Part 11

"I've always been thinking too much about it, you see." His voice was curiously gentle. "All my life, as you might say, I've always been telling myself what a wonderful day it was going to be to-morrow. But to-morrow never comes, you see. And you keep on thinking, thinking, until you suddenly find that to-morrow was yesterday. That's how it was with me. And if I hadn't had the guts to join up just when I did, my belief is I should never have lived at all. Understand me?"

She shook a placid head at him, not understanding him in the least. But this was the mood in which he had first captured her, in which he had first impressed her with his intellectual quality, for which, as a raw girl, who knew nothing about anything, she had had a sort of reverence. But as she had come to see, it was this very power of mind, which she had told herself was not shared by other, more common men, that had been his undoing, that had brought them both to the verge of ruin. It was fine and all that, but it didn't mean anything. It was just a kink in the machine which prevented it from working properly.

The tears sprang to her eyes as she listened to him, and her youth and his came back to her, but she turned her face to the river so that he could not see it. Still it was not all pain to hear him talking. It was the old, old way that she had loved once and had since despised, but now lying there in the shade of those old trees, with the music of the Weir and the glory of the earth and the sky all about her, she loved again. Strange that it should be so! But the sad voice at her elbow blended marvelously with all the things she could see and hear. And what it said was quite true. By some miracle both were living now more fully than ever before.

"I'll always have one regret, Mother." His voice had grown as deep as the water itself. But it broke off in the middle suddenly.

A feeling came upon her that she ought to say something. "Don't let us have no regrets, Bill." Those were the words she wanted to utter. "I'll not have none." But they were not for her to speak. At that moment she was not able to say anything. She waited tensely for him to go on talking.

In the odd way he had, which was a part of his peculiar faculty, he seemed to feel what was passing in her mind. "I'm not thinking of what might have been. That's no good. The time's gone by. I'm thinking of my friend, Stanning, R.A. You see we'd arranged that if we ever had the chance we'd come here for a day's fishing. We had a bit one day when we were up in the Line--in that canal--the Yser, I think they call it. And he said, 'Auntie, I may be able to tell you a thing or two about drawing, but when it comes to this game the boot's on the other leg.' 'Yes,' I said, 'that's because I've put my heart into it while you've put your heart into something better.' 'Well, I don't know about that,' he said--he was the broadest-minded, the best read, the wisest chap I ever talked to--'nothing is but thinking makes it so, as Hamlet, that old crackpot used to say. Whatever you happen to be doing, Auntie, the only thing that matters is whether your heart is in it.' 'Yes,' I said, 'I daresay you are right there. But it's one thing to catch barbel. It's another to paint Corfield Weir.'"

To Melia this seemed like philosophy. And she had no head for philosophy, although inclined to be a little proud that Bill should be able to swim in these deep waters in such distinguished company. But one thing aroused her curiosity. Why was this man of hers called Auntie?

Bill laughed good humoredly when, a little scandalized, she came to put the question. "They all call me that in C company." His frankness was remarkable.

"But why?"

"They say I was born an old woman."

Melia thought it was like their impertinence and did not hesitate to say so.

"Ah, you don't know the Chaps," Bill laughed heartily. "The Chaps is a rum crowd. They call you anything."

"But to your face?" Melia couldn't help resenting it and spoke with dignity. "You oughtn't to let them, Bill."

"Why not?"

"You're a Corporal."

"Well, Stanning was a sergeant, you see. And nobody means nothing by it. It's a way they have in the army of being friendly and pleasant. And I daresay it suits me. My fingers is all thumbs as you might say. Fishing and a bit o' gardening are the only things I'm good for, although Stanning told me that in time, if I stuck it, I might be able to draw. And that was a lot for him to say."

Melia thought that it must be.

"I often wonder,"--the eyes of the Corporal were fixed on the Sharrow--"what made Stanning take up with a chap like me. There was lots of 'em in C company with far more education, but he told me once that I was the same kind of fool that he was and I said that I wished it was so. I suppose he meant that I liked to talk about this old river and the lights on it and the look of it at different times of the year. He knew every yard of the Sharrow between here and Dibley and so did I, but he could see things that I couldn't, and he could remember 'em and he'd a wonderful eye for nature. He wasn't the least bit of a soldier, no more than myself, but he made a first-rate job of it--he was the kind of chap who would make a first-rate job of anything. Our C.O. wanted him to apply for a commission, but he said he couldn't face the responsibility. That was queer, wasn't it, in a man of that sort?--for he was a man, I give you my word." The Corporal plucked another spear of grass and began to chew it pensively. "He had a cottage up at Dibley, that largish white one on the left, standing back from the road, you know the one I mean--the one with the iron gate, and that funny sort of a tower at the end of the garden."

Melia said she did know, although she had half forgotten it, but she hadn't been to Dibley since they were first married, and that was a long time ago.

"It belonged to Torrington the artist. He lived and died there. Stanning said he was the greatest painter of landscape that ever lived, but nobody knew it while he was alive and he died in poverty. Not that it mattered. Stanning said that money doesn't matter to an artist, but he said that many an artist had been ruined by making it too easy."

This dictum of Stanning's sounded odd in the ear of Melia. No one could be ruined by making money too easily, but she had not the heart to contradict his disciple who was still chewing grass and looking up at the sky.

"See what I mean, Mother?"

"Makes them take to drink and gambling, I suppose." After all, there was that solution.

"Stanning meant that if an artist gets money too easy it'll take the edge off his work. He was always afraid that was what was going to happen to himself. In 1913 he made six thousand pounds--think on it, Mother, six thousand pounds in one year painting pictures! He said that was the writing on the wall for him; he said it was as much as Torrington made in all his life and he lived beyond eighty. 'And I'm not fit to tie Torrington's shoelace, Auntie.' I laughed at that, of course, but he was not a man to want butter. 'I mean it, my dear.' If he liked you he had a way of calling you 'my dear,' like one girl does to another. 'Torrington was the only man that ever lived who could handle sunlight. That's the test for a painter. If I touch sunlight I burn holes in the canvas.' Of course, I laughed, but Stanning was a very humble chap when he talked about his own paintings."

Suddenly the Corporal realized that he had let his tongue run away with him, as it did sometimes. Melia was getting drowsy. He got up, therefore, and stretched his legs on the soft turf and then he said, "Let us go across to the Corfield Arms and see if we can get a cup of tea. And then if you feel up to it we'll walk through the Glade as far as Dibley and look at the house that Torrington lived in."

XXX

They went across to the Corfield Arms. It was an old, romantic looking inn, spoiled a little in these later days by contiguity to a great hive of commerce. But there were occasions, even now, when it retained something of the halo of ancient peace it was wont to bear; and the afternoon being Friday was an off day for visitors. When Bill and Melia passed through the bowling green at the back of the house to the arbor where last they had sat in the days of their courtship they found it empty.

In the garden by the arbor an old man was plucking raspberries. He turned out to be the landlord, and to the secret gratification of Melia he addressed Bill as "sir," out of deference to his uniform. Upon receiving the Corporal's commands he called loudly for "Polly."

In two shakes of a duck's tail Polly appeared: a blithe beauty in a clean lilac print dress, a little shrunk in the wash, which showed to advantage the lovely lines of her shape and the slender stem of a brown but classic neck in which a nest of red-gold hair hung loose. The Corporal ordered a royal repast for two persons; a pot of tea, boiled eggs, bread and butter, cake, and a little of the honey for which the house used to be famous.

While they waited for the tea, the Corporal gave the old chap a hand with the raspberries. "Happen you remember Torrington, the artist who lived up at Dibley?"

"Aye." The old man remembered him without difficulty. "Knew him well when I was young. Soft Jack we used to call him; an old man and just a bit touched like as I remember him. Long beard he had and blue eyes--wonderful blue eyes had that old feller. Out painting in the open all day long, in all weathers. I used to stand for hours and watch him. He'd paint a bit, and then he'd paint it out, and then he'd paint it in again. 'Course he was clever, you know, in a manner of speaking. Nobody thought much of him then, but in these days, if you'll believe me, I've known people come specially from London to ask about him."

The Corporal turned to Melia with an air of discreet triumph. But Melia was so drowsy that she said she would go into the arbor until the tea came. She was encouraged to do so while the landlord went on, "I was a bit of a favorite with old Soft Jack. Many's the boy I've lammoxed for throwing stones at his easel. Of course, at the time I speak of, the old chap had got a bit tottery; he lived to be tight on ninety. But as I say nobody thought much of him, yet if you'll believe me it's only last year, or the year before last--I'm getting on myself--that a college gentleman came down here to write a book about him. A very nice civil-spoken gentleman; but fancy writing a book about old Soft Jack!"

"Ever buy any of his pictures?"

"My father did. Gave as much as five pounds for one, more out of charity than anything, I've heard him say, but if you'll believe me when the old boy was dead my father sold that picture for twenty pounds, and they tell me--I've not seen it myself--that that picture is now in our Art Gallery, and the college gentleman I'm speaking of--I forget his name--says folk come from all parts of the world to look at it."

"Happen there was the sun in it," said the Corporal.

"Very like. Most of his pictures had the sun in 'em, what I remember. You know they do say that that old chap could look at the sun with the naked eye. And such an eye as it was--like an eagle's, even when he was old and past it."

"Got any of his pictures now?"

"Can't say I have. My father had one or two odd bits, but he sold 'em or gave 'em away. No good having a picture, I've heard the dad say, unless you've a frame to put it in. And frames was dear in those days. If you'll believe me, the frame often cost more than the picture."

"Pity you haven't one or two by you now. They do say all Torrington's pictures are worth a sight o' money."

"Shouldn't wonder. Money's more plentiful now than it used to be. My father was 'mazed when he got twenty pounds for the one he sold, and he heard afterwards it fetched as high as fifty. But I'm speaking, of course, of when the old man was dead. That reminds me, the old chap, being very hard up, painted our signboard. It wants a fresh coat now, but it's wonderful how it's lasted."

The Corporal, in his devotion to art, ceased to pick raspberries, and accompanied by his host, went to look at the expression of Soft Jack's genius upon the ancient front of the Corfield Arms. As they crossed the bowling green they came upon the smiling and gracious Polly, who bore a tea tray heavily laden.

"Lady's in the summerhouse." The gallant Corporal returned smile for smile. "Tell her to pour out the tea and I'll be along in a jiffy."

The signboard, after all, was not much to look at. The arms of the Corfields consisted in the main of a rampant unicorn, reft by the weather of a good deal of paint. But even here, by some miracle, the sunlight was shining on the noble horns of the fabulous animal, but whether the phenomenon was due to purely natural causes on this glorious afternoon of July, or whether the great artist was personally responsible for it was more than Corporal Hollis was able to say. It needed the trained eye of a Stanning, R.A., or of a young Nixey, the architect, to determine the point, but in the right-hand corner of the signboard beyond a doubt, as the landlord was able to indicate with an air of pride, was Soft Jack's monogram, J. T.

Somehow the monogram saved the signboard itself from being a washout as a work of art, and the Corporal felt grateful for it as he returned to the arbor to drink tea with his wife, while the landlord, less of a critic, went back to the raspberries in his prolific garden.

XXXI

After an excellent tea William and Melia went up the road to Dibley. It was two miles on and they took a path of classic beauty, fringed by a grove of elms in which the rooks were cawing, along a carpet of green bracken through which the lovely river wound. Dibley stood high, at the crest of a great clump of woodland, with the Sharrow silver-breasted below surging through a glorious valley.

It was getting on for twenty years since Bill had last handed Melia over the stile at the top of the glade, famous in song and story, and they had debouched arm in arm past the vicarage, along the bridle path, and had threaded their way through a nest of thatched cottages to the village green. The sun had now waned a little and the air had cooled on these shaded heights, the tea had been refreshing, and, for a few golden moments, inexpressibly sweet yet tragically fleeting, the courage of youth came back to them. Just beyond the parson's gate the Corporal stopped suddenly, took Melia in his arms and kissed her.

It was a sloppy thing to do, unworthy of old married people, but the guilt of the act was upon them, though neither knew exactly why it should have come about. They crossed the paddock and went on through the romantic village, so sweetly familiar in its changelessness. It seemed but yesterday since they walked through it last.

"I've wondered sometimes," whispered the Corporal at the edge of the green, "what made you marry me?"

"I believed in you, Bill; I always believed in you." It was a great answer, yet somehow it was unexpected. In his heart he knew he was not worthy of it and that seemed to make it greater still.

Facing the duck pond, at the far end of the green, was the white cottage in which Torrington the artist had lived and died. It had changed a bit since his time. Things had been added by his more opulent successor. There were an iron gate, a considerable garden and a tall tower with a glass roof which nobly commanded the steep wooded slopes of the valley of the Sharrow.

With the new eyes a great painter had given him Bill saw at once that this was a rare pitch for an artist. It was one of the most beautiful spots in the land. The immense city of Blackhampton with its thousands of chimneys and its roaring factories might have been a hundred miles off instead of a bare four miles down the valley. There was not a glimpse or a sound of it here in this peace-haunted woodland, in this enchantment of stream and hill, bathed in a pomp of golden cloud and magic beauty.

The simple cottage had been modernized and amplified, but with rare tact and cunning, so that it was still "all of a piece," much as Torrington had left. But the house itself was empty, with green shutters across the windows. On the gate was a padlock, the reason for which was given in a printed bill stuck on a board that had been raised beside it.

By order of the executors of the late James Stanning, Esqre., A.R.A., to be sold by auction the valuable and historical property known as Torrington Cottage Dibley, together with the following furniture and effects.

A list followed of the furniture and effects, but across the face of the bill was pasted a diagonal red-lettered slip,

This property has been sold by private treaty.

The Corporal tried to open the gate but found the padlock unyielding, and then he gazed at the notice wistfully.

"Wonder who's bought it," he said.

Melia wondered too.

"Hope it's an artist," said the Corporal.

"So do I. But I expect it isn't. Artists is scarce."

"You're right, there." The Corporal sighed heavily. "Artists is scarce." There was a strange look in his eyes and he turned them suddenly upon the duck pond so that Melia shouldn't notice it.

Across the road, beside the duck pond, was a wooden bench, sacred to the village elders, none of whom, however, was in occupation at this moment. The Corporal pointed to it. "Let's go an' set there a minute," he said in a husky voice. As if she had been a child he took her by the hand and led her to it.

They sat down and in a moment or two it was as if the spirit of the place had descended upon them. The magic hush of evening crept into their blood like a subtle wine. A strange soft rapture seemed to pervade the air. The Unseen spoke to them as never before.

The Corporal took off his hat and wiped the dew from his forehead. And then with a queer tightening of the throat and breast he scanned earth and sky. They seemed marvelous indeed. He felt them speak to him, to the infinite, submerged senses whose presence he had hardly suspected. Never had he experienced such awe as now in the presence of this peace that passed all understanding.

In a little while the silence of the Corporal began to trouble Melia. A cold hand crept into his. "What is it, love?" she said softly.

Not daring to look at her, he kept his eyes fixed on the sky.

"What is it, love--tell me?" He hardly knew the voice for hers; not until that moment had he heard her use it; but it had the power to ease just a little the intolerable pressure of his thoughts.

"I was wondering," he said slowly, at last, "whether it would not have been better never to have been born."

She shivered, not at his words, but at the gray look on his face.

"Stanning said the night before he went he thought that taking it altogether it would have been better if there had never been a human race at all. I'll never forget that last talk with him, not if I live to be a hundred--which I shall not." The Corporal had begun to think his thoughts aloud. "You see, he knew then that his number was up. I can see him settin' there, Mother, just as you are now, lookin' at that old sunset, his back to that old canal--the Yser, I think they call it--an' stinkin' it was, fair cruel. 'Auntie,' he said suddenlike, 'tell me what brought you into this?' I said, 'No, boy'--just like a child he was as he set there--'it's for me to ask _you_ that question. You're a big gun, you know, a shining light; I'm a never-was-er.' That seemed to make him laugh; he was one that could always raise a laugh, even when he felt most solemn. 'I come of a long stock of high-nosed old Methodists,' he said. 'Always made a thing they call Conscience their watchword and fetish. There was a Stanning went to the stake for it in the time of Bloody Mary; there was another helped Oliver Cromwell to cut the head off King Charles. A poisonous, uncomfortable crowd, and all my life they've seemed to come back and worry me just at the times I should have been most pleased to do without them. People talk about free will--but there isn't such a thing, my dear.'

"I allowed that there wasn't in my case. Then I told him about Troop Sergeant Major Hollis, who fought at Waterloo. 'Yes,' he said, 'yours is an old name in the city, older than mine, I dare say.' 'Well,' I said, 'according to Bazeley's Annals there was a William Hollis who was mayor of the borough in the year of the Spanish Armada.' 'Good for you, Auntie,' he said, chaffing-like; he was a rare one for chaff. 'One up to you. Then,' he said, 'there was William Hollis who was "some" poet in the eighteenth century, who wrote the famous romantic poem, "The Love Lorn Lady of Corfield." Still,' he said, 'these things don't explain you dragging your old bones to rot out here.' 'They do in a way, though,' I said. 'When we come up against a big thing it isn't us that really matters, it's what's at the back of us. I used to set in my old garden on The Rise,' I said, 'in those early days when those dirty dogs opposite was just beginning to wipe their feet on Europe. And I said to myself, Bill Hollis, how would _you_ like it if they broke through the fence into your garden, trampling your young seeds and goose-stepping all over your roses and your tulips. And I tell you, Jim--we got to be very familiar those last few weeks--it used to make me fair mad to read in the _Tribune_ what they'd done ... Louvain one time ... Termondy another ... et cetera.... And I kept on settin' there day after day, in my old garden on the top o' The Rise, saying to myself, Hollis, it's no use, me lad, you're going into this. You've failed in every bloody thing so far, and if you take on this you'll not be man enough to stick it out. War isn't thinking, it's doing, and you've never been a doer, you've not. Then I read in the _Tribune_ one morning that they'd got Antwerp and I said to myself, I can't stand this no more. And I went right away to the Duke of Wellington and had a liquor up--but only a mild one, you know--and then round the corner to the Recruiting Office and gave my age as thirty-six and here I am admiring this bleeding sunset with the eye of an artist.'

"That made him laugh some more. 'Well, Auntie,' he said, 'I'm very proud to have known you and I hope you'll do me the honor of accepting this as a keepsake.' He unbuttoned his greatcoat and took this old watch out of his tunic."

The Corporal paused an instant in his story to follow the example of his friend. He produced an old-fashioned gold hunting watch, with J. T. in monogram at the back, and handed it to Melia.

"It's a rare good one, Mother," the Corporal's voice was very low, "solid gold." He opened the lid and showed her the inscription:

To John Torrington, Esquire, from a Humble Admirer of His Genius, 1859.