The Light That Failed Part 28

The girl was biting her lips. She loathed Torpenhow because he had taken no notice of her.

'I think it's just the horridest, beastliest thing I ever saw,' she answered, and turned away.

'More than you will be of that way of thinking, young woman.--d.i.c.k, there's a sort of murderous, viperine suggestion in the poise of the head that I don't understand,' said Torpenhow.

That's trick-work,' said d.i.c.k, chuckling with delight at being completely understood. 'I couldn't resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It's a French trick, and you wouldn't understand; but it's got at by slewing round the head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of the face from the angle of the chin to the top of the left ear. That, and deepening the shadow under the lobe of the ear. It was flagrant trick-work; but, having the notion fixed, I felt ent.i.tled to play with it,--Oh, you beauty!'

'Amen! She is a beauty. I can feel it.'

'So will every man who has any sorrow of his own,' said d.i.c.k, slapping his thigh. 'He shall see his trouble there, and, by the Lord Harry, just when he's feeling properly sorry for himself he shall throw back his head and laugh,--as she is laughing. I've put the life of my heart and the light of my eyes into her, and I don't care what comes.... I'm tired,--awfully tired. I think I'll get to sleep. Take away the whiskey, it has served its turn, and give Bessie thirty-six quid, and three over for luck. Cover the picture.'

He dropped asleep in the long chair, hid face white and haggard, almost before he had finished the sentence. Bessie tried to take Torpenhow's hand. 'Aren't you never going to speak to me any more?' she said; but Torpenhow was looking at d.i.c.k.

'What a stock of vanity the man has! I'll take him in hand to-morrow and make much of him. He deserves it.--Eh! what was that, Bess?'

'Nothing. I'll put things tidy here a little, and then I'll go. You couldn't give me that three months' pay now, could you? He said you were to.'

Torpenhow gave her a check and went to his own rooms. Bessie faithfully tidied up the studio, set the door ajar for flight, emptied half a bottle of turpentine on a duster, and began to scrub the face of the Melancolia viciously. The paint did not smudge quickly enough. She took a palette-knife and sc.r.a.ped, following each stroke with the wet duster.

In five minutes the picture was a formless, scarred muddle of colours.

She threw the paint-stained duster into the studio stove, stuck out her tongue at the sleeper, and whispered, 'Bilked!' as she turned to run down the staircase. She would never see Torpenhow any more, but she had at least done harm to the man who had come between her and her desire and who used to make fun of her. Cashing the check was the very cream of the jest to Bessie. Then the little privateer sailed across the Thames, to be swallowed up in the gray wilderness of South-the-Water.

d.i.c.k slept till late in the evening, when Torpenhow dragged him off to bed. His eyes were as bright as his voice was hoa.r.s.e. 'Let's have another look at the picture,' he said, insistently as a child.

'You--go--to--bed,' said Torpenhow. 'You aren't at all well, though you mayn't know it. You're as jumpy as a cat.'

'I reform to-morrow. Good-night.'

As he repa.s.sed through the studio, Torpenhow lifted the cloth above the picture, and almost betrayed himself by outcries: 'Wiped out!--sc.r.a.ped out and turped out! He's on the verge of jumps as it is. That's Bess,--the little fiend! Only a woman could have done that!-with the ink not dry on the check, too! d.i.c.k will be raving mad to-morrow. It was all my fault for trying to help gutter-devils. Oh, my poor d.i.c.k, the Lord is. .h.i.tting you very hard!'

d.i.c.k could not sleep that night, partly for pure joy, and partly because the well-known Catherine-wheels inside his eyes had given place to crackling volcanoes of many-coloured fire. 'Spout away,' he said aloud.

'I've done my work, and now you can do what you please.' He lay still, staring at the ceiling, the long-pent-up delirium of drink in his veins, his brain on fire with racing thoughts that would not stay to be considered, and his hands crisped and dry. He had just discovered that he was painting the face of the Melancolia on a revolving dome ribbed with millions of lights, and that all his wondrous thoughts stood embodied hundreds of feet below his tiny swinging plank, shouting together in his honour, when something cracked inside his temples like an overstrained bowstring, the glittering dome broke inward, and he was alone in the thick night.

'I'll go to sleep. The room's very dark. Let's light a lamp and see how the Melancolia looks. There ought to have been a moon.'

It was then that Torpenhow heard his name called by a voice that he did not know,--in the rattling accents of deadly fear.

'He's looked at the picture,' was his first thought, as he hurried into the bedroom and found d.i.c.k sitting up and beating the air with his hands.

'Torp! Torp! where are you? For pity's sake, come to me!'

'What's the matter?'

d.i.c.k clutched at his shoulder. 'Matter! I've been lying here for hours in the dark, and you never heard me. Torp, old man, don't go away. I'm all in the dark. In the dark, I tell you!'

Torpenhow held the candle within a foot of d.i.c.k's eyes, but there was no light in those eyes. He lit the gas, and d.i.c.k heard the flame catch. The grip of his fingers on Torpenhow's shoulder made Torpenhow wince.

'Don't leave me. You wouldn't leave me alone now, would you? I can't see. D'you understand? It's black,--quite black,--and I feel as if I was falling through it all.'

'Steady does it.' Torpenhow put his arm round d.i.c.k and began to rock him gently to and fro.

'That's good. Now don't talk. If I keep very quiet for a while, this darkness will lift. It seems just on the point of breaking. H'sh!' d.i.c.k knit his brows and stared desperately in front of him. The night air was chilling Torpenhow's toes.

'Can you stay like that a minute?' he said. 'I'll get my dressing-gown and some slippers.'

d.i.c.k clutched the bed-head with both hands and waited for the darkness to clear away. 'What a time you've been!' he cried, when Torpenhow returned. 'It's as black as ever. What are you banging about in the door-way?'

'Long chair,--horse-blanket,--pillow. Going to sleep by you. Lie down now; you'll be better in the morning.'

'I shan't!' The voice rose to a wail. 'My G.o.d! I'm blind! I'm blind, and the darkness will never go away.' He made as if to leap from the bed, but Torpenhow's arms were round him, and Torpenhow's chin was on his shoulder, and his breath was squeezed out of him. He could only gasp, 'Blind!' and wriggle feebly.

'Steady, d.i.c.kie, steady!' said the deep voice in his ear, and the grip tightened. 'Bite on the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid,' The grip could draw no closer. Both men were breathing heavily.

d.i.c.k threw his head from side to side and groaned.

'Let me go,' he panted. 'You're cracking my ribs. We-we mustn't let them think we're afraid, must we,--all the powers of darkness and that lot?'

'Lie down. It's all over now.'

'Yes,' said d.i.c.k, obediently. 'But would you mind letting me hold your hand? I feel as if I wanted something to hold on to. One drops through the dark so.'

Torpenhow thrust out a large and hairy paw from the long chair. d.i.c.k clutched it tightly, and in half an hour had fallen asleep. Torpenhow withdrew his hand, and, stooping over d.i.c.k, kissed him lightly on the forehead, as men do sometimes kiss a wounded comrade in the hour of death, to ease his departure.

In the gray dawn Torpenhow heard d.i.c.k talking to himself. He was adrift on the sh.o.r.eless tides of delirium, speaking very quickly--'It's a pity,--a great pity; but it's helped, and it must be eaten, Master George. Sufficient unto the day is the blindness thereof, and, further, putting aside all Melancolias and false humours, it is of obvious notoriety--such as mine was--that the queen can do no wrong. Torp doesn't know that. I'll tell him when we're a little farther into the desert.

What a bungle those boatmen are making of the steamer-ropes! They'll have that four-inch hawser chafed through in a minute. I told you so--there she goes! White foam on green water, and the steamer slewing round. How good that looks! I'll sketch it. No, I can't. I'm afflicted with ophthalmia. That was one of the ten plagues of Egypt, and it extends up the Nile in the shape of cataract. Ha! that's a joke, Torp.

Laugh, you graven image, and stand clear of the hawser.... It'll knock you into the water and make your dress all dirty, Maisie dear.'

'Oh!' said Torpenhow. 'This happened before. That night on the river.'

'She'll be sure to say it's my fault if you get muddy, and you're quite near enough to the breakwater. Maisie, that's not fair. Ah! I knew you'd miss.

Low and to the left, dear. But you've no conviction. Don't be angry, darling. I'd cut my hand off if it would give you anything more than obstinacy. My right hand, if it would serve.'

'Now we mustn't listen. Here's an island shouting across seas of misunderstanding with a vengeance. But it's shouting truth, I fancy,'

said Torpenhow.

The babble continued. It all bore upon Maisie. Sometimes d.i.c.k lectured at length on his craft, then he cursed himself for his folly in being enslaved. He pleaded to Maisie for a kiss--only one kiss--before she went away, and called to her to come back from Vitry-sur-Marne, if she would; but through all his ravings he bade heaven and earth witness that the queen could do no wrong.

Torpenhow listened attentively, and learned every detail of d.i.c.k's life that had been hidden from him. For three days d.i.c.k raved through the past, and then a natural sleep. 'What a strain he has been running under, poor chap!' said Torpenhow. 'd.i.c.k, of all men, handing himself over like a dog! And I was lecturing him on arrogance! I ought to have known that it was no use to judge a man. But I did it. What a demon that girl must be! d.i.c.k's given her his life,--confound him!--and she's given him one kiss apparently.'

'Torp,' said d.i.c.k, from the bed, 'go out for a walk. You've been here too long. I'll get up. Hi! This is annoying. I can't dress myself. Oh, it's too absurd!'

Torpenhow helped him into his clothes and led him to the big chair in the studio. He sat quietly waiting under strained nerves for the darkness to lift. It did not lift that day, nor the next. d.i.c.k adventured on a voyage round the walls. He hit his shins against the stove, and this suggested to him that it would be better to crawl on all fours, one hand in front of him. Torpenhow found him on the floor.

'I'm trying to get the geography of my new possessions,' said he. 'D'you remember that n.i.g.g.e.r you gouged in the square? Pity you didn't keep the odd eye. It would have been useful. Any letters for me? Give me all the ones in fat gray envelopes with a sort of crown thing outside. They're of no importance.'

Torpenhow gave him a letter with a black M. on the envelope flap. d.i.c.k put it into his pocket. There was nothing in it that Torpenhow might not have read, but it belonged to himself and to Maisie, who would never belong to him.