by George Moore
But, Elsie, you haven’t been deceived. You had a picture in the Salon, and Cissy had one too.
That doesn’t mean much.
But do you think that I shall ever do as much? Elsie did not think so, and the doubt caused her to hesitate. Etta perceived the hesitation, and said: Oh, there’s no necessity for you to lie. I know the truth well enough. I have resolved to give up painting. I have given it up.
You’ve given up painting! Do you really mean it?
Yes; I feel that I must. I’m not very strong, and the long hours in the studio wear me out. What a relief your letter was — what a relief to be here!
Well, you see, something has happened. Barbizon has happened, Morton has happened.
I wonder if anything will come of it. He’s a nice fellow. I like him.
You’re not the first. All the women are crazy about him. He was the lover of Mérac, the actress of the Français, and it is said that she could only play Phèdre when he was in the stage-box. He always produced that effect upon her. Then he was the lover of the Marquise de la — de la Per — I can’t remember the name.
Morton was talking to Rose, but Etta soon got his attention. You’re going to paint in the forest, she said. I wonder what your picture is like; you haven’t shown it to me.
It’s all packed up. But if you’re not painting with Miss Lawrence and Miss Clive you might come with me. And you’d better take your painting materials; you’ll find the time hang heavily if you don’t.
The very thought of painting bores me.
Well, then, if you’re ready we might make a start; mine is a midday effect. I hope you’re a good walker. But you’ll never be able to get along in those shoes, and the dress you’ve on is no dress for the forest. You’re dressed as for a garden-party.
It is only a little flowered muslin, there’s nothing to spoil; and as for my shoes, you’ll see, I shall get along all right, unless it is very far.
It is more than a mile. I shall have to take you down to the local cobbler and get you measured. I never saw such feet!
He was oddly matter of fact, and his almost childishness amused and interested Etta. With whom, she said, do you go out painting when I’m not here? Every Jack seems to have his own Jill in Barbizon..
And don’t they everywhere else? It would be damned dull without.
Do you think it would? Have you always got a Jill?
I’ve been down on my luck lately.
Which of the women here has the most talent?
Perhaps Miss Lawrence. But Miss Clive does a nice thing occasionally.
What do you think of Miss Turner’s work?
It’s pretty good. She has talent. She had two pictures in the Salon last year.
Have you ever been out with her?
Yes; but why do you ask?
Because I think she likes you. She looked very miserable when she heard that we were going out together. Just as if she were going to cry. If I thought I was making another person unhappy I would sooner give up the pleasure of going out with you.
And what about me? Don’t I count for anything?
I must not do a direct wrong to another. Each of us has a path to walk in, and if we deviate from our path we bring unhappiness upon ourselves and upon others. Morton stopped and looked at her; his stolid stare made her laugh and it made her like him. I wonder if I am selfish, Etta continued reflectively. Sometimes I think I am, sometimes I think I am not. I’ve suffered so much; my life has been all suffering. There’s no heart left in me for anything. I wonder what will become of me. I often think I shall commit suicide. Or I might go into a convent.
You’d much better commit suicide than go into a convent. Those poor devils of nuns!
You’re not going to ask me to climb those rocks! said Etta. Mile after mile of rocks! What a scene, like a landscape by Salvator Rosa.
Climb that hill? You couldn’t! I’ll wait until our cobbler has made you a pair of boots. Bah! Isn’t that desolate region of blasted oaks and sundered rocks wonderful? And they had walked but a very little way when he stopped and said: Don’t you call that beautiful? And leaning against the same tree, Morton and Etta looked into the summer wood, where the trunks of the young elms rose straight, and through the pale leafage the sunlight quivered, full of the impulse of the morning. Something ran through the grass, paused, and then ran - again.
What is that? Etta asked.
A squirrel, I think. Yes; he’s going up that tree.
How pretty he is, his paws set against the bark.
Come this way and we shall see him better. But they caught no further sight of the squirrel, and Morton asked Etta the time. A quarter-past ten, she said, glancing at the tiny watch that she wore in a bracelet. Then we must be moving on, he answered. I ought to be at work by half-past. One can’t work more than a couple of hours in this light. Etta opened her parasol, and they passed out of the wood and crossed an open space where rough grass grew in patches. You asked me just now if I ever went to England, she said, and that’s my difficulty. So long as I was painting, there was a reason for my remaining in France, but now that I’ve given it up —
But you’ve not given it up!
Yes, I have; and if I don’t find something else to do, I suppose I must go back. That’s what I dread. We live in Sutton. But that conveys no idea to your mind. Sutton is a little town in Surrey. It was very nice once, but now it is little better than a London suburb. My brother is a distiller. He goes to town every day by the nine o’clock, and he returns by the six o’clock. I’ve heard of nothing but those two trains all my life. We have many acres of ground — gardens, greenhouses, and a number of servants. Then there’s the cart — I go out for drives in the cart. We have tennis parties — the neighbours, you know. And I shall have to choose whether I look after my brother’s house, or marry and look after my husband’s.
It must be very lonely in Sutton.
Yes, it is very lonely. There are a number of people about, but I’ve no friends I care for.
A moment after they passed out of the sunlight into the green shade of some beech trees. Etta closed her parasol, and swaying it to and fro amid the ferns she continued telling in a low, laughing voice of a friend of hers who read Comte, and the influence that this lady had exercised upon her. Her words floated along in a current of quiet humour, cadenced by the gentle swaying of her parasol and brought into relief by a certain intentness of manner which was peculiar to her, and which was not without charm for Morton, who became more and more conscious of her. The charm of her voice stole upon him, and once he lingered, allowing her to get a few yards in front, so that he might notice the quiet figure, a little demure and intensely itself in a yellow gown. When he first saw her, she had seemed to him a little sedate, even a little dowdy; he had feared a bore, but this she at least was not, and her determination to paint no more announced an excellent sense of the realities of things in which the other women — the Elsies and the Cissys — seemed to him deficient. Here is my subject, he said, and when he had set up his easel, he spread the rug for her in a shady place. But for the present she preferred to stand behind him, her parasol slanted slightly, talking, he thought very well, of the art of the great men who had made Barbizon rememberable. He was sorry when she said the sun was getting too hot for her, and she went and lay on the rug he had spread for her in the shade of the oak. She had brought a book to read, but she only read a line here and there. Her thoughts wandered from the page to the man sitting easily on his camp-stool, his long legs wide apart. His small head, his big hat, the line of his bent back, amused and interested her; she liked his abrupt speech, and wondered if she could love him. A couple of peasant women came by, bent under the weight of the faggots they had picked, and Etta could see that Morton was watching the movements of these women, and she thought how well they would come into the picture he was painting. Soon after he rose from his easel and walked towards her. Have you finished? she asked.
No, not quite, but the light has changed. I
cannot go on any more to-day. One can’t work in the sunlight above an hour.
You’ve been working longer than that.
But haven’t touched the effect. I’ve been painting in some figures, two peasant women picking sticks. Come and look.
X
Morton had finished his picture, and now lunch was over and they lay on the rug under the oak tree talking eagerly. Corot never married, Morton remarked. He doesn’t seem to have ever cared for any woman. They say he never had a mistress.
I hear that you have not followed his example.
Not more than I could help.
His candour amused her so that she laughed outright; and she watched the stolid, childish stare that she liked, until a longing to take him in her arms and kiss him came upon her, and she asked him if he had ever been in love.
Yes, I think I was.
How long did it last?
About five years.
And then?
A lot of rot about scruples of conscience. I said: I give you a week to think it over, and if I don’t hear from you in that time I’m off to Italy.
Did she write?
Not until I had left Paris. Then she spent five-and-twenty pounds in telegrams trying to get me back.
But you wouldn’t go back?
Not I; with me, when an affair of that sort is over, it is really over. Don’t you think I’m right?
Perhaps so.... But I’m afraid we’ve learnt love in different schools.
Then the sooner you relearn it in my school the better.
At that moment a light breeze came up the sandy path, carrying some dust on to the picture. Morton stamped and swore. For three minutes it was: Damn! damn! damn! Do you always swear like that in the presence of ladies? she asked. Well, what’s a fellow to do when a blasted wind comes up smothering his picture in sand?
Etta could only laugh at him, and while he packed up his canvases, paint-box and easel, she thought that she understood him, and fancied that she would be able to manage him. And convinced of her power she said aloud, as they plunged into the forest: I always think it is a pity that it is considered vulgar to walk arm-in-arm. I like to take an arm. I suppose we can do what we like in the forest of Fontainebleau. But you’re too heavily laden —
No, not a bit. I should like it.
She took his arm with a caressing movement and walked by his side, and they talked until they reached the motive of his second picture.
What I’ve got on the canvas isn’t very much like the view in front of you, is it?
No, not much. I don’t like it as well as the other picture.
I began it late one evening. I’ve never been able to get the same effect again. Now it looks like a Puvis de Chavannes — not my picture, but that hillside, that large space of blue sky and the woodmen.
It does a little. Are you going on with it?
Why?
Because there is no shade for me to sit in. I shall be roasted if we remain here.
What shall we do? Lie down in some shady place?
We might do that.... I know what I should like.
What?
A long drive in the forest.
We can do that. We shall meet somebody going to Barbizon and we’ll ask them to send us a fly.
And they wandered on through a pine wood where the heat was stifling, the dry trees like firewood, scorched and ready to break into flame; their feet dragged through the loose sand till they came to a place where the trees had all been felled, and a green undergrowth of pines, two or three feet high, had sprung up. It was difficult to force their way through; the prickly branches were disagreeable to touch, and underneath the ground was spongy with layers of fallen needles hardly covered with coarse grass. Morton missed the way, and his paint-box and canvases had begun to weigh heavily when they came upon the road they were seeking. But where they came upon it there was only a little burnt grass, and Morton proposed that they should toil on until they came to a pleasanter place. The road ascended along the verge of a steep hill, at the top of which they met a bicyclist, who promised to deliver Morton’s note. It was pleasant to rest — they were tired, and it was pleasant to listen, for the forest murmured like a shell. But absorbed though they were by this vast Nature, each was thinking intensely of the other. Etta knew she was near the moment when Morton would take her hand and tell her that he loved her. She wondered what he would say. She did not think he would say he loved her; he would say: You’re a damned pretty woman. She could see he was thinking of something, and suspected him of thinking out a phrase or an oath appropriate to the occasion. And she was nearly right. Morton was thinking how he should act. Etta was not the common Barbizon art student whose one idea is to become the mistress of a painter so that she may learn to paint. She had encouraged him, but she had kept her little dignity. Moreover, he did not feel sure of her. So the minutes went by in awkward expectancy, and Morton had not kissed her before the carriage arrived. But the kiss would come; she was sure of that, and lay back in the fly smiling, Morton thought, superciliously. It seemed to him stupid to put his arm round her waist and try to kiss her. But, sooner or later, he would have to do this. Once this Rubicon was past, he would know where he was. As he debated, the trunks rose branchless for thirty or forty feet, and he asked her if the tall, thin, almost branchless beeches were not like lances bent in the shock of the encounter.
The forest now extended like a great temple, hushed in the ritual of the sunset. The light that suffused the green leaves overhead glossed the brown leaves underfoot, marking the smooth ground as with a pattern. Like chapels every dell seemed in the tranquil light, and Etta’s eyes wandered from the colonnades to the underwoods, and were raised to the scraps of blue that appeared through the thick leafage, till she longed for a break in the trees, a vista, and at the end of it a plain or a pine-plumed hill-top. We are nearly there now, Morton said; and leaving the carriage, which was to wait for them, Etta followed him through rocks and furze bushes, taking his arm, and once accidentally, or nearly accidentally, she sprang from a rock into his arms. She was surprised that he did not take advantage of the occasion to kiss her. Standing on this flat rock we’re like figures in a landscape by Wilson, she said. So we are, replied Morton, who was struck by the truth of the comparison. But there is too much colour in the scene for Wilson — he would have reduced it all to a beautiful blue, with only a yellow flush to tell where the sun had gone.
It would be very nice if you would make me a sketch of the lake. I’ll lend you a lead pencil; the back of an envelope will do.
I’ve a water-colour box in my pocket and a block. Sit down there and I’ll do you a sketch.
And while you are accomplishing a work of genius, I’ll supply the levity; and don’t you think I’m just the sort of person to supply the necessary leaven of lightness? Look at my frock and my sunshade. Morton laughed, and she continued: What did you think of me the first time you saw me? What impression did I produce on you?
Do you want me to tell you, to tell you exactly?
Yes, indeed I do.
I don’t think I can.
What was it? Etta asked in a low, murmuring tone, and when she leaned towards him the movement was intimate, affectionate and false.
Well — you struck me as being a little dowdy.
Dowdy! I had a nice new frock on. I don’t think I could have looked dowdy, and among the dreadful old rags that the girls wear here.
It had nothing to do with the clothes you wore. It is the quiet, sedate air that you wear sometimes.
I wasn’t in good spirits when I came down here.
No, you weren’t. I thought you might be a bore.
But I haven’t been that, have I?
No, I’m damned if you’re that.
But what a charming sketch you’re making. You take that ordinary common grey from the palette, and it becomes beautiful. If I were to take the very same tint and put it on the paper, it would be mud. Morton placed his sketch against a rock and surveyed it from
a little distance, saying: I don’t call it bad, do you? I think I’ve got the sensation of the lonely lake. But the effect changes so rapidly. Those clouds are quite different from what they were just now. I never saw a finer sky; it is wonderful; it is splendid as a battle.
Write underneath it: That night the sky was like a battle.
No; it would do for my sketch.
You think the suggestion would overpower the reality? But it is a charming sketch and will remind me of a charming day, of a very happy day. She raised her eyes. The moment had come. He threw one arm round her, and raised her face with the other hand. She gave her lips easily, and during the drive home she lay upon his shoulder, allowing his arm to lie round her.
Elsie said you’d get round me.
What did she mean?
Well, said Etta, nestling a little closer and laughing low, haven’t you got round me? Her playfulness enchanted her lover, but her tenderness in speaking of Ralph quickened his jealousy.
My violets lay under his hand; he must have died thinking of me.
But the woman who wrote to you, his mistress, she must have known all about his love for you. What did she say?
She said very little. She was very nice to me. She could see that I was a good woman.
But that made no difference so far as she was concerned. You took her lover away from her.
She knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong, that we were merely friends. The conversation paused a moment, then Morton said: It seems to have been a mysterious kind of death. What did he die of?
Ah, no one ever knew. The doctors could make nothing of his case. He had been complaining a long time. They spoke of overwork, but —
But what?
I believe he died of slow poisoning.
Slow poisoning! Who could have poisoned him?
Ellen Gibbs.
What an awful thing to say.... I suppose you have some reason for suspecting her?
His death was very mysterious. The doctors could not account for it. There ought to have been a post-mortem examination. In the silence that fell upon tins avowal Etta remembered that Ralph had held socialistic theories and was a member of a sect of socialists, and she continued: Ralph was a member of a secret society.... He was an anarchist — no one suspected it; but he told me everything, and it was I who persuaded him to leave the Brotherhood.
