a late tea at Brayling’s Close, and he began suddenly to be
uneasy about the time.
‘Oh dear,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Now I don’t want to go. The smell of paint makes
me feel quite strange.’ She began to wander between the rows of stools and
easels, sniffing the air and spreading out her arms. ‘Where does that lead to?’
she asked, pointing to a wooden ladder which led upward to a trap-door in the
ceiling of the studio.
This is an old barn, you know,‘ said Mor. ’That leads to the loft. It’s quite
well lighted. The near part of it is a pottery room, and the far part has been
made into a sort of flat for Mr Bledyard.‘
‘He lives up there?’ said Miss Carter.
‘Yes,’ said Mor.
‘I want to see!’ she said, and before Mor could stop her she was running up the
ladder and pushing at the trap-door.
‘Wait a moment!’ cried Mor, and began to climb after her. The trap-door yielded
and he saw the canvas shoes flapping to reveal the soles of her feet as she
pulled herself up into the loft above him. When he reached the top Miss Carter
was running about between the potter’s wheels which stood at intervals about
the floor. Mor was reminded of the scene in the rose garden. He began to feel
nervous.
‘I think we’d better go,’ he said. ‘Mr Bledyard might come back and find us
here.’
‘I should like to see his room,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Is it in here?’ She went to
the far end of the loft and opened a door. Mor followed her.
The big space, stretching the width of the loft, with the roof sloping on both
sides, and well lit by sky-lights, was Bledyard’s bed-sittingroom. His kitchen
and bathroom were in an outhouse below, which was reached by a wooden stair.
Mor, who had only once before beheld this room, looked at it with a little awe.
It was extremely bare and colourless. The floor was scrubbed and the walls
whitewashed. No picture, no coloured object adorned it. The furniture was of
pale wood, and even the bed had a white cover.
Miss Carter stared about her. ‘No colours,’ she murmured. ‘Interesting.’
‘Well, now you’ve seen it, let’s go down,’ said Mor.
‘I must just try the bed,’ said Miss Carter, ‘to see how hard it is!’ She
skipped across to Bledyard’s bed and subsided on to it, reclining there with
her head propped on her arm and her black trousered legs outstretched on the
counterpane. In the chaste scene she looked as dusky as a chimney-sweeper’s
boy. She peered up at Mor.
Mor was irritated and slightly shocked. He checked a comment, and deliberately
withdrew his attention from her as from a child that shows off. It was not
clear to him just how spontaneous these antics were. He went back to the
trap-door, meaning to descend again into the studio, but as he looked down
through the square hole into the well-lighted room below, he saw with a slight
thrill of alarm that the studio door was opening. The foreshortened figure of
Bledyard, his chin sunk upon his breast as usual, appeared slowly round the
door. He seemed to be alone. He began to poke around, looking for something. As
he was so intent upon his search, and as his lank and longish hair fell well
forward on either side of his cheeks like blinkers, it was unlikely that his
gaze should be attracted to the trap-door. He continued to potter. Mor watched
him, feeling the curious guilt which attaches to seeing someone unseen from
above: and the moment somehow passed at which he could call out to him in a
natural way. He hesitated, trying to think of something to say to Bledyard
which would at the same time warn Miss Carter to rise from her ridiculous pose
and set the bed to rights. However, before he could speak, Bledyard had turned
about and left the studio, and his footsteps were to be heard pounding across
the cobbles and into the wood.