This Proud Heart (42 page)

“I’ll tell you the story of each of them, may I? I’d like you to understand all about them.” And as she talked, she was thinking, “I’m going to be kind to him. I’m going to let the children see him often and grow fond of him. He’s got to have something out of marrying Mary.”

“Yes, I see,” he was saying earnestly. “Why, I think that’s just wonderful. My, but I’m proud of you.” He turned to Mary. “We’re awfully proud of her, aren’t we, Mary?”

Mary smiled. “Yes, of course,” she said. And bending her head, she adjusted a little the sables that she wore.

“How do you think it is going?” she asked Blake.

“Not bad,” he replied.

They had stayed in the gallery most of the day, and now it was evening. All day small groups of people, single people, a few couples, had drifted in. There had been no crowds but she did not expect them. But she was pleased because people who came in casually to see the work of a new artist, unknown, stayed to look and to talk in low voices. She heard fragments of their talk, critical, praiseful, puzzled.

“It’s big,” she heard a young man say to an older one.

“Yes,” the older man admitted doubtfully, “too big to be realized, perhaps. When an artist tries for too much it may escape him entirely.”

“I shouldn’t say anything had escaped here,” the young man answered.

“Perhaps not,” the elder said, and paused and said again, “It’s as though the ruggedness with which she has worked implies more than is actually there—”

“That, I suppose, is art,” said the young man with fierceness.

“Perhaps—perhaps—” the older man said equably. “I belong to a school that postulates less, reaches the grasp and completes it.”

“Neatly,” said the young man, scornfully, and they passed by.

Again and again people said, “It’s not like a woman’s work, is it?” And some shrugged their shoulders. “I don’t see why artists want to do such ugly people—look at that big fat Negro! So coarse!”

At home after dinner, alone, she and Blake looked at each other and smiled.

It had been a strange and happy day, filled with a happiness she could not understand. For she would have said that she valued most her work in the doing, and that when it was finished her fulfillment in it was complete. But this was not true. Her work was not complete even for herself, she now perceived, thinking the day over, until she had given it to be seen, to be understood or not, to other human beings. It was like speech, meaningless unless it became communication. She heard Blake’s voice.

“None of the important critics have come in yet,” he was saying. “If they don’t come in tomorrow, I’ll ring up Lee and Sibert and one or two others I know.”

“You’re not to say I’m your wife,” Susan said and smiled.

“It wouldn’t do you any harm,” he answered, bantering, his eyes glinting at her.

“No, no, Blake!” she begged him.

“All right, you independent woman!” He laughed at her, but he was a little annoyed. When she saw this she suddenly could not bear it at the end of such a day, and she went to him where he sat upon the couch and leaned against him, not thinking beyond her impulse to keep him happy for today.

But at the touch of her body he started. Then he put out his arms and lifted her into his embrace. And she felt him near as he had not been near in many months and she let herself be in his embrace. Her work for the moment was done. There was completion in her deepest being. She was content. Suddenly some part of her turned, still unfulfilled, toward him.

“Sonia?” her mind inquired of itself. But Sonia was gone. Blake had told her nothing and she knew now he would never tell her anything. Perhaps indeed it was best. Her thoughts were racing along as she felt his tightening, hot embrace. They would never meet everywhere. It was not possible, perhaps. Perhaps the comradeship she dreamed of in love and work was never possible for women like her. She must take what she had, and what she had not—that too was life—the not having. So she had told Michael. It was all part of the everything. If she and Blake could only meet like this, was it not better so to meet than never?

She seemed to see Sonia afar off, watching them with her pale passionate eyes, but she drove the picture away. Somewhere between herself and Blake there must be a bond to hold them fast together. His lips were pressing now upon hers, silent and hot and strong, and in a sad new passion once more she responded.

But in the morning, remembering, she looked, and seeing her body white in the dawn, she thought of marble and how it was made by the slow hardening of centuries until it was fit and ready for the hand, and how when the transient hand had left its mark and done its work, the marble stood shaped for centuries more. And her hands were only flesh, her body no more than a moment made to use that energy in her which she least of all could understand, because she only knew the power of its working, and not why it must work if she was to live. And thinking thus of her most perishable body she thought sorrowfully, “How can it be enough to hold together Blake and me?” When she thought of Blake this morning he was no nearer to her. No, for all the night had brought, he was no nearer to her still. She was tender to him, but very far away.

When she went downstairs late for breakfast he was reading the Sunday paper, a frown between his eyes.

“Well, Susanne,” he said when she came in, “I see your old friend has come forward.” His voice was brisk.

She went over to him, her tenderness, an echo from the night, still in her, and put her arms about his shoulders. But for Blake the night was gone. He struck the paper with his fingers.

“Barnes,” he said. “It’s very decent of him, of course, in a way.”

She glanced down the columns. “David Barnes Praises New Woman Sculptor,” Blake read aloud. “He’s just a little extreme—I mean, for your own good. It sounds too much like personal praise, as though you needed backing up.”

She went to her place.

“This will start the critics,” he said. “Still, I might call up one or two of the more influential ones.”

“Whatever you think, Blake,” she said.

“I’ll see,” he replied. She did not ask for the paper. When she was alone she would read it. She put out of her mind the thought of it and looked at Blake. He was quite cool, even a little debonair. He had accepted the night, she perceived, not as renewal but as a matter of course, for which he had merely to wait a little while. She looked away from him, somehow ashamed.

“It will be amusing to see what happens,” he said. “Anything Barnes says will bring attention.” And then he said, “Barnes never has understood my work, of course.”

His voice was nonchalant, but she heard bitterness behind it, and when she looked up, astonished, she saw in his eyes he was hurt.

“Blake!” she cried. “Oh, darling! It’s only because David Barnes thinks I need a little help and you don’t—”

“Of course I don’t need help so far as my work goes,” said Blake, “but it would be friendly of him.”

“I think it’s only because he thinks as a woman I’ll have a hard time.”

She was cajoling him again, she was coaxing him into good humor, and she stopped abruptly. If there was something in her which could stoop to peace, she would refuse to follow it, and she said, “Not that I want help. I stand on what I am. There ought not to be man or woman in work.” She smiled a little. “Work is a sort of heaven, where there is neither male nor female.”

“You’ll find there’s no such heaven, Susanne,” Blake said. “Whether you’re man or woman sets you, whatever you do.”

“I refuse to accept it,” she said.

“But women are under suspicion,” Blake began. “The great artists, the great musicians, even the great cooks, are men, and—”

“Now, Blake, please—that old, old stuff!” she cried. “From you, of all men!”

“It’s difficult for me to take women seriously, perhaps,” he said and smiled a little self-consciously.

She was so angry at him, so angry at herself for anger in so silly and so old a discussion, that she would not speak to him. She ate rapidly and little, and then rose. “I think I’ll just go down and see how things are opening this morning,” she said.

“I’ll be along soon,” he replied.

It was impossible to believe that last night had ever been. And yet it had been, and was still, and she must lay hold of it again. She went over to Blake and passed her hand over his smooth cheek. He did not move to her, but she bent and kissed him and went away.

Joseph Hart was talking to her, pushing his pince-nez on his high old Roman nose, a broad black ribbon fluttering against his cheek. “A shade more and they might have been modern,” he was saying. “If our conceited young artists only knew it, the difference between the extreme classic and the extreme modern is very slight, but very important. As it is, you’ve somehow struck a tempo of your own. Very original stuff—a bit too massive, perhaps. But you’ll fine down as you grow.”

Old Mr. Kinnaird had come in again today. He had been in yesterday and gone away again without a word. Now he was sitting on a bench gazing palely at the figures. People were coming in, and since Joseph Hart had singled her out with his talk, they were staring at her. And then she saw Blake. He came in, spoke to his father, and came to her side. She smiled at him faintly and did not speak. Joseph Hart was lecturing as he spoke to her, and a few people gathered near to listen, and he was aware of them and continued a little more pontifically.

“It is not, however, enough to be merely original. Almost anyone can be original. The insane mind, the childish mind, these are original, too. But they convey nothing by their expression. The test of any work of art is what it conveys. If nothing is conveyed, there is no worth in it.”

Blake spoke. “Something perhaps depends on the mind of the person who receives the communication. It may be he is able to receive only what is simple and obvious. Art can scarcely be judged entirely by the receiving mind.”

“The two do not go together,” Joseph Hart said. “I should call these statues simple in a certain massive fashion, but not obvious.”

Blake looked at him furiously. “They are a little obvious,” he said savagely, “to the sophisticated mind, at least.”

Then this was what Blake thought! In his anger—yes, in his jealousy, he had spoken to Joseph Hart what he had kept hidden from her. For she knew nothing could make him so angry as this except jealousy of his work. She had seen him jealous of many others. If he felt this toward her, nothing could heal the wound between them. For she knew in Blake, too, there was that which was deeper than love. He was never really savage unless that in him was pricked and injured. And this she had done unwittingly, because what she had made pleased a wealthy, willful, aesthetic old man who had too much influence. For this Blake would not forgive her.

She looked about the gallery desolately. It was becoming more crowded as the day went on. That was because of what David Barnes had said. But people were staying, talking earnestly, grouped about one figure and another.

… What use was it if Blake would not forgive her? For this moment that woman who had been Blake’s beloved cried out, “What use is it?”

And Susan answered, “You’re not everything, you know. You’re only part. Besides, there’s a right and wrong to it. If my work’s good, Blake is wrong. There’s justice, too, to be thought of beyond you.”

She slipped away and went and sat by old Mr. Kinnaird. She would not be hurt by what Blake had said. He had a right to say what he thought. But she knew he had said it not to Joseph Hart, but to her. Now he had said it and he could never draw the words back. They were still arguing. Blake was standing very straight, his back to her. Joseph Hart was gesturing, the broad black ribbon waving with his hand. Mr. Kinnaird’s gentle pallid voice was at her ear.

“I keep coming back to see your things, my dear,” he said. “They grow on me.”

“I am glad,” she said. She saw Joseph Hart give Blake a stiff bow and turn away from him. She waited for Blake to come to her, but he did not. He walked to the end of the gallery and stood for a moment by the door, and then went out.

“I can’t quite place you,” Mr. Kinnaird was saying. “It troubles me. I don’t recognize the technique. Blake now, I can place. He is definitely modern. But you are not. Nor are you classic, nor can I see any trace of the French in your art. Just what, my dear, had you in mind?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. I don’t place myself. I work as I breathe—unconsciously. I feel, from moment to moment.”

“Ah,” he said gently, “that is perhaps because you are a woman.”

“Perhaps,” she said, and did not care. She was not listening.

“You are wanted at the telephone, Miss Gaylord,” somebody said. The day was nearly over. She did not want to go home and she had stayed, waiting until she could think of seeing Blake. When she went to the telephone Crowne’s voice said, “Madame, there is a telegram for you. Shall I read it?”

“Please,” she said, wondering, and he read slowly, “‘Dad very ill. Come at once. Mother.’ Is there a reply, Madame?”

“Yes,” she said. “Telegraph to the same address, ‘Coming at once. Susan.’ And tell Jane to pack my bag and hers, and telegraph my sister at Palm Beach at the Hotel Regina—Mrs. Bennyfield Rhodes, you know.”

“Very well, Madame.”

“Is Mr. Kinnaird there?” she asked.

“No, Madame,” he said.

She hung up the receiver. People were coming in now more thickly than ever. She saw a thin dark man with an ill-tempered face making rapid notes on a small pad as he stood before each figure. Old Mr. Kinnaird had come back again and was staring painfully at the statue of a boy from Italy. He had forgotten her, and she went away without speaking to him.

Less than an hour later, leaving Blake’s house, she wrote a note to him.

“My dearest, Dad is ill and I am hurrying straight away, not knowing where to find you.”—She had told Crowne to call his club, but he was not there.—“I go away remembering last night. Come to me if you can. I may be needing you badly. I don’t know what is ahead. I am your Susanne.”

She folded it and sealed it and gave it to Crowne. “Give it to Mr. Kinnaird the moment he comes in,” she said.