by A. J. Cronin
‘You worked well today … though you are not used to it. I shall not want for brush this winter.’
‘Is it cold here then?’
She nodded.
‘The snow blows across from the Sierras. Often the drifts are of great depth.’
‘Are you not lonely at such a time?’
‘I am used to it.’ She spoke with complete indifference. ‘For five years now I have been alone. Since the passing of my husband. We do not wish to die. But we die.’
‘Have you lived here always?’
‘No, man. I am from the town of Jerez. There I was married in the church of San Dionisio. My husband worked with the Casa Gonzalez, a cooper, making hoops for the wine casks.’
‘That was a good position.’
‘Yes, but it did not endure. Had he kept to the outside of the cask, all would have been well. But he went within, and for drunkenness was dismissed. Then my eyes became bad, from the dust of the esparto grass. In Andalusia it is a common thing. The lids swelled and I was without sight. For a time I sat outside the Ayuntamiento selling tickets for the loteria. It is a work they give to the blind. But I fell sick and, like my husband, was without work.’
‘Then you knew poverty.’
‘Worse still… humiliation. In Jerez, there is a strange custom instituted by the rich. When one is destitute, one is given the blue uniform of charity and sent into the streets to solicit alms for the common fund. One becomes officially a worthless person and a beggar who receives a small part of what is collected.’
‘That was a hard thing to do.’
‘You speak truly, man. I would lie awake at nights, hungry, longing for a little place in the country where we could grow food for ourselves. In desperation, taking two pesetas I had saved, I bought one tenth of a lottery ticket. With all my strength, with my heart, my soul, my famished stomach, I prayed to San Dionisio that we might have the number.’
‘And you did?’
‘No. Never. But the month after our only son, a boy of fourteen, was killed by a train at the atajo. It was a great sadness. We sought no compensation, but it came. The rich people who gave the uniforms saw that it was paid. And with that amount we achieved this small place. We named it Estancia Felipe for our son.’
‘It is a good place,’ he said, wishing to praise her.
‘It was good. Now it is gone to nothing. How can I maintain it alone? If only some help was possible. But that is like a child wishing for the moon.’
There was a silence. He had finished his cup of water and, rising, she went to the dipper in the corner, by the door, and refilled it.
‘Are you… are you long in this country?’
‘Not long.’
‘And shall you remain?’
‘No. When my friend is fit to move we must leave.’
‘Ah, your friend. Clearly, you are devoted to him. You go to Málaga tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘And return in the evening?’
‘If you permit it. I have no other place. I shall do work for you in payment.’
She did not answer, and although her sad, heavy face gave no sign he knew he had said a wrong thing. He corrected himself quickly:
‘I meant, not in payment, but in gratitude.’
‘That was well spoken. When one is as poor as I, that word payment has lost its meaning.’
‘But not so the other word.’ A sudden thought came to him. He said: ‘ The burro and the cart now in your stable would be of some service to you. As for us, we no longer have use for them. Will you accept them, as an expression of our thanks?’
She did not answer. Yet, behind that stolid exterior, he could see that she was deeply touched. Her thick, seamed lips that looked as though cut strongly from a dark wood quivered slightly, she drew a long sighing breath. Then, unexpectedly, still without a word, she leaned forward and with the forefinger of one hand lightly explored the contours of his face. It took but a moment, and when she had finished she offered neither explanation nor apology. She rose, gathered up the empty dish, the metal spoon and cup.
‘For your journey tomorrow you must rest. Sleep well. Then you will better withstand whatever the day may bring.’
Chapter Nine
On the following day, shortly after ten o’clock, Stephen reached the Hospital San Miguel, situated in a quiet back street that opened on to the Guadalmedina, where a group of women, kneeling on the stony river bank, were pounding linen. The sound of their laughter came to him as he nervously rang the bell and waited. Presently a sister in the blue robe and winged wimple of St Vincent de Paul came to the grille, and when he had given his name admitted him to a spacious inner courtyard and asked him to wait.
He sat down on a low stone bench, and looked about him. It was a superb fifteenth-century patio. In the centre stood a statue of Don Miguel de Montanes, the Andalusian noble who, turning suddenly from the frivolities of the world, had devoted his life and fortune to the establishment of the hospital. At the base of the pediment was a time-worn plaque defining the intention of the founder to tend the sick, and to give Christian burial to paupers and executed criminals. Behind the statue a magnificent pillared archway of chipped and faded marble gave entrance to the hospital proper. The right side of the courtyard was formed by an enclosed cloister, from which came the distant droning of nuns, and the left by a small baroque chapel. Beyond the open, nail-studded cedar-wood doors, surmounted by a coat of arms, there was visible the high altar, tiled with azulejos, with a gilt retablo wrought with profuse and intricate figures.
At another time Stephen would have deeply felt the beauty and touching sentiment of this enclosure, but now, brought to a pitch of uncertainty and suspense, its seclusion and mediaeval solemnity served only to increase the tension of his nerves. Why did they make him wait so long? His apprehension grew more acute with every passing minute.
At last there came a brisk step, so sudden it made him start, and from a side door Dr Cabra appeared, bareheaded, and wearing a short white coat. He came towards Stephen, shook hands, and seated himself beside him on the stone bench.
‘Well, here you are. Forgive me if I kept you waiting. We are not supposed to talk here, but it is cooler than my office and the good sisters are indulgent.’ He paused and, with a sympathetic look, placed a hand on Stephen’s shoulder. It was a gesture that filled Stephen’s heart with foreboding. The news is bad, perhaps the worst, he thought, as Cabra said: ‘I want to tell you exactly what has been done for your friend. When I brought him to the hospital I immediately opened the leg and drained it. We then irrigated continuously with Carrel’s solution. At the same time we used all the remedies at our command to control the septicaemia. But without effect.’
Stephen felt his throat contract.
‘I considered then whether the major step should be undertaken. Amputation. As I had warned you. His condition was so poor, the circulation so impaired, I realised that the operation might induce an immediate collapse. And yet without it, he could not survive.’
There was a silence broken only by that faint intermittent murmur from the nuns in their choir. Cabra was staring straight ahead, frowning, as though finding it difficult to choose his words. Stephen bit hard on his lip, assailed no longer by misgiving but by a dreadful certainty.
‘I had to make the decision. I decided to amputate. I assure you,’ Cabra placed his hand upon his heart, ‘ I could not have used more care had it been my brother or my sister. The operation went well and was quickly over. However…’ He broke off with a sorrowful little gesture that hung between commiseration and compunction. ‘A condition of shock supervened late yesterday evening. I saw that all we had done was of no avail. Had it been humanly possible to communicate with you at that hour I should have done so.’ He paused again. ‘The end came shortly after, at eleven o’clock last night.’
Stephen had known even before he spoke, yet, though that preknowledge was now confirmed, his mind seemed incapable of accepting it. So soon, so sudd
enly, and without the chance to see him – the private, impersonal death of Jerome Peyrat. Then, as Stephen sat motionless, without speaking, Cabra murmured: ‘If I can help in any way, with the necessary arrangements …’
Stephen stirred from his lethargy.
‘He is here?’
‘No. At the mortuoria de mendigos. By our charter we are enabled to provide a simple funeral…’ Cabra shrugged with a sad and charming tact … ‘in certain circumstances. You do not mind?’
‘It makes no difference. Peyrat will not be the last artist to die without the price of a coffin in his pocket.’ He stood up. ‘Forgive me. You have been kind. When can I go to the mortuary?’
Cabra looked at his watch.
‘It is closed now until the afternoon. Best to go late… about seven o’clock. Come first to my house. There are some papers which I must sign.’
‘Thank you. When I come you will tell me what I owe you. Although it may take a little time, I can assure you that you will be paid.’
‘You owe me nothing. Some day perhaps, you will paint me a picture. It shall be for me the souvenir of a meeting that held both pleasure and sorrow.’ Then, as he escorted Stephen to the doorway, he continued, in a voice of curiosity: ‘But tell me one thing. You say that your friend was a solitary man, with no wife, no woman. Why then, all the time, in his fever, did he speak continually the name Thérèse?’
‘She was someone… he admired.’
‘An affair of the heart?’
‘No, only of the spirit.’
‘Ah, then she died before him?’
‘Yes,’ Stephen said, with sudden violence. ‘ Four hundred years ago.’
He went out, walking at random, head lowered, the pavement blurred and wavering under his vision. Along the river-bank he went, through the public gardens, under the flowering jacaranda trees, between rows of tamarisks, clipped like umbrellas. A band was playing distantly, in the paseo. Then, at a turn of the road, he found himself on the sea-front, moving towards the breakwater. He could not breathe, the need for a freer air drove him out on that long finger of stone, reaching far into the blue water.
A mood of the darkest and most abject desolation was upon him. Used though he was to that pit of dejection into which, self-projected, he would plummet like a damned soul, seldom had he fallen to such depths, or known such despairing thoughts. Peyrat dead. And now, as a soldier, he must abandon his work, a loss worse by far than any ordeal of battle. Was he afraid? The question was so puerile he did not even consider it. He had long since ceased to value his life in terms of physical survival. Did Hubert’s scornful attitude bear weight upon him? Perhaps. Yet in reality he cared nothing for Hubert, nor for his family, nor for any man’s opinion of his conduct or character. The only thing that mattered was this creative instinct that burned within him. To paint was his passion, the very reason of his existence, a need more urgent than hunger or thirst, an inner compulsion so powerful as to be irresistible.
He was now at the end of the pier, and he sat down beside the lighthouse to rest. On the inner side of the sea-wall a boy was fishing baiting his hook with fragments of shrimp, and from time to time whipping from the water tiny, silvery fish which one after another he thrust into a canvas bag. As he watched, Stephen’s hand went instinctively to his pocket for the sketch-book which he had not used for many days. It was not there. But the longing to work again would not be stifled, it rose and seethed within him like a ferment, activated by his sadness, his loneliness, and the period of aridity he had recently endured. Carried away by this tide of unexpressed sensation, he thought, I must paint, I must or I shall go mad.
For a long time he remained motionless, made pale and distraught by that frantic desire which was, for him, stronger, more imperative, of greater importance than anything else in the world. Then, all at once, through the tormented effort to grapple with his situation, he was conscious of a moment of illumination. At the same time, through the soft damp air came the creak of oars on wooden rowlocks, the sound of men singing. The sardine fleet, as yet undeterred, by the war, was beginning to leave the harbour for the night fishing grounds. Beyond the breakwater they shipped their oars, hoisted lateen sails. Out and away they went, dipping, rising on the quiet swell, hovering between sea and air, disappearing like a flight of swallows into the calm and misty distance. To the landward, the sun was slanting towards the crests of the Sierras, setting the clouds on fire, casting violet shadows on the lower hills, making them vague and infinite. Beneath, the terraced vineyards stood out in pure and firm relief, and lower still the clear-cut outlines of roofs, minarets and towers. Minutes passed. Now the sunset was like a flame in the forehead of the city. The beauty of the scene appeased the anguish of his heart, strengthened the purpose that had formed within him. As greyness was falling like a shroud upon the dome of the cathedral, near which, in the mortuoria de mendigos, lay the body of Peyrat, he rose and went with decision towards the town.
He reached the end of the breakwater. Suddenly, as he came past the gates of the harbour, someone hailed him. He swung round and saw Hollis, a portfolio under his arm, hurrying towards him from the docks.
‘Desmonde, I thought I recognised you. It’s a fortunate meeting.’ Smiling, he paused to regain his breath. ‘I have good news for you. The SS Murica, a Star line freighter, has been cleared for Liverpool, leaving Málaga on Tuesday of next week, and the Consul General managed to save a berth for you.’
A pause. Stephen did not speak.
‘Not only that. I’ve got leave to go home and join the show. I shall be on the old tub too.’ Despite his nonchalant, rather lazy manner, Hollis was plainly delighted, bubbling with enthusiasm.
‘She’s only three thousand tons, with no accommodation whatsoever. We shall probably be in the fo’castle, so bring a blanket if you can and I’ll take along a few tins of bully beef. Incidentally, I don’t believe she’ll have an escort allotted. As enemy submarines are in the Mediterranean, we might have a bit of fun.’
Another pause, then Stephen said:
‘I’m sorry. I am not going back.’
‘What’s that?’ Startled, Hollis seemed to wonder if he had heard correctly.
‘I am not returning to England. I am going to stay here.’
A silence. Hollis’s expression changed, slowly, from stunned amazement, through incredulity, into a final cold contempt.
‘And what do you propose to do?’
‘I am going to paint.’
Leaving the other, he turned and walked off rapidly into the gathering darkness.
Part Four
Chapter One
On a wet October morning in the year 1920, breakfast at Broughton Court was almost over. Outside, the rain dripped from the yellow beech leaves, spattered on the terrace, the Ring of Chanctonbury was lost in mist and, despite the warmth of the red-carpeted morning-room, the crackle of a good fire and the comfortable aroma of coffee, bacon, and grilled kidneys from the silver dishes upon the sideboard, a vague constraint had begun to hover, though it seemed little to affect General Desmonde, visiting for the shooting, and who, erect and clean-cut, spreading Oxford marmalade on crisp toast, was constitutionally imperturbable.
Geoffrey broke the silence.
‘Confound this weather. Never saw such rain.’
‘It may go off before lunch,’ Claire said, with eyes averted towards the park.
‘Even if we go out the coverts will be sopping and the birds won’t fly.’
Thwarted in his pride as a man of property – he had not ceased to enjoy the demonstration, especially to his father, of the sporting qualities of the acres which had come to him by marriage – Geoffrey lounged back, his long thin legs elongated beneath the table, and moodily turned the pages of the morning paper.
Claire, with an effort, threw off her air of languor and turned towards her father-in-law. Recovering from a recent attack of influenza, she had slept badly and, since she still suffered from recurrent sickness, had eaten almost nothi
ng.
‘More coffee?’
‘No thank you, my dear.’ He patted her hand, with understanding. ‘When are you seeing your man in town?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Then tell him he must give you something to make you eat.’
Claire smiled.
‘I shall be all right. Coffee for you, Geoffrey?’
Geoffrey did not answer. Immobilised suddenly, his attention bent upon the sheet before him, an exclamation broke from him.
‘By George! Listen to this.’ In the voice of one disclosing a sensation he read: ‘“Yesterday saw the opening at the Maddox Galleries, New Bond Street, of an exhibition of paintings by Stephen Desmonde. Mr Desmonde, whose controversial picture Circe and Her Lovers was awarded the Prix de Luxembourg in 1913, is the son of Reverend Bertram Desmonde of Stillwater Rectory, Sussex, and has recently returned to England. His younger brother, Lieutenant David Desmonde, was killed in action at Vimy Ridge. In this present collection, introduced to Britain under the sponsorship of Richard Glyn, Mr Desmonde exhibits, presumably, the fruits of his labours during the war years which, we understand, were passed in the comparative tranquillity of the Iberian peninsula. Despite this advantage, we fear that Mr Desmonde has toiled in vain. We find his landscapes crude, his figure compositions clumsy and brutal. In his complete severance from tradition he has lost sight of the basic principles of proportion, and is entangled in perpetual eccentricity. Indeed, while they are not without some torrid evidence of atmosphere and imagination, these canvases suggest to us only a perverse, frustrated spirit. We hesitate to use stronger words, but others may have less restraint. In brief, we cannot grasp this soi-disant art and cannot like it.”’
A pause of considerable intensity followed this communication, then Geoffrey added: ‘There’s a photograph here of one of the paintings. A half-naked slut surrounded by a gang of the most appalling roughs. The thing looks completely decadent to me.’
