Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories Part 5

Domestically, the life was monotonous. Clayton had abandoned his old habits, finding it difficult to harmonize his present existence with his clubs and his fashionable friends. Besides, he h.o.a.rded every cent and, with Miss Marston's aid, wrung the utmost of existence out of the few dollars he had left. Miss Marston's modest house was patronized by elderly single ladies. It was situated on one of those uninteresting East Side streets where you can walk a mile without remembering an individual stone. The table, in food and conversation, was monotonous.

In fact, Clayton could not dream of a more inferior _milieu_ for the birth of the great artist.

Miss Marston had fitted herself to suit his needs, and in submitting to this difficult position felt that she was repaying a loan of a new life. He was so curious, so free, so unusual, so fond of ideas, so entertaining, even in his grim moods, that he made her stupid life over. She could enjoy vicariously by feeling his intense interest in all living things. In return, she learnt the exact time to bring him an attractive lunch, and just where to place it so that it would catch his eye without calling out a scowl of impatience. She made herself at home in his premises, so that all friction was removed from the young artist's life. He made no acknowledgment of her devotion, but he worked grimly, doggedly, with a steadiness that he had never before known.

Once, early in the first winter, having to return to Boston on some slight business, he permitted himself to be entrapped by old friends and lazed away a fortnight. On his return Miss Marston noticed with a pang that this outing had done him good; that he seemed to have more spirit, more vivaciousness, more ideas, and more zest for his work. So, in a methodical fashion, she thought out harmless dissipations for him.

She induced him to take her to the opera, even allowing him to think that it was done from pure charity to her. Sunday walks in the picturesque nooks of New York--they both shunned the Fifth Avenue promenade for different reasons--church music, interesting novels, all the "fuel," as Clayton remarked, that she could find she piled into his furnace. She made herself acquainted with the peculiar literature that seemed to stimulate his imagination, and sometimes she read him asleep in the evenings to save his overworked eyes. Her devotion he took serenely, as a rule. During the second winter, however, after a slight illness brought on by over-application, he seemed to have a thought upon his mind that troubled him. One day he impatiently threw down his palette and put his hands upon her shoulders.

"Little woman, why do you persist in using up your life on me?"

"I am gambling," she replied, evasively.

"What do you expect to get if you win?"

"A few contemptuous thanks; perhaps free tickets when you exhibit, or a line in your biography. But seriously, Jack, don't you know women well enough to understand how they enjoy drudging for someone who is powerful?"

"But even if I have any ability, which you can't tell, how do you enjoy it? You can't appreciate a picture."

She smiled. "Don't bother yourself about me. I get my fun, as you say, because you make me feel things I shouldn't otherwise. I suppose that's the only pay you artists ever give those who slave for you?"

Such talks were rare. They experienced that physical and mental unity in duality which comes to people who live and think and work together for a common aim. They had not separated a day since that first visit to Boston. The summer had been spent at a cheap boarding-house on Cape Ann, in order that Clayton might sketch in company with the artist who had been teaching him. Neither thought of conventionality; it was too late for that.

As the second year came to an end, the pressure of poverty began to be felt. Clayton refused to make any efforts to sell his pictures. He eked out his capital and went on. The end of his thousand came; he took to feeding himself in his rooms. He sold his clothes, his watch, his books, and at last the truck he had acc.u.mulated abroad. "More fuel for the fire," he said bitterly.

"I will lend you something," remarked Miss Marston.

"No, thanks," he said, shortly, and then added, with characteristic brutality, "my body is worth a hundred. Stevens will give that for it, which would cover the room-rent. And my brother will have to whistle for his cash or take it out in paint and canvas."

She said nothing, for she had a scheme in reserve. She was content meantime to see him pinched; it brought out the firmer qualities in the man. Her own resources, moreover, were small, for the character of her boarders had fallen. Unpleasant rumors had deprived her of the unexceptionable set of middle-aged ladies with whom she had started, but she had pursued her course unaltered. The reproach of her relatives, who considered her disgraced, had been a sweet solace to her pride.

The rough struggle had told on them both. He had forgotten his delicate habits, his nicety of dress. A cheap suit once in six months was all that he could afford. His mind had become stolidly fixed, so that he did not notice the gradual change. It was a grim fight! The elements were relentless; day by day the pounding was harder, and the end of his resistance seemed nearer. Although he was deeply discontented with his work, he did not dare to think of ultimate failure, for it unnerved him for several days. Miss Marston's quiet a.s.sumption, however, that it was only a question of months, irritated him.

"G.o.d must have put the idea into your head that I am a genius," he would mutter fiercely at her. "I never did, nor work of mine. You don't know good from bad, anyway, and we may both be crazy." He buried his face in his hands, overcome by the awfulness of failure. She put her arms about his head.

"Well, we can stand it a little longer, and then----"

"And then?" he asked, grimly.

"Then," she looked at him significantly. They both understood. "Lieber Gott," he murmured, "thou hast a soul." And he kissed her gently, as in momentary love. She did not resist, but both were indifferent to pa.s.sion, so much their end absorbed them.

At last she insisted upon trying to sell some marines at the art stores. She brought him back twenty-five dollars, and he did not suspect that she was the patron. He looked at the money wistfully.

"I thought we should have a spree on the first money I earned. But it's all fuel now."

Her eyes filled with tears at this sign of humanity. "Next time, perhaps."

"So you think that's the beginning of a fortune. I have failed--failed if you get ten thousand dollars for every canvas in this shop. You will never know why. Perhaps I don't myself." And then he went to work. Some weeks later he came to her again. This time she tried to enlist the sympathy of the one successful artist Clayton knew, and through his influence she succeeded in selling a number of pictures and placed others upon sale. She was so happy, so sure that the prophetic instinct in her soul was justified, that she told Clayton of her previous fraud.

He listened carefully; his face twitched, as if his mind were adjusting itself to new ideas. First he took twenty-five dollars from the money she had just brought him and handed it to her. Then putting his arms about her, he looked inquisitively down into her face, only a bit more tenderly than he squinted at his canvases.

"Jane!" She allowed him to kiss her once or twice, and then she pushed him away, making a pathetic bow.

"Thanks for your sense of grat.i.tude. You're becoming more civilized.

Only I wish it had been something more than money you had been thankful for. Is money the only sacrifice you understand?"

"You can take your dues in taunts if you like. I never pretended to be anything but a huge, and possibly productive polypus. I am honest enough, anyway, not to fool with lovers' wash. You ought to know how I feel toward you--you're the best woman I ever knew."

"Kindest to you, you mean? No, Jack," she continued, tenderly; "you can have me, body and soul. I am yours fast enough now, what there is left of me. I have given you my reputation, and that sort of thing long ago--no, you needn't protest. I know you despise people who talk like that, and I don't reproach you. But don't deceive yourself. You feel a little moved just now. If I had any charms, like a pretty model, you might acquire some kind of attachment for me, but love--you never dreamed of it. And," she continued, after a moment, "I begin to think, after watching you these two years, never will. So I am safe in saying that I am yours to do with what you will. I am fuel. Only, oh, Jack, if you break my heart, your last fuel will be gone. You can't do without me!"

It seemed very absurd to talk about breaking hearts--a tired, silent man; a woman unlovely from sordid surroundings, from age, and from care. Clayton pulled back the heavy curtain to admit the morning light, for they had talked for hours before coming to the money question. The terrible, pa.s.sionate glare of a summer sun in the city burst in from the neighboring housetops.

"Why don't you curse _Him_?" muttered Clayton.

"Why?"

"Because He gave you a heart to love, and made you lonely, and then wasted your love!"

"Jack, the worst hasn't come. It's not all wasted."

V

Clayton gradually became conscious of a new feeling about his work. He was master of his tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite pleasure from the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the knowledge of the exact effect he was after, made his working hours an absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world, the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his art disappeared. He was content to forget the expression of himself--that youthful longing--in contemplating and enjoying the created matter. In other words, the art of creation was attended with less friction. He worked unconsciously, and he did not, hen-like, call the attention of the entire barnyard to each new-laid egg. He felt also that human, comfortable weariness after labor when self sinks out of sight in the universal wants of mankind--food and sleep. Perhaps the fact that he could now earn enough to relieve him from actual want, that to some extent he had wrestled with the world and wrung from it the conditions of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been laboring.

He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make her understand where he failed.

The bond between them had become closer. This one woman filled many human relationships for him--mother, sister, friend, lover, and wife in one. The boarding-house had come to be an affair of transients and young clerks, so that all her time that could be spared from the drudgery of housekeeping was spent in the studio. Slowly he became amenable to her ever-present devotion, and even, in his way, thoughtful for her. And she was almost happy.

The end came in this way. One day Clayton was discovered on the street by an intimate college friend. They had run upon each other abruptly, and Clayton, finding that escape was decently impossible, submitted without much urging to be taken to one of his old clubs for a quiet luncheon. As a result he did not return that night, but sent a note to Miss Marston saying that he had gone to Lenox with a college chum. That note chilled her heart. She felt that this was the beginning of the end, and the following week she spent in loneliness in the little studio, sleeping upon the neglected lounge. And yet she divined that the movement and stimulus of this vacation was what Clayton needed most. She feared he was becoming stale, and she knew that in a week, or a fortnight, or perhaps a month, he would return and plunge again into his work.

He came back. He hardly spoke to her; he seemed absorbed in the conception of a new work. And when she brought him his usual luncheon she found the door locked, the first time in many months. She sat down on the stairs and waited--how long she did not know--waited, staring down the dreary hall and at the faded carpet and at herself, faded to suit the surroundings. At length she knocked, and Clayton came, only to take her lunch and say absently that he was much absorbed by a new picture and should not be disturbed. Would she bring his meals? He seemed to refuse tacitly an entrance to the studio. So a week pa.s.sed, and then one day Clayton disappeared again, saying that he was going into the country for another rest. He went out as he had come in, absorbed in some dream or plan of great work. Pride kept her from entering his rooms during that week.

One day, however, he came back as before and plunged again into his work. This time she found the door ajar and entered noiselessly, as she had learned to move. He was hard at work; she admired his swift movements that seemed premeditated, the ease with which the picture before him was rowing. Surely he had a man's power, now, to execute what his spirit conceived! And the mechanical effort gave him evidently great pleasure. His complete absorption indicated the most intense though unconscious pleasure.

The picture stunned her. She knew that she was totally ignorant of art, but she knew that the picture before her was the greatest thing Clayton had accomplished. It seemed to breathe power. And she saw without surprise that the subject was a young woman. Clayton's form hid the face, but she could see the outline of a woman beside a dory, on a beach, in the early morning. So it had come.

When she was very close to Clayton, he felt her presence, and they both stood still, looking at the picture. It was almost finished--all was planned. Miss Marston saw only the woman. She was youthful, just between girlhood and womanhood--unconscious, strong, and active as the first; with the troubled mystery of the second. The artist had divined an exquisite moment in life, and into the immature figure, the face of perfect repose, the supple limbs, he had thrown the tender mystery that met the morning light. It was the new birth--that ancient, solemn, joyous beginning of things in woman and in day.

Clayton approached his picture as if lovingly to hide it. "Isn't it immense?" he murmured. "It's come at last. I don't daub any more, but I can see, I can paint! G.o.d, it's worth the h.e.l.l I have been through--"

He paused, for he felt that his companion had left him.

"Jane," he said, curiously examining her face. "Jane, what's the matter?"

"Don't you know?" she replied, looking steadily at him. He looked first at her and then at the picture, and then back again. Suddenly the facts in the case seemed to get hold of him. "Jane," he cried, impetuously, "it's all yours--you gave me the power, and made me human, too--or a little more so than I was. But I am killing you by living in this fashion. Why don't you end it?"

She smiled feebly at his earnestness. "There is only one end," she whispered, and pointed to his picture. Clayton comprehended, and seizing a paint-rag would have ruined it, but the woman caught his hand.

"Don't let us be melodramatic. Would you ruin what we have been living for all these years? Don't be silly--you would always regret it."

"It's your life against a little fame."