Читать книгу Joshua's Vision - William J. Locke - Страница 5

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What prompted him to begin to play about with a lump of moist clay he never knew. Sheer instinct, perhaps, to relieve boredom by doing something. Robina’s studio was austere, business-like and even messy. The cold light of a glass roof fell on a vast, shapeless mass perched on a revolving table and covered by a sheet: her uncompleted masterpiece on which she had been working for years. Other stands with smaller works, a few tables laden with the implements of her craft, a chair or two, an oak settee with tapestried seat, a model-throne, a screen, took up the linoleum-covered floor. Around the walls hung plaster-plaques and photographs of various past achievements. None of the expensive rugs and divans and fastidious appurtenances of your fashionable painter’s studio. Rather a grim place, relieved only by a moss-filled basket of thick purple hyacinths in a corner. A soiled book or two lay about. But Joshua didn’t care about books.

Robina was late. He was there by appointment, 10.30, for the last sitting, she hoped, for his bust. A maid had conveyed Madam’s apologies. Called out unexpectedly, she would be back as soon after 10.30 as possible. Would Mr. Fendick mind waiting? Mr. Fendick, having nothing in the world to do, waited. The maid, expressing a hope that he wouldn’t feel cold, replenished the cast-iron stove and went out. Joshua wandered idly about the studio, looked at his own vigorously moulded head and once more wondered why Robina Dale had asked him to sit. She had, from the outset, disclaimed all commercial motive. “To ask people to sit to you, and then plant the result on them, as if it had been a commission, is a dirty trick.”

What she was going to do with this thing in dark-green wax he didn’t know.... It was ridiculously, yet, after all, flatteringly, like him. His eye missed the familiar colouring reflected by the mirror—his dark-red hair and moustache and florid cheeks. This dark-green made him look too noble.... He would speak to Mrs. Dale about it. But the features were those which he was accustomed to see every day. There was the twist at the corner of his lip where a bit of shrapnel had got him on his last day of warfare when nearly the whole of his battery, and odds and ends of himself, had been wiped out. Yes, the twist was peculiarly lifelike.... A modest man, however, can’t put in much time contemplating his counterfeit presentment, no matter how arresting it may be. He took out his watch. He had been there five minutes.

Suddenly his eye fell on something he did not remember having seen before. It was a rough clay study of a half-draped nude. The back was towards him. He turned it round on its pivot and the front was practically formless, being buried in the mass. But, turned again, the back was complete enough to strike him with a curious sense of beauty. There were the delicate curves of the upper body, the slanting line of the spine melting into the round daintiness of the hips, and the indication of slender limbs. He stared at it for a long time. An insane idea passed through his mind. It was perfect as it was. Another touch would spoil it.

He sat down on a straight-backed chair and scratched his head. He was a practical man, and, unconscious of a vague introspective habit, instinctively sought the why and wherefore of unusual emotion. The female figure displayed with all frankness in skin-tight bathing costume was as familiar to him as to any man of his epoch. In all probability his virtuous male ancestors had never seen such a thing in their lives. A virtuous wife concealed her form modestly even from her husband, and for night-attire wore a shroud of long-cloth or flannel reaching from her neck to her toes. But to the eye of the modern man, be he never so seclusive, the female form is as commonplace as a rose or a lily. Joshua had seen thousands of them on the sands of the Isle of Man—to say nothing of photographs in the illustrated papers. Besides, he had been round the world.... What was there, then, in these roughly-moulded contours of shoulders and reins and hips that held him fascinated? He was greatly puzzled. Perhaps it was something of the same quality as Robina Dale had revealed to him in his Morland colour prints. There was something of uncanny tenderness, wistfulness, in the exquisite back.

He took out his watch. She was now twenty minutes late. What on earth could he do? He took up the soiled books. Two were in unintelligible French, the other a volume of modern English verse, a page of which was equally unintelligible. His ideas of poetry were derived from his County School memories of “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” and “Friends, Romans, Countrymen.” He had thought it either a silly or a highfalutin, and, in any case, an unnecessary medium of expression.

Half an hour. The lady was very late. She, most punctual and business-like woman. As a general rule, her working days were regulated by schedule. What on earth could he do?

It was then that his glance fell on the nice little block of damp clay. It was then that he said to his stupid self: “It can’t be so difficult to make things out of it.” It was then that he took a lump in his fingers and began idly to fashion a crude little man. It was then that, happening to look towards the fascinating back of the nude study, he felt a sudden extraordinary shiver running from the roots of his hair all down his spine. And it was then that, kneading the clay with his strong hands, in spite of missing fingers, he began idiotically to try to copy the thing of beauty that stood before his eyes. Time passed.

Robina blew in like a whirlwind.

“My dear friend! Do forgive me. I couldn’t help it.... But what the devil are you doing?”

He turned sheepishly, holding out helpless, clay-soiled fingers, and grinned.

“I hope you don’t mind. I was putting in time. I don’t think I’ve done any damage.”

“Except to yourself,” she laughed. “Go and clean yourself up.”

When he returned from the little lavabo of hot and cold water hidden behind the screen, she jerked her chin towards the clay he had been moulding.

“When did you learn to do that?”

“What?” he asked.

“That.” She pointed. “It’s utterly wrong, of course, and the way you think you can do it is idiotic. But there’s something in it.... You’ve got a feeling.... Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I never tried before,” said Joshua.

“You’re a queer man,” she said. “What made you try now?”

“That girl’s back. It sort of struck me that I’d like to try to copy it.” He looked awhile at the statuette. “There’s something about it that knocks me.”

Robina threw hat and fur coat on a chair.

“That child’s back, if it interests you, is the cause of my being late. I thought she was ill yesterday afternoon, and bundled her off after she had been sitting for ten minutes. She almost wept, swore she was all right and would come at nine this morning. She didn’t come. At half-past somebody rang me up—her landlady—from a public telephone office. She couldn’t come, was taken ill, and they’d had to send for the doctor. Well, there was this girl who had been sitting naked here, in this beastly, cold studio yesterday afternoon—a dear girl, I’ll tell you about her, if you’d like to know—down with something. So I went to her place, not far away, one of the streets off the King’s Road, and found her in a beastly, icy, little top room with a raging temperature. Luckily the doctor was there, about to get her to St. George’s Hospital. So I had to cart her off in an ambulance to a nursing-home. That takes time with the only telephone available in a shop at the end of the Street. And there she is with pneumonia. That’s why I’m late.”

She crossed the room and unhooked her brown Holland smock from its peg.

“Let’s get to work.”

“If you’re feeling upset, please don’t worry about me,” said Joshua. “My time’s yours. Any old hour ... any old day ...”

Robina dropped the garment on the floor. “Perhaps you’re right. I could force myself to concentrate if there were any necessity. But I’d rather not. It didn’t occur to me that you’d understand.”

“I don’t think I’m such a fool as all that,” said Joshua. “I can tell when people aren’t fit for their job. I’ve had to do with ’em in thousands. Oh, yes, my dear,” he went on, noticing a quick little frown on her dark brow, “I’m quite aware that making boots by machinery and making things like these”—he waved a hand around—“are two entirely different things. But if I can order a boot-operative with something on his nerves to go away and play for a bit and come back to the machine when he’s better, how much more reason have I to say it to you? This fellow has a trained touch on his wheel, but a mechanical touch. Yours is a touch from God knows where.”

She sat down and regarded him with a humorous gleam in her eyes.

“You’re always springing surprises on me nowadays.”

“How?” he asked.

She replied obliquely. “Your argument is perfectly logical. I should only potter about nervously with your head and perhaps wipe out of it the one thing that’s right. What that one thing is, God knows, I don’t. It’s all luck or, as you say, instinctive touch. But for goodness’ sake don’t let us get on to the psychology of artistic creation.”

Joshua stuck his hands in his trousers’ pockets.

“Say that again.”

“The psychology of artistic creation.”

“Yes. Sounds all right. But what does it mean?”

She did her best to put what, even to her an artist, was but a vague, transcendental concept into plain, almost school-child terms. The Infinite Unimaginable Instinct that inspired God—taking the first chapters of Genesis as a basis of argument—to create the world; the no less infinite instinct of all forms of life to procreate—practically recreate—their species; the instinct of man, definitely separating him from the lower animals, to create something, not of his material body, but of that intense consciousness within him which the philosophies of thousands of years have sought in vain to define, and in despair have called by the universally accepted and comfortable term, his immortal soul; the instinct of that soul to copy Jehovah’s impulse before the beginning of verse I, chapter i, of the Book of Genesis to create something out of nothing. But, the creative impulses of the human soul being limited by the resultant of those of the originally postulated Jehovah, we couldn’t get away from conceptions possible to humanity. The artist therefore had within him just a flick of Jehovah. The nearest material analogy was Radium, the one apparently indestructible Inorganic Element—the only apparently Infinite Element in the known world. Here and there infinitesimal specks of it were discovered and applied to the material solace of humanity. So were the Jehovah-specks in the soul—or whatever you liked to call it—of the artist.

“That’s dammed interesting,” said Joshua, with a deepening of the furrow across his forehead. “I never thought of thinking about things in that way.” He pulled out his watch. “Gosh! it’s past twelve. Come out and have a bit of lunch with me somewhere—wherever you like. We can carry on this talk. Besides, I’d like to know some more about that poor little girl with the back!”

But Robina couldn’t lunch. She had an engagement at 12.30 and work to do as long as the light lasted. He could stay ten minutes longer if he liked. The sick girl? There wasn’t much to say about her, after all. Her name was Susan—Susan Keene. She made her living as a programme girl at theatres. For extra pocket-money she sat now and then as a model.

“That sort of thing?”

“Why not? But, as a matter of fact, she doesn’t. The professional models for the nude are a race apart.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Joshua.

“Good Lord, why?” she asked, with a laugh. “Do you think her back belongs to you?”

He reddened. “No. But the thing’s so innocent and childlike. I shouldn’t like to think——”

“But, my dear man,” she cried. “You’re talking like your grandmother. Don’t you know that the standard of virtue among artists’ models is certainly equal to that among marchionesses?”

“That may be taken two ways,” said Joshua.

“Now you’re talking like a wicked grandfather.”

As Joshua had met neither of his grandfathers or heard much about them, he remained silent.

“How old is the poor kid?” he asked after a pause.

“About three or four-and-twenty.”

“Can’t I do anything for her while she’s ill?”

“No,” said Robina. “You can’t. I’m doing all that’s necessary.”

The front door bell rang sharply. Robina picked up her smock.

“That’s my appointment.”

Until this Episode of the Back of Susan Keene, life in his brand-new house in London had been dull and monotonous. Although the little circle of acquaintances into which he had entered showed signs of widening, yet whole days from rising in the morning till retiring at night passed without his speaking to a human being. The flat-racing season had begun with Lincoln. This meeting he had attended in forlorn solitude. The Grand National Steeplechase, whither he had been bidden by Lady Evangeline, had been an oasis in a lonely desert of days. At Newbury, a little later, he met some of her party who seemed to regard racing as a means of livelihood. The elegant bookmaker who took their bets in tens and ponies and hundreds was too majestic a being, so he thought, to accept his customary modest ventures. He, too, to save his new social face, bet in tens and ponies and hundreds, according to shrewd advice, and lost a great deal of money; which, to Joshua, seemed the most idiotic folly in the world. The next time he went to a race-meeting, the elegant bookmaker came up to him with a familiar smile, note-book in hand.

“Well, Mr. Fendick, what can I have the pleasure of doing for you to-day?”

And Joshua felt inclined to tell him to go and drown himself, or cut his throat, or, in any old way, withdraw himself from the world of men. But, as this would have been unwarrantable impoliteness—and there was no reason to be rude to the elegant man who, according to his lights, was carrying on a perfectly honourable business, in a perfectly pleasant manner—Joshua contented himself by saying that he was taking a day off from betting, that he was there for the fun of the thing, and turned away with a good-humoured nod. After that the conscience forced in the little tin Bethel hot-house of his childhood prevented him from carrying out his original intention of going surreptitiously round a lowlier ring and placing his ten-shilling bets. And, on this occasion, he had the dreary satisfaction of seeing most of his studied fancies successful without having staked a penny on a race.

Thus the glamour of race-going, as a steady social occupation, vanished gradually, as does the steam on a mirror in an over-heated bathroom before a current of fresh air.

He found himself a man always at a loose end, staring into nothingness. In the dressing-room next his bedroom he had installed a little gymnasium, all punching-balls and things like stirrups at the ends of broad India-rubber bands, and mechanical rowing apparatus. He could put in a morning hour keeping himself fit. He could always put in another half-hour over the “Sportsman,” perhaps another twenty minutes over the Daily Something or the Other. The need of fresh air always drove him forth for a solitary walk—generally across the Park and back. There were lonely meals punctually served—Sutton, of course, lunched in the City, and, as often as not, dined out with his male and female contemporaries. During many hours of the working day Joshua was the most bored man in London.

And here it is that the significance of Susan’s Back came in.

He went away from Robina obsessed by the dream of melting curves; obsessed, too, by the idiot desire to make such curves with his own hands. He was certain that he could do it. His finger-tips still tingled with the deliciousness of the magic yielding of the clay. All through his solitary and unappreciated lunch, he made strange grasping movements with his hands, his eyes fixed at a point in infinity, greatly to the discomfiture of the butler, who had not the key to behaviour so enigmatic. At last he said:

“Dotley, do you know where one can get clay?”

“Clay, sir?” The butler touched a puzzled lip. His primary mental association of clay was with damp graves.

“Yes, clay that sculptors use. They make all kinds of figures and things out of it.”

“Oh!” sighed Dotley with relief. “I see, sir. I should think you’d get it where they sell artists’ materials. There are shops in the neighbourhood, sir. I believe you’ll find some in the King’s Road.”

Joshua bade him tell the chauffeur to gather immediate information as to such shops and come round with as little delay as possible.

Thus it came about that, before it was dusk, Joshua returned to his house with a car full of objects which he had been assured were essential to the pursuit of the modeller’s art. They were of all shapes and sizes: calipers, compasses, dividers, queer instruments with wooden handles and wire tops shaped like the things used for opening bottles of Perrier water, all kinds of odd flat bits of wood, a plumb-line, a bust-peg—a whole armoury of strange weapons. He was peculiarly pleased by the newest kind of plastic clay that never dries up in the hottest of rooms or needs the tiniest spray of water; and he could use it over and over again. There were also a business-like, up-to-date modelling-stand and a plain modern table on which to lay his tools, and a couple of blouses wrapped up in a neat parcel.

In his prim library, with its new green leather chairs and soft Oriental rugs, this paraphernalia struck an untidy note. Besides, the echo of Robina’s exclamation—“What the devil are you doing?”—reverberated faintly in his ears. It would be embarrassing to reply to every visitor’s instinctive and similar question when he or she entered the library. He shrank from exposing himself to the cynical raillery, say, of Victor Spens, or even of Robina herself. Wherefore, supervising the physical activities of butler, footman and housemaid, he transformed into a studio a forlorn guest-room, with a north-east aspect, lent a hand himself to the dismantling of the bed and disposal of the bedding, and being left alone surveyed his arrangements with honest and unhumorous satisfaction.

There were cubes of delightfully prepared clay. There were all the tools laid out on the deal worktable, which Dotley had insisted on covering with a blue embroidered tea-cloth, like surgical instruments before an operation. It was then that it occurred to Joshua that he had nothing whereon to operate. You can’t go and model a girl’s back unless you have a girl with a back in flesh or clay or stone to copy. Besides, Joshua had the humble idea that, now he was beginning, he must begin modestly. His hand was less than that of an apprentice. He must copy something. He scratched his red thatch and looked around the wrecked bedroom. The expert of the Eminent Firm had not thought of decorating it with examples of famous sculpture. Suddenly he snapped his fingers as one inspired. The expert of the Eminent Firm had neglected nothing. There, guarding the fantastic fireplace, was a majolica cat sitting on its haunches with its tail neatly coiled round its fore-paws. Joshua picked it up and set it on the bedside table, which he wheeled into a convenient light. There was his model. A fine, sturdy, business-looking kind of cat, none too meek of expression. It had a fascinatingly malevolent eye. He laughed and fell artistically in love with the cat.

Well, there was the model, there was the clay, there were implements, metal and wooden, and there were his itching fingers. Why not begin? He remembered somewhat ruefully that the first thing Robina did, when she had him for a model, was to measure his head carefully all over with the funny bowed compasses which the shopman called calipers, and to make many notes and calculations on paper. As a practical man, he knew he ought to measure the cat, and measure his clay, so as to get the proportions. He also had a vague idea that the process of modelling clay was the reverse of that of carving marble. In the latter you chipped a figure from the block; in the former you built up dab by dab. But all this, though scientifically necessary, was finicking. He longed to get his fingers into the soft and malleable material. He dumped a lump of clay on the modelling-stand.

The darkness came. He switched on the electric light and went on with his work.

Presently the door burst open. The young man, Sutton, a slim, fair and pleasant-looking youth, burst in.

“They told me I should find you here. But, my dear Dad, what the devil are you doing?”

The hateful question hit Joshua like a hammer. He swung round angrily on his son.

“Can’t you see, you damned young fool, that I’m making a cat?”

“Oh, my God!” cried Sutton.

He did not stop to shut the door. There being a draught, Joshua banged it to with his foot, and returned to his work. But the spell was broken. He looked from the malevolent-eyed majolica model to the result of three feverish hours of intense artistic struggle—a concentration of the soul, such as he had never dreamed of experiencing—and muttered:

“The boy’s right. It’s a bloodiosity.”

And he dashed the thing of hideous disproportion on the elegant Axminster carpet and stamped on it.