The Pool in the Desert Part 12

It was better not to inquire, so I never knew to what extent Kauffer worked upon the vanity of ancient houses the sinful dodge I suggested to him; but I heard before long that the line of Armour's rejected efforts had been considerably diminished. Armour told me himself that Kauffer's att.i.tude had become almost conciliatory, that Kauffer had even hinted at the acceptance of, and adhesion to, certain principles which he would lay down as the basis of another year's contract. In talking to me about it, Armour dwelt on these absurd stipulations only as the reason why any idea of renewal was impossible. It was his proud theory with me that to work for a photographer was just as dignified as to produce under any other conditions, provided you did not stoop to ideals which for lack of a better word might be called photographic. How he represented it to Dora, or permitted Dora to represent it to him, I am not so certain--I imagine there may have been admissions and qualifications. Be that as it may, however, the fact was imperative that only three months of the hated bond remained, and that some working subst.i.tute for the hated bond would have to be discovered at their expiration. Simla, in short, must be made to buy Armour's pictures, to appreciate them, if the days of miracle were not entirely past, but to buy them any way. On one or two occasions I had already made Simla buy things. I had cleared out young Ludlow's stables for him in a week--he had a string of ten--when he played polo in a straw hat and had to go home with sunstroke; and I once auctioned off all the property costumes of the Amateur Dramatic Society at astonishing prices. Pictures presented difficulties which I have hinted at in an earlier chapter, but I did not despair. I began by hauling old Lamb, puffing and blowing like a grampus, up to Amy Villa, filling him up all the way with denunciations of Simla's philistinism and suggestions that he alone redeemed it.

It is a thing I am ashamed to think of, and it deserved its reward.

Lamb criticized and patronized every blessed thing he saw, advised Armour to beware of mannerisms and to be a little less liberal with his colour, and heard absolutely unmoved of the horses Armour had got into the Salon. 'I understand,' he said, with a benevolent wink, 'that about four thousand pictures are hung every year at the Salon, and I don't know how many thousand are rejected. Let Mr. Armour get a picture accepted by the Academy. Then he will have something to talk about.'

Neither did Sir William Lamb buy anything at all.

The experiment with Lady Pilkey was even more distressing. She gushed with fair appropriateness and great liberality, and finally fixed upon one scene to make her own. She winningly asked the price of it. She had never known anybody who did not understand prices. Poor Armour, the colour of a live coal, named one hundred rupees.

'One hundred rupees! Oh, my dear boy, I can never afford that! You must, you must really give it to me for seventy-five. It will break my heart if I can't have it for seventy-five.'

'Give me the pleasure,' said Armour, 'of making you a present of it. You have been so kind about everything, and it's so seldom one meets anybody who really cares. So let me send it to you.' It was honest embarra.s.sment; he did not mean to be impertinent.

And she did.

Blum, of the Geological Department--Herr Blum in his own country--came up and honestly rejoiced, and at end of an interminable pipe did purchase a little Breton bit that I hated to see go--it was one of the things that gave the place its air; but Blum had a large family undergoing education at Heidelberg, and exclaimed, to Armour's keenest anguish, that on this account he could not more do.

Altogether, during the months of August and September, persons resident in Simla drawing their income from Her Majesty, bought from the eccentric young artist from nowhere, living on Summer Hill, canvases and little wooden panels to the extent of two hundred and fifty rupees. Lady Pilkey had asked him to lunch--she might well! and he had appeared at three garden-parties and a picnic. It was not enough.

It was not enough, and yet it was, in a manner, too much. Pitiful as it was in substance, it had an extraordinary personal effect. Armour suddenly began to turn himself out well--his apparel was of smarter cut than mine, and his neckties in better taste. Little elegances appeared in the studio--he offered you Scotch in a Venetian decanter and Melachrinos from a chased silver box. The farouche element faded out of his speech; his ideas remained as fresh and as simple as ever, but he gave them a form, bless me! that might have been used at the Club. He worked as hard as ever, but more variously; he tried his hand at several new things. He said he was feeling about for something that would really make his reputation.

In spite of all this his little measure of success made him more contemptuous than before of its scene and its elements. He declared that he had a poorer idea than ever of society now that he saw the pattern from the smart side. That his convictions on this head survived one of the best Simla tailors shows that they must always have been strong. I think he believed that he was doing all that he did do to make himself socially possible with the purpose of pleasing Dora Harris. I would not now venture to say how far Dora inspired and controlled him in this direction, and how far the impulse was his own. The measure of appreciation that began to seek his pictures, poor and small though it was, gave him, on the other hand, the most unalloyed delight. He talked of the advice of Sir William Lamb as if it were anything but that of a pompous old a.s.s, and he made a feast with champagne for Blum that must have cost him quite as much as Blum paid for the Breton sketch. He confirmed my guess that he had never in his life until he came to Simla sold anything, so that even these small transactions were great things to him, and the earnest of a future upon which he covered his eyes not to gaze too raptly. He mentioned to me that Kauffer had been asked for his address--who could it possibly be?--and looked so damped by my humourous suggestion that it was a friend of Kauffer's in some other line who wanted a bill paid, that I felt I had been guilty of brutality.

And all the while the quality of his wonderful output never changed or abated. Pure and firm and prismatic it remained. I found him one day at the very end of October, with shining eyes and fingers blue with cold, putting the last of the afternoon light on the snows into one of the most dramatic hill pictures I ever knew him to do. He seemed intoxicated with his skill, and hummed the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise,' I remember, all the way to Amy Villa whither I accompanied him.

It was the last day of Kauffer's contract; and besides, all the world, secretaries, establishments, hill captains, gra.s.s widows, shops, and sundries, was trundling down the hill. I came to ask my young friend what he meant to do.

'Do?' he cried. 'Why, eat, drink, and be merry! Kauffer has paid up, and his yoke is at the bottom of the sea. Come back and dine with me!'

The hour we spent together in his little inner room before dinner was served stands out among my strangest, loveliest memories of Armour. He was divinely caught up, and absurd as it is to write, he seemed to carry me with him. We drank each a gla.s.s of vermouth before dinner sitting over a scented fire of deodar branches, while outside the little window in front of me the lifted lines of the great empty Himalayan landscape faded and fell into a blur. I remembered the solitary scarlet dahlia that stood between us and the vast cold hills and held its colour when all was grey but that. The hill world waited for the winter; down a far valley we could hear a barking deer. Armour talked slowly, often hesitating for a word, of the joy there was in beauty and the divinity in the man who saw it with his own eyes. I have read notable pages that brought conviction pale beside that which stole about the room from what he said. The comment may seem fantastic, but it is a comment--I caressed the dog. The servant clattered in with the plates, and at a shout outside Armour left me. He came in radiant with Signor Strobo, also radiant and carrying a violin, for hotel-keeping was not the Signor's only accomplishment. I knew Strobo well; many a special dish had he ordered for my little parties; and we met at Armour's fireside like the genial old acquaintances we were. Another voice without and presently I was nodding to Rosario and vaguely wondering why he looked uncomfortable.

'I'm sorry,' said Armour, as we sat down, 'I've got nothing but beer.

If I had known you were all coming, no vintage that crawls up the hill would have been good enough for me.' He threw the bond of his wonderful smile round us as we swallowed his stuff, and our hearts were lightened.

'You fellows,' he went on nodding at the other two, 'might happen any day, but my friend John Philips comes to me across aerial s.p.a.ces; he is a star I've trapped--you don't do that often. Pilsener, John Philips, or Black?' He was helping his only servant by pouring out the beer himself, and as I declared for Black he slapped me affectionately on the back and said my choice was good.

The last person who had slapped me on the back was Lord Dufferin, and I smiled softly and privately at the remembrance, and what a difference there was. I had resented Dufferin's slap.

We had spiced hump and jungle-fowl and a Normandy cheese, everybody will understand that; but how shall I make plain with what exultation and simplicity we ate and drank, how the four candid selves of us sat around the table in a cloud of tobacco and cheered each other on, Armour always far in front turning handsprings as he went. Sc.r.a.ps come back to me, but the whole queer night has receded and taken its place among those dreams that insist at times upon having been realities. Rosario told us stories Kipling might have coveted of the under life of Port Said. Strobo talked with glorious gusto of his uncle the brigand. They were liberated men; we were all liberated men. 'Let the direction go,' cried Armour, 'and give the senses flight, taking the image as it comes, beating the air with happy pinions.' He must have been talking of his work, but I can not now remember. And what made Strobo say, of life and art, 'I have waited for ten years and five thousand pounds--now my old violin says, "Go, handle the ladle! Go, add up the account!"' And did we really discuss the chances of ultimate salvation for souls in the Secretariat?

I know I lifted my gla.s.s once and cried, 'I, a slave, drink to freedom!'

and Rosario clinked with me. And Strobo played wailing Hungarian airs with sudden little shakes of hopeless laughter in them. I can not even now hear Naches without being filled with the recollection of how certain bare branches in me that night blossomed.

I walked alone down the hill and along the three miles to the Club, and at every step the tide sank in me till it cast me on my threshold at three in the morning, just the middle-aged sh.e.l.l of a Secretary to the Government of India that I was when I set forth. Next day when my head clerk brought me the files we avoided one another's glances; and it was quite three weeks before I could bring myself to address him with the dignity and distance prescribed for his station as 'Mr.' Rosario.

Chapter 2.IX.

I went of course to Calcutta for the four winter months. Harris and I were together at the Club. It was the year, I remember, of the great shindy as to whether foreign consuls should continue to be made honourary members, in view of the sentiments some of them were freely reflecting from Europe upon the subject of a war in South Africa which was none of theirs. Certainly, feeling as they did, it would have been better if they had swaggered less about a club that stood for British Government; but I did not vote to withdraw the invitation. We can not, after all, take notice of every idle word that drops from Latin or Teutonic tongues; it isn't our way; but it was a liverish cold weather on various accounts, and the public temper was short. I heard from Dora oftener, Harris declared, than he did. She was spending the winter with friends in Agra, and Armour, of course, was there too, living at Laurie's Hotel, and painting, Dora a.s.sured me, with immense energy.

It was just the place for Armour, a sumptuous dynasty wrecked in white marble and buried in desert sands for three hundred years; and I was glad to hear that he was making the most of it. It was quite by the way, but I had lent him the money to go there--somebody had to lend it to him--and when he asked me to decide whether he should take his pa.s.sage for Ma.r.s.eilles or use it for this other purpose I could hardly hesitate, believing in him, as I did, to urge him to paint a little more of India before he went. I frankly despaired of his ever being able to pay his way in Simla without Kauffer, but that was no reason why he should not make a few more notes for further use at home, where I sometimes saw for him, when his desultory and experimental days were over and some definiteness and order had come into his work, a Bond Street exhibition.

I have not said all this time what I thought of Ingersoll Armour and Dora Harris together, because their connection seemed too vague and fantastic and impossible to hold for an instant before a steady gaze. I have no wish to justify myself when I write that I preferred to keep my eyes averted, enjoying perhaps just such a measure of vision as would enter at a corner of them. This may or may not have been immoral under the circ.u.mstances--the event did not prove it so--but for urgent private reasons I could not be the person to destroy the idyll, if indeed its destruction were possible, that flourished there in the corner of my eye. Besides, had not I myself planted and watered it? But it was foolish to expect other people, people who are forever on the lookout for trousseaux and wedding-bells, and who considered these two as mere man and maid, and had no sight of them as engaging young spirits in happy conjunction--it was foolish to expect such people to show equal consideration. Christmas was barely over before the lady with whom Miss Harris was staying found it her duty to communicate to Edward Harris the fact that dear Dora's charming friendship--she was sure it was nothing more--with the young artist--Mrs. Poulton believed Mr. Harris would understand who was meant--was exciting a good deal of comment in the station, and WOULD dear Mr. Harris please write to Dora himself, as Mrs.

Poulton was beginning to feel so responsible?

I saw the letter; Harris showed it to me when he sat down to breakfast with the long face of a man in a domestic difficulty, and we settled together whom we should ask to put his daughter up in Calcutta. It should be the wife of a man in his own department of course; it is to one's Deputy Secretary that one looks for succour at times like this; and naturally one never looks in vain. Mrs. Symons would be delighted.

I conjured up Dora's rage on receipt of the telegram. She loathed the Symonses.

She came, but not at the jerk of a wire; she arrived a week later, with a face of great propriety and a smile of great unconcern. Harris, having got her effectually out of harm's way, shirked further insistence, and I have reason to believe that Armour was never even mentioned between them.

Dora applied herself to the gaieties of the season with the zest of a debutante; she seemed really refreshed, revitalized. She had never looked better, happier. I met her again for the first time at one of the Thursday dances at Government House. In the glance she gave me I was glad to detect no suspicion of collusion. She plainly could not dream that Edward Harris in his nefarious exercise of parental authority had acted upon any hint from me. It was rather sweet.

Out in the veranda, away from the blare of the Viceroy's band, she told me very delicately and with the most charming ellipses how Armour had been filling her life in Agra, how it had all been, for these two, a dream and a vision. There is a place below the bridge there, where the cattle come down from the waste pastures across the yellow sands to drink and stand in the low water of the Jumna, to stand and switch their tails while their herdsmen on the bank coax them back with 'Ari!' 'Ari!'

'Ari!' long and high, faint and musical; and the minarets of Akbar's fort rise beyond against the throbbing sky and the sun fills it all.

This place I shall never see more distinctly than I saw it that night on the veranda at Government House, Calcutta, with the conviction, like a margin for the picture, that its foreground had been very often occupied by the woman I profoundly worshiped and Ingersoll Armour. She told me that he had sent me a sketch of it, and I very much wished he hadn't.

One felt that the gift would carry a trifle of irony.

'He has told me,' she said once brusquely, 'how good you have been to him.'

'Is he coming to Simla again?' I asked.

'Oh yes! And please take it from me that this time he will conquer the place. He has undertaken to do it.'

'At your request?'

'At my persuasion--at my long entreaty. They must recognize him--they must be taught. I have set my heart on it.'

'Does he himself very much care?' I asked remembering the night of the thirty-first of October.

'Yes, he does care. He despises it, of course, but in a way he cares.

I've been trying to make him care more. A human being isn't an orchid; he must draw something from the soil he grows in.'

'If he were stable,' I mused; 'if he had a fixed ambition somewhere in the firmament. But his purpose is a will-o'-the-wisp.'

'I think he has an ambition,' said Miss Harris, into the dark.

'Ah! Then we must continue,' I said--'continue to push from behind.'

Dora did not reply. She is a person of energy and determination, and might have been expected to offer to cooperate gladly. But she didn't.

'He is painting a large picture for next season's exhibition,' she informed me. 'I was not allowed to see it or to know anything about it, but he declares it will bring Simla down.'

'I hope not,' I said, piously.

'Oh, I hope so. I have told him,' Dora continued, slowly, 'that a great deal depends on it.'

'Here is Mrs. Symons,' I was able to return, 'and I am afraid she is looking for you.'

March came, and the city lay white under its own dust. The electric fans began to purr in the Club, and Lent brought the flagging season to a full stop. I had to go that year on tour through the famine district with the Member, and we escaped, gasping, from the Plains about the middle of April. Simla was crimson with rhododendron blossoms, and seemed a spur of Arcady. There had been the usual number of flittings from one house to another, and among them I heard with satisfaction that Armour no longer occupied Amy Villa. I would not for the world have blurred my recollections of that last evening--I could not have gone there again.

'He is staying with Sir William Lamb,' said Dora, handing me my cup of tea. 'And I am quite jealous. Sir William, only Sir William, has been allowed to see the exhibition picture.'