That threat did not much alarm Craddock. He felt as convinced, as he felt with regard to the rising of the sun, that the young man could not keep off it. But there was the very scorpion of a sting in the sentence immediately preceding, in which he was reminded of his own rejection of the play. His wits must have been wandering that night; his flair for anticipating public taste had never betrayed him with so desperate a lapse of perception. And somehow it gave him unease to think that an assured enemy of his, sharper than a serpent's tooth, should have thus leaped into affluence as well as prominence. Nor did he like this growing friendship between Charles and the other – he did not like any of the letter, nor any of the press notices. His evening was completely spoiled and Mr. Wroughton beat him at bézique. But next morning, with that power which was not the least of his gifts, he switched his mind off these disturbances and fixed himself heart and soul on that which lay before him here and now.
Thus passed for them at Luxor a complete moon, which among other celestial offices had magically illumined for them an hour of night among the ruins of Karnak. Then, too, they had gone about, and there up till then had come the hardest struggle in restraint for him. All the spell of the starry-kirtled night was woven round them while the huge monoliths and spent glory of the columned hall reminded him, urgently, insistently, how short life was, how soon for the generations of men nothing but the hard granite of their work remains, no joy, no rapture any more, for eyes are closed and mouths dumb, and the soft swift limbs laid to rest, where at the most they can but feel the grasses that wave over their graves, or, more horribly, injected and wrapped in cero-cloth and bitumen to be preserved as a parody and mocking of what they once were. And this – these few years – was his time, his innings before the silence that preceded closed in on him again. All he wanted stood in front of him now, as Joyce leaned on a fragment of wall white and tall in the moonlight, and let her great eyes wander over the outlined columns, with young fresh mouth a little parted, and hand almost resting on his.
"Yes, it is all later than – " he heard his voice saying, and suddenly he stopped, feeling that to talk here and now and to her of Egyptian kings was a mere profanity, in this temple which his love had built, so much holier than all that had ever been made with hands.
But at his sudden cessation, he saw Joyce withdraw herself a little, instinctively on guard. Bitterly he saw that.
"It is all so woundingly sad," he said, "this eternal glorious moon and sky, looking down on to what in so few years is but ruin and decay. And yet they thought that their houses would endure for ever – "
Joyce instantly recovered her confidence, and flowed to meet him on this.
"Oh, yes, oh yes," she said, "all this month that has been haunting me. I think I hate the moon to-night. It is like some dreadful imperishable governess, always presiding and watching us poor children."
That broke the tension.
"Oh, Mistress Moon," said Craddock laughing. "But she is a governess of remarkable personal attractions…"
Then the last day of their sojourn came. Joyce, immensely reassured by her own mistaken conviction that he was going to speak that night at Karnak, and slightly ashamed of herself, had nothing left of the trouble she had anticipated at Cairo, and with regard to retrospect, that which had also been a conviction to her, though not absolutely vanished, was as remote as the imperishable governess. That day the two companions had settled to spend not in detailed study, for indeed they had gathered a most creditable crop, nor even in farewell visits to shrines, but in a general out-door survey and assimilation of river and temple and desert and sky, a long exposed photograph, so to speak, of panorama to take back to the fogs of a northern February. Soon after breakfast they took ferry over the Nile, and joining their donkeys there, rode straight away from the river, going neither to the right nor left, up the narrow path between fast-rising stretches of lengthening crops, past the two great silent dwellers on the plain, who, looking ever eastward, wait for the ultimate dawn that shall touch mute lips again to song, through the huddled mud-houses of Gûrnak, and up and beyond and out till the level green was left below them, and they met the sand-dried untainted air of the desert. Here on the brow of the sandstone cliffs they dismounted, while Josef bestowed their lunch in a cool shadow of a rock in this thirsty land.
Joyce sat down on this bluff.
"We can't dispose of the flesh-pots of Egypt yet," she said, nodding at the provision basket. "May we sit here a little, Mr. Craddock, and will you let me say my eighteenth dynasty catechism, and then – "
Joyce turned to him.
"We must plan out this day so carefully," she said, "as it is the last. I want to sit here quite silent for about half-an-hour, and if it isn't rude, out of sight of you, and everybody, and just look, look, get all that – the river, the crops, the sky, the temples, right deep down. Then let us have lunch, and then let us go a long ride out into the desert, where there isn't anybody or anything. And then, oh, oh, we shall have to go back, and the last day will be over. I promised father to go and call on the chaplain after tea with him. Chaplain! He's a dear man, but think – chaplain on the last day!"
Joyce's desired menu of the mind was served to her. She said her eighteenth dynasty kings, and then strolled along the edge, of the cliffs till she was out of sight and sound of donkey and donkey-boy and Craddock. The magic of the land indeed had made its spell for her, and now she wanted just to look, to absorb, to be wrapped in it. Then, just because she had planned this her mind grew restive and fidgetty… She had determined on her own account to speak a grateful word to Mr. Craddock to-day for all he had done for her, and she felt she must thank him too for his unremitting attention to her father. He, she felt sure, would not do so, and Joyce felt that the family must discharge that indebtedness. It seemed a simple task enough to perform, but she could not in imagination frame a suitable sentence, either about that or her own debt to him, and insensibly beginning to worry about it, she lost the mood that she had come here to capture. Craddock and her imminent acknowledgment to him "drave between her and the sun" and her half hour alone proved a not very satisfactory item.
She went back to him at the end of it, and found that he had already spread their lunch.
"And you have had a 'heart-to-heart' talk with Egypt?" he asked. "I thought I heard sobs."
Joyce laughed.
"They were sobs of rage then," she said. "My plan broke down. I could think of everything under the sun except Egypt. Just because I meant to gaze and meditate, I could not meditate at all. But I am so hungry; that is something. How good of you to have made ready!"
Hard-boiled eggs and sandwiches, however hungry the attack, do not need much time for their due disposition, and in a quarter of an hour Craddock had lit a cigarette, preparatory for their ride into the desert. And this seemed to Joyce a very suitable moment for the dischargal of her thanks and compliments.
"I've had a burden on my mind so long, Mr. Craddock," she said, "and that is to let you know just in so many words how I appreciate all that you have done for us. Your presence has made the whole difference to my father – "
She had begun to speak, not looking at him, but at the hot sand at her feet. But here a sudden movement of his, a shifting of his place so that he sat just a little nearer her, made her look up. At the same moment she saw that he flung away the cigarette he had only just lit. Then she looked at his face, and saw that his mouth was a little open, and that his breath came quickly. And she knew the moment she had feared a month ago, but had allowed herself to think of as averted, hovered close to her.
"And has my presence made any difference to you?" he asked.
Joyce knew the futility of fencing, as everybody does who knows a crisis is inevitable. But until the end of the world everybody will continue to fence.
"Of course it has," she said. "I was just going to speak of that and thank you for it all."
He drew himself quite close to her.
"There is just one way, and no more in which you can thank me," he said, "and it is by letting me offer for your acceptance all my services and all my devotion."
The fire, the authentic primal need was there, and though she shrank from it, though instinctively she hated it, she could refuse it neither with respect nor sympathy. She could not interrupt him, either: what he had to say must come: it was his bare right to speak.
He took up her hand, and clasped it with both of his, enclosing it, as it were, in a damp dark cavern. At that, without being able to help it, she drew back a little.
"O stop: don't," she said.
He seemed not to hear.
"I offer you much more than I knew was mine to offer last June," he said. "You were so right, Joyce, to refuse me. But it is so different now. You have woke in me, or created in me, a power for love which I did not know was mine. Surely you know that. You created it: it is yours. Take it, for what you made is me."
He paused a moment; then seemed suddenly to realize that he had said all that could be said… A little wind drove upwards from the plain below, fluttering the papers which had held their sandwiches. Joyce hated herself for noticing that. Then she tried to withdraw her hand.
"Oh I am so sorry, so sorry," she said. "It is quite impossible, more impossible than ever. I mean – I don't know what I mean. But I can't."
She knew very well what she meant when she said "more impossible than ever." And mixed with her regret which was wholly genuine, was a sort of nausea of her soul… Once more she felt she knew who had spoken to her father of Charles. The motive, too, was as clear as the sunshine. She loathed this continued contact. But it only lasted a second more. The tone of her reply would have carried conviction to the most ardent of lovers. He dropped her hand.
"I have done," he said.
He got up, and walked a few paces away, and stood there with his back to her. A quantity of disconnected pictures went through the blank impassivity of his mind. He remembered the look of the green packet of tickets for their passage down the Nile to-morrow, which he had seen on his table before he went out this morning. He heard Philip's voice say, "Take care of my little Joyce!" He felt himself licking the envelope which contained Mr. Ward's cheque for five thousand pounds. He had the vision of another cheque for ten thousand and one hundred pounds. He saw the sketch of Joyce that had stood beneath the lamp in her room on the evening the chimneys smoked at the Mill House. He heard himself console Charles for the "queer note" Philip Wroughton had written him. Collectively, these presented their whole case, his whole connection with the Wroughtons, succinctly and completely. And the curtain fell on them.
He went back to Joyce, who was sitting by the side of the fluttering paper with her head in her hands.
"What would you like to do?" he said. "Shall we take our ride into the desert or go home?"
Joyce got up.
"Oh, let us go home," she said. "Please call Mohammed. And do realize I am sorry, I am very sorry."
But there was nothing in him now that could respond to or help the girl's evident distress. It seemed that the wonderful flower that grew out of him had been plucked… Only the soil out of which it grew remained, and that was exactly what it had always been.
That night when Lady Crowborough went up to bed, she was not surprised to hear Joyce's tap on her door a moment afterwards. She had felt the constraint that had hung over dinner like a thunder-cloud, though Philip, flushed with victory at the ideal disposition in the packing of his underclothing which had occurred to him as he dozed or slept, – he thought "slept," – before dinner, had been unconscious of all else.
"Come in, my dear," she said, "and tell me all that's happened."
"Oh, Granny, he has proposed again," said Joyce.
"Lor', my dear, do you think I didn't guess that? And you needn't trouble to tell me that you refused him. Well, Joyce, I can't say I'm sorry, though I suppose he's rich and agreeable enough, for I never could stand stout white men myself. Give me one of my cigarettes, dear, and sit down and have a talk. There's nothing I enjoy more than a cigarette and a talk about love just before going to bed. Gives such pleasant dreams."
Joyce could not help giggling. But she knew well the golden heart that beat behind these surprising flippancies.
"But I'm sorry, Granny," she said, "but – but I'm afraid I'm not sorry enough."
"No, my dear," said this astute old lady, "if you were sorry enough you'd say 'yes' instead of 'no.' Let me see, this is the second go, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, then I hope this time that you made it plain. The man whom you don't mean to have gets tedious if he goes on. I used to tell them so."
Joyce had come here to do much more than merely announce the event to her grandmother. There was so much more she wanted to say, but she felt it would be easier if it came out in answer to questions. Probably Grannie was wise enough to ask the right questions…
"I think I made it plain," she said. "I said it was quite impossible: more impossible than ever."
Lady Crowborough in the dusk allowed herself to beam all over her face.
"And what did you mean by that, my dear?" she said. "To me it sounds as if there was nobody else last June, but somebody else now."
"Oh, Grannie, it means just that," said Joyce in a whisper.
"And was it any of my flirts in Cairo?" asked Lady Crowborough, who liked a little joking even when her heart was most entirely tender and sympathetic. Quite truly, she believed it "helped things out" to grin over them.
Joyce grinned.
"No, not in Cairo," she said.
"Then it was that flirt of mine down at the Mill House, who's going to paint my picture," she exclaimed. "Don't deny it, my dear. A nice boy, too, though he ain't got a penny. However, we'll talk about the pennies afterwards. Now do you think he fancies you at all? Don't be so silly, Joyce, hiding your face like that."
"Yes, Grannie, I think he does. I can't be sure, you know I – I haven't had any experience."
"Lor', my dear, what do you want with experience over that sort o' thing?" asked Lady Crowborough. "And if you're too modest to say, I'll say it for you. He does like you and you know it. I saw him, the wretch, looking at you in the right way. So I don't understand what all the fuss is about. You like him, and he likes you. Eh?"
The cleverest of grandmothers could not guess the further confidence that Joyce wanted to make. She had to open it herself.
"But – but there's a difficulty, Grannie," she said. "Somebody has told father that he's not – not nice, that he isn't the sort of person he would like me to know. Father wouldn't let him come down to see his copy of the Reynolds while we were there because of that. And I feel sure I know who it is who told him that, and why he said it."
"That Craddock?" asked Lady Crowborough quickly.
"Yes: and I can't believe it is true. I don't believe it. Oh, Grannie, dear, what a comfort you are."
Lady Crowborough's shrewd little face entirely ceased to beam.
"And I don't believe it either, my dear," she said. "He seemed as decent a young fellow as I ever saw. But you can leave that to me. I'll find out, if it was your Craddock who said it first of all. It's only your suspicion as yet, Joyce, and whatever you do, my dear, don't you go through life suspecting anybody, and then not doing him the justice to find out if you're right. And then after that we must find out if there's any truth in it, and what the truth is."
"Oh, but will you, can you?" asked Joyce.
"Yes, my dear, unless I die in the night, which God forbid. I'll Craddock him! And here am I doing just the same as you, and treating your suspicions as true before I know. Lor, but it does seem likely, don't it? And now about what has happened to-day? Are you going to tell your father or is he?"
"Mr. Craddock thought we had better say nothing about it at present," said Joyce. "I expect he is quite right. He said he thought father would be very much upset. That was as we rode back. Oh, Grannie, fancy saying that! I think he meant it as a sort of final appeal. Or perhaps he meant it quite nicely. I'm sure Father wanted me to marry him. But that didn't seem a good enough reason."
Lady Crowborough began to beam again.
"Not with your Mr. Lathom waiting for you," she said. "Well, now, my dear, you must let me go to bed. I'm glad you told me all about it, and I can tell you now I should have thought very poorly of you if you had accepted this Mr. Craddock. Did he kiss you, my dear?"
Joyce again felt an inward bubble of laughter.
"No, thank goodness," she said.
"That's a good thing. You wait till you get back to town. There's somebody there – bless me, how I keep getting ahead. Now send me my maid, Joyce, and don't give way, my dear. And when I say my prayers I'm not sure I shan't give thanks that you ain't going to be Mrs. Craddock. I don't like the man and I don't like the name, and that's sufficient."
In spite of this distaste, Lady Crowborough did Craddock the justice to admit that he behaved very well next day. His invaluable gift for "switching off" stood him in good stead, his manner was perfectly normal again, and sitting on the deck of the northward going steamer after lunch he talked to her about the Exhibition of old Masters at Burlington House, which was now open.
"There are a dozen fine Reynolds there," he said, "but none finer, I think, than the one that used to be at the Mill House."
Lady Crowborough affected a very skilful carelessness.
"But what prices for a bit of canvas and a daub of paint," she said. "I can't see a bit of difference between it and the copy. That was a nice young fellow who did it too. I was sorry that you had to give so bad a report of him to my son."
Craddock hardly paused. He assumed that Philip had said something to his mother about it, and though he would not have chosen that his name should have been mentioned as informant, he felt it was useless to deny it. Nor did he wish to: jealousy, impotent and bitter, took hold of him.
"Yes, a loose young fellow, I am afraid," he said. "But I am doing what I can for him, for his gift is perfectly marvellous. Indeed, I should not wonder if he is some day known among the greatest English masters. As I was saying, there are some very fine Reynolds in the Exhibition. I had the pleasure of getting hold of one or two for them. You must see it…"
"Oh, drat the Exhibition," she said.
She explained that a sudden twinge of neuralgia had visited her, and put on several veils.
CHAPTER VIII
One morning towards the end of March Frank Armstrong was sitting in Charles' studio with a writing-pad on the table in front of him, a sucked out pipe upside down between his lips, a corrugated forehead, rumpled hair, and an expression of the wickedest ill-humour on his face. Beside him on the floor a waste-paper basket vomited half sheets of futile manuscript, and other crumpled up and rejected pages strewed the floor. At the far end of the studio Charles was encamped, he and his manuscript on the model's stand, painting, as he had done in the portrait of his mother, from a position above the sitter. It gave an opportunity of subtle foreshadowing which was a holy joy if you could do it right, which he was quite convinced he could. An expression of vivid and absorbed content – absorbed he was by the sight of Frank wrestling with his work, and cursing and swearing at his difficulties – pervaded his face. To him, from the artistic point of view, that angry scowling countenance was a beatific vision. Frank had come earlier than he had expected that morning, bringing his work with him as desired, and Charles, half dressed only in loose shirt and flannel trousers, had hopped on to his seat immediately, for Frank with scarcely a word of greeting had sat down at once to struggle with a troublesome situation. Seated there, with his sheaf of spear-like paint-brushes, and his young and seraphic face, he looked like some modern variation of St. Sebastian. Frank had already remarked this with singular annoyance.
Charles smiled and stared and painted.
"If you could manage to put that pipe out of your mouth for five minutes, Frank," he said tentatively.
"But I couldn't."
"It doesn't matter a bit," said Charles cordially.
Frank instantly took it out, and Charles had to stop painting for a moment, for he was so entertained by the brilliance of his own guilefulness that his hand trembled. But in a moment he got to work again, and began whistling under his breath.
"Oh, do stop that row," said Frank.
The picture had been begun a month ago, and was nearing completion. At present Charles was pleased with it, which is saying a good deal. His mother on the other hand thought Mr. Armstrong was not quite such a bear as that. And Mr. Armstrong had said "You don't know much about bears." Charles' first request to paint him had met with a firm refusal. But very shortly after Frank had said,
"You can do a picture of me if you like, Charles. But on one condition only, that you let me buy it of you in the ordinary way."
This time the refusal came from the artist. But a second attempt on Frank's part met with better success.
"You don't understand about the picture," he said. "I really want it for mercantile reasons. I'll pay you whatever Mrs. Fortescue paid, and I shall think I've made an excellent bargain, just as she does. People are talking about you. You'll get double these prices next year. Then I shall sell my picture and buy some more beer and perhaps give you a tip. I'm as hard as nails about money: don't you think I'm doing you a favour. And as a word of general advice, do get rid of a little of your sickly humility. You're like Uriah Heep. Isn't he Mrs. – Mrs. Heep?"
Mrs. Lathom looked up at him very gravely.
"There is something in what you say, Master Copperfield," she observed.
This morning, after Charles' whistling had been thus peremptorily stopped, the work went on in silence for some quarter-of-an hour. Then Frank gave a great shout.
"I've got it," he said, and began scribbling and reading as he scribbled. "It isn't that you don't believe me, it's that you are able not to believe me. Yes: that's it, and the British public won't understand the least what it means, so we'll put 'Long pause.' And then they will give a great sigh as if they did. Now it's plain sailing."
His face cleared, as the pen began to move more rapidly, and when Charles looked up at him again, the St Sebastian air left him altogether.
"You are perfectly useless if you smile in that inane manner," he said.
"Perfectly useless: perfectly useless," said Frank absently.
But soon his inane smile left him: he was in difficulties again, and Charles greatly prospered.
Frank got up and yawned.
"I'm worked out," he said. "Charles, it's a dog's life. And all the time I'm not doing it for myself: there's the rub. I've been grinding here all morning, and have done a couple of pages: if I sit and grind every day like this for a couple of months perhaps I may get it done. And then I shall go with my hat in my hand, on bended knee to that old fat cross-legged Buddha, who sits there sniffing up the incense of our toil, and say 'Please, Mr. Craddock, will this do? Will you deign to accept this humble token from your worshipper?'"
"I can hear you say it," said Charles, half shutting his eyes to look at his work, and not attending to Frank.
Frank jumped up onto the model stand, putting his hand on Charles' shoulder to steady himself.
"No you can't," said Frank, "because I never shall say it. Charles, I'm sure that's libellously like me. Shall I bring an action against you for it, or shall I merely topple you and the stool over onto the floor?"
"Whichever you please. It is pretty like you, you know."
Charles looked up at him.
"But not when you look like that. Why this unwonted good temper?"
"It will soon pass. I think it's because I've done a good bit of work. Oh, Lord, it will soon pass. All for Craddock, you know. I wish to heaven I could infect you with some of my detestation of him."
Charles frowned.
"Oh, do give up trying," he said. "It's no use arguing about it. Of course he's making the devil of a lot of money out of you, and it's very annoying if you look at that fact alone. But where would you have been if he hadn't put on 'Easter Eggs' for you? Sleeping beneath the church-yard sod as like as not. And I daresay he's going to make something out of me. Well, where would I have been if he hadn't bought that picture of Reggie, and come to look at my things? In the Sidney Street garret still. Instead of which – " and Charles waved a paint brush airily round his studio.
Frank relit his pipe, and began gathering up the débris of his rejected manuscript.
"You oughtn't to be allowed about alone," he said. "You say 'Kind man!' too much. You're like a fat baby that says 'Dada' to everybody in the railway carriage. I tell you people aren't kind men. They want to 'do' you. They want to get the most they can out of you."
"And you out of them," said Charles.
"Within limits. Kind Craddock hasn't got any limits. Besides, I don't humbug people."
"Nor does – "
"Well, he tries to. He tried to humbug me, telling me he took such an interest in me and my work. He didn't: he took an interest in the money he thought he could make out of it. Oh, it isn't only Craddock: it's everybody: it's the way the world's made. I'm not sure women aren't the worst of all. Look at the way they all took me up when 'Easter Eggs' came out. I didn't see why at first. But it's plain enough now. They thought I should make some more successes – just like Craddock, – and then I should take them to the theatre and give them dinner – "
"Oh, bosh," said Charles very loud.
"It's not bosh. The idea that fellows like you have of women is enough to make one ill. You think they are tender, and self-sacrificing, and helpless and trustful and loving. Helpless! Good Lord. An ordinary modern girl is as well able to take care of herself among men as a Dreadnought among fishing smacks. She sidles along just turning her screw and then 'Bang, Bang!' she blows them all out of the water if she doesn't want them, and sucks them in if she does, and lets down a great grappling iron from her deck and hauls them on board. And when they are married they are supposed to be clinging and devoted and absorbed in their husbands and babies. Was there ever such a misconception? Why, supposing you find a block of women on the pavement opposite a shop, you may bet ten thousand to one that that shop is a dress-maker's, or a seller of women's clothes. They stand glued to the glass like flies on fly paper, thinking how sweet they would look in that eight guinea walking dress. And when they have to move away they walk with their heads still looking at the windows, stupefied and fascinated, still gazing at some dreadful white corset trimmed with lace, or open-work stockings. And they aren't thinking how ravished their silly Dick or Harry will be to see them in that new skirt, with the foolish open-work stockings peeping out below it, they are thinking how ravishing they will look when other women see them in it, and how greenly jealous other women will be. If they were thinking of their husbands, they would be imagining how ravishing darling Dick or Harry would look in that cheviot tweed. But not they!"
"Oh, put it all into one of your rotten plays," said Charles.
"Not I, thank you. The Dreadnoughts would blow me out of the water. But I'm saying it to you for your good. You trust people too much, men and women alike. You go smiling and wagging your tail like a puppy, thinking that everybody is going to be kind and tender and unselfish. Especially foolish is your view of women. You've got a sense of chivalry, and a man with a sense of chivalry always gets left. You're just as absurd about men too: you think people are nice to you, because they like you: it is very conceited of you – "
"Oh, I was Uriah Heep not long ago," remarked Charles.
"So you are still. But the truth is that people seem to like one in order to be able to get something out of one. Who of all men in the world now is going about saying perfectly fulsome things about me? Why, that slimy Akroyd, because he is making his fortune out of me. But he tried to 'do' me all right over the play. Craddock too: I'm told he is always saying nice things about me. That's because he wants me to put my very best work into the plays I have got to write for him."
Charles remembered that Craddock had said not altogether nice things about Frank on one occasion. He often remembered that, but, as often he remembered also that they were expressly meant for his private ear. The fact lurked always in his mind, in the shadow into which he had deliberately pushed it.
"And here we are back at Craddock," he said.
"Yes. Oh, by the way, Charles, I saw a flame of yours last night, a very old flame in fact, Lady Crowborough. I daresay you would have thought she was being tender and solicitous about you. I thought that she was merely extremely inquisitive."
"About me?" said Charles.
"Yes. She wanted to know all I could tell her about you. She reminded me of somebody wanting to engage a servant from a previous employer."
Charles looked thoroughly puzzled.
"Lady Crowborough?" he asked again. "About me?"
"Yes, I've already said so. What's the matter?"
Charles had risen, and came across to where Frank sat in the window seat. Into his head there had instantaneously flashed the episode of his proposing himself to go down to the Mill House to look at his Reynolds' copy, and the inexplicable letter of Mr. Wroughton's.